I Heart Franck

It’s been a while, but I return with good tidings.

Franck won his first ALMS race this weekend, taking the top stop of the podium with team mate James Rossiter. The win came after some good strategic calls from the team, some good decision making in the pit stops, and some good driving from Mr FKM.

The team waited until the minimum amount of time a driver has to be in the car (45 minutes) before calling Rossiter in and switching him up with Montagny, but because this was under yellow flags, they didn’t lose too much time.

After the second pit stop, in which Team AGR just put in some fuel, and left the tyres as they were, Franck emerged in the lead. He held off the competition, and took the chequered flag.

There’s a great race report here.

Despite not having won a race for many years, Franck seems decidely understated about the victory:

I’m very happy for the XM Acura team. It’s a strong team with good drivers and everybody works very hard. This feels good to claim the top spot. I felt very confident coming into the race that we could have a good result. I’m quite happy.

Just quite happy. That’s all. Bless him. James gives a bit more insight into their success:

We put ourselves in the strongest position possible for the end of the race by making the driver change when we did. Franck did a great job in the car and the XM team did a great job on the strategy. It was a very challenging weekend. I only had 20 minutes of dry running before I started the race, so I really didn’t know the track very well. But, even last night, Franck and I were looking at maps to learn the circuit and trying to improve ourselves. The team gave us a great car and we just did the best we could.

Seems like everyone within the team did a good job, worked hard, and got the best result they could have hoped for. Well done Franck, and let’s hope it’s not so long until the next one.

Well, I can only apologise for not updating more often. There are no excuses, except I don’t really understand the Le Mans series very well, and therefore don’t find myself going looking for news every day.

It looks like Montagny is showing well in the series, but having some small bouts of bad luck. At the moment he’s partnered with James Rossiter, I believe, and they raced this weekend at Road America. Doing pretty well, I gather, but knocked out with only ten minutes to go due to contact with another car.

Franck says:

We were just coming off a restart and I was fighting for the overall lead, and then he hit me. That was it. It is very, very disappointing for the team and very, very disappointing for myself.

It started out well for Franck, as he finished the first practice session on top, although only by a tenth of a second.

He then went on to hold a provisional pole during the qualifying sessions, but ultimately finished seventh. Afterwards, however, two Audi drivers were given penalties and pushed back to ninth on the grid - which helped our boy somewhat!

Overall, Montagny finished 6th, and three laps down, which isn’t too bad on your first race.

Having performed so well in the Le Mans 24 Hour race, Montagny has been snapped up for the American Le Mans series for the remainder of the season.

Now, I’m a bit late with news, and the race this weekend at Lime Rock sees Montagny teaming up with Marco Andretti but it looks like he will have various team mates throughout the season.

The new lineup is somewhat unexpected, as AGR had only just got settled with a team of Christian Fittipaldi and Bryan Herta. But the boss wanted a big change, and thankfully Franck got the benefit of that.

He says:

I know how competitive the American Le Mans Series is and know how challenging this will be, but I believe I am ready for it. I am eager to get started.

Oops. Turns out that when I said this year was his best result, I was wrong. And my only excuse is that clearly I cannot read.

To make amends for my error, here is the full run-down of Franck’s achievements at Le Mans.

For the last few years, there’s been a nice trend of the results going up, for Franck, but it appears this year was not to be. Never mind. There’s always next year.

Franck did an amazing job. He started second, and at one point was driving so fast he could catch the leaders at four seconds a lap. He overtook the front runners to lead the race at one point, and then made the big mistake of handing the car over to Klien.

A couple of laps in, Klien through the car in the gravel.

Still, we have to be impressed that our guys managed to recover enough to finish third. Franck started and finished the race, and it was nice to see him on the podium.

Peugeot finished both second and third, but they will not be happy that Audi won the event again. The Audi dominance is starting to grate, and here’s hoping Peugeot try even harder next year. I didn’t realise Franck had participated in so many previous Le Mans races, but this is his best result to date. Fingers crossed he joins Peugeot again next year to try and knock Audi from the top spot. (Although my sleeping patterns are kind of hoping he doesn’t!!)

Peugeot continued their fine form from the first round of qualifying, and took the first three spots on the grid. Franck’s car is second, behind Stephane Sarrazin, and ahead of Marc Gene. The finishing times were over three seconds quicker than Audi.

The full qualifying results can be viewed here.

Unfortunately, Montagny’s team mate Ricardo Zonta was having a go in the car when he was involved in an incident. The Peugeot was hit by another car and smashed into the barriers. Zonta is unharmed, but this has put them on the back foot slightly, with only a short amount of time to rebuild the car.

No quotes from Franck today, but Peugeot Sport Director Michel Barge left us with these positive words:

“After the need to rebuild the N7 car last week, it’s yet another challenge for the team and we’ve had a very, very busy two-week build-up to this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours!”

Oh dear.

First qualifying for Le Mans 24 Hours took place last night (thanks to Andrea in the comments for the heads up). Our Peugeot boys were on top form, taking the top three spots, with main rival Audi taking the next three:

Stephane Sarrazin set a serious benchmark, posting the fastest time that anybody has been around the Le Mans track since 1989!

But of course, we are interesting in Franck, in second:

My Peugeot 908 HDi FAP is just fantastic, and so easy to drive. I hit traffic during my first flying lap on fresh tyres and I asked the team to find me a clearer slot before going out again. Even then, my run wasn’t totally free of traffic - Le Mans rarely is - but it came together nicely.”

Marc Gene also deserves a mention, for getting back in the car, let alone doing such a great job in third, after the major crash last week.

The next qualifying is tonight, and the race is this weekend.

Peugeot turned up for the test day this past weekend, with the Sporting Director Michel Barge, summing up the day for the team:

“We have prepared extremely thoroughly for this monumental competition. “We have raced at Sebring and in the three rounds of the 2008 Le Mans Series, including Spa where we fielded two complete driver line-ups, not to mention an extremely busy programme of testing since the flag came down on the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours. Everyone at Peugeot Sport has done a tremendous job, but we’ve still got lots of work on our hands, including a car to rebuild. But that’s what Le Mans is all about, too: big ups and sometimes moments that are more difficult. Thankfully, Marc Gene came out of his crash with nothing more than a dislocated toe but Stephane Sarrazin gratified us with an excellent time during today’s preliminary test. We are optimistic for the busy week ahead.”

There was no real talk of Franck, however, with most of the attention being on the two rookie drivers, who needed to attend the test to be allowed to race. Both Christian Klien and Ricardo Zonta qualified to take part in the 24 hour marathon, which is good for Franck, as he is their partner. Their Peugeot was second fastest, but over 4 seconds off the pace of the leading car. The good news is they are both ahead of main rivals Audi, who pulled up in third.

Marc Gene’s crash was the sour point of the day. He is fine, thankfully, but the car was wrecked and the team have to build a completely new chassis for the race.

The race is in two weeks time, and I’m hoping to be able to watch some of it somehow.

Whilst the demise of Super Aguri is both sad and a seemingly interminable story, the highlight of reading the articles for me, is the odd mention of Franck.

He drove for SA briefly in 2006, replacing Yuji Ide and being replaced by Sakon Yamamoto. Montagny was third driver initially, and got the chance as the FIA believed Ide wasn’t necessarily experienced enough to be a full driver.

Franck raced for seven races, with the results:

Ret - Ret - 16 - 18 - Ret - Ret - 16

I like to think this is a reflection on the poor performance of Super Aguri at the time, rather than anything to do with the driver. Out of the three second drivers, to Takuma Sato’s number one status in the team, there were 11 retirements out of 18 races in 2006.

Oh well. Next time we hope he hits the headlines for happier news!