2026 French Frolic - Part 2 of 2 - Track Day Reports

Continues on from Part 1 which was here:

Part 2 continues below:

Dijon-Prenois Circuit

One of my all time favorite circuits. Suits a seven brilliantly. Great use of elevation. So many corners where you are just on it. Sits just outside one of the world's greatest wine regions.

It was a drought period for France. Stinking hot 95 degree day.

First order - getting rid of the crap Toyo R888s and switching to the MRFs:

It was so hot the radiator cap failed and started leaking coolant. Had to wait for it to cool off then change caps to a new one that was spare in the truck.

These days are quite social. Most TFL customers are acquainted with each other from prior trips or days on track. So the humor can be quite elevated. Two chaps decided to swap cars and try them out. A Caterham 420 race car for an Atom with a turbo Honda engine. Buddies were enlisted as passengers. Off they go. A short time later I see red flag shown - back to the pits to see what happened. Well the Atom owner driving the Caterham got into a bit of a braking duel with the Caterham owner driving the Atom at Turn 1. Predictably it was mega lock up and straight into the gravel pit. At this point the Atom driver remarks "What do you mean Caterham's don't have anti-lock brakes....."

The tow of shame back to the pits ended like this - missing rear wing, quite dusty. The car owner watching this took it in very good grace, absolutely dying with laughter at his friend's deep embarrassment.

Then the gravel removal commenced - I have NEVER seen a Caterham collect this much gravel from an excursion into the gravel pit.

It spawned a meme that night:

Magny-Cours Circuit

Then it was on to Nevers in the Loire Valley. This was home to the French F1 GP for many years. I was last here in 2015. I just remembered it as another manufactured circuit - maximum length within a small space, so you get lots of hairpins and looping back.

Fortunately, my memory was not that accurate. There was a bit of that looping but there were plenty of corners to test skill and focus the mind.