Montée des Légendes 2018

An event that could have been the best of the year, incredible cars with legendary drivers, how can it ever go wrong? Text & Photos: Thomas Z.

The Race

Located in France, this race took place in the ‘Col de la Faucille’, close to Gex. Known as one of the best road in the region, it was a perfect choice for a hillclimb. The length of race is of 6.4 km and a height difference of approximatively 600m.

Col de la Faucille

The Cars & Drivers

The famous (and legendary) drivers who participated was the main reason of the success of that event (20-40’000 spectators for a first event!), among them, Sebastien Loeb (driving the Peugeot 208 T16 and Peugeot 306 Maxi), Ari Vatanen (driving a BMW M3 E30, unfortunately not a 405 T16, being the ambassador of BMW could have something to do with it…) and Romain Dumas (driving a Porsche 911 996 GT3 RS Spa Freisinger). Some incredible cars were also present but we will let you discover them in the gallery in page 2.

Conclusion

Great location, legendary drivers, incredible cars, how can it ever go wrong? Easy, the organization. They were not able to fit the huge amount of spectators in the place provided for this purpose, resulting in a removal of one uphill trial and waiting time between two event of around 2-3 hours! Who was to blame? According to the speakers, the public was disorganized and stayed in unauthorized area, therefore blocking the race. For what we have seen there was clearly not enough space for the amount of participants, it’s true somewhere in restricted area but they could not fit anywhere else… Too many ticket sold (for profit?) or rookie mistakes ? Let’s not forget this was a first time event and lessons have been learned by the organization. At the end of the day, Ari Vatanen suggested that a second edition could take place and is hoping this event to be a ‘French Pikes Peak’ with more and more participants over the years.

Welcome to our gallery of the 1rst Montée des Légendes. Photos : Thomas Z.