Paris, 30 April, 2017

C´est fini! The 26th Tour Auto is in the history books as another memorable edition of the annual tour through the Grande Nation. Over 2500 km on five days including 11 special stages and an additional 4 races at the circuits of Le Mans, Val de Vienne, Albi and Pau made this one of the longest and most demanding editions for the cars and crews in recent history of the TAO. 242 teams started on Tuesday morning from the Grand Palais in Paris for the cruelling chase through the French country side and not few got a few scars on their alloy, steel or GFK body.

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24 Paris Scutineering
25 Saint-Malo
26 Haute-Goulaine
27 Limoges
28 Toulouse
29 Biarritz


In former year the last leg to the finish point of the tour was very much like the tour d´honeur of the cycle race with a relaxed shorter stage when most of the places on the podium were already given. Since last year this changed dramatically as unlike before the last is the longest rather than the shortest day. Although the cars did not arrive in the afternoon as in 2015 but rather in the late evening (the last cars well after sunset) this was far from being the end of the tour as the cars started again into the night to have two more timed stages. Somewhere looking forward to this as a late highlight of the tour, others were scratching their heads whether this might be a to big risk chasing through the dark after 5 long day that brought some of the crews to their limits already. Already at the starting point at the Cité de l´ocean in Biarritz one could see the preparation for this special feature as some cars were run with a rather spectacular light setup that would have suited a football stadium as well.

But once in the forest stage one could see another difference in the amount of respect for the tricky conditions as the speed was varying very much from the former special stages, some did noticeable slow down, others were still full on attack.

From day on the British team Smith/Cottingham dominated the race tracks as well as the special stages building up a comfortable lead bringing them in a position where there was not much left to proof and therefore the GT40 was not at full speed at the first part giving it only the third defeat during the tour. The later extreme was the second placed Cobra of Caron who despite having nothing to gain to the front as well as nothing to fear from the back was flat through the night. Unfortunately Caron lost it on the last stage and therefore threw away a safe second place giving it to Favaro / Nicolet on Jaguar E-Type. The last podium place was inherited by Oliver Ellerbrock & Olivier Louisoder in the second Ford GT40. Ellerbrocks therefore were the most successful couple as Daniela Ellerbrock copiloted by Jackie Rohwer finished best ladies team on a respectable 13th in the Alfa Romeo GTA.

The index by performance victory went to Penillard / Verlaine in the Porsche 356 pre-A Coupé.
In the latest category of the prototypes and late GT cars the Ligier of Mr. John of B made it to the finish with more than 3 minutes clear.

The regularity was won by one of the most exciting cars of the event as the Maserati 200SI was one of very few early cars and one of very few Barchettas. And although the victory for Hinrichsen / Solange is certainly deserved it remains a flaw that it was actually won because of a 30 second bonus for Barchettas giving it a small advantage of only 6 seconds over the Studebaker of Nicoules / Nicoules. The podium was completed by the Lancia Fulvia HF of Fichet / Francois.

So the 26th edition will foremost remembered for the first visit to Brittany with its glorious scenery. This is one of the biggest attractions of the Tour Auto that it does change year by year compared to the Mille Miglia for example. Unfortunately the enthusiasm seems to be a little bit short in France compared to the car crazy Italians but maybe it is also a political question whether the excursion of “upper class” is a much published. Certainly one could see many people standing at the road especially at the numerous roundabouts and the stops at the race tracks are well visited but one does not have the impression that the Tour Auto attracts many visitors from other parts of the country other than the local visitors. The entrants nevertheless enjoy the TAO very much and most of them return year by year and planning and preparations are certainly already underway for the 2018 edition where one could be curious what parts of the country Patrick Peter and his team might visit.

This ends the daily reports from the Tour Auto Optic2000 for this year and in a few days we will look back at the cars of this edition in a final gallery sorted by entrants.


Images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de