I gave up my Franck blog because there was just no information about him out there. However, every now and again, something so fabulous comes along that I wish I still had the dedicated space to write about him. Good content makes it easy to forget the long periods of silence. But hey, I already have a blog and this will do very nicely indeed.
After Peugeot unceremoniously quit their endurance racing programme and dumped all their drivers, the guys have been scrabbling to find other work. Franck was recently announced as a Level 5 Motorsport man, and he raced at Laguna Seca this past weekend for his new team.
On his Facebook page, Franck takes questions from his fans and answers them. I’m not sure how long it’s been going on, because I don’t like Facebook very much and I’m annoyed that it’s the only place FKM seems to exist anymore.
However, in this month’s Q&A, there are some startling (to me) revelations!
Give or take dodgy translations:
How are your baby already? It’s not too hard to get away from him?
A great video of highlights from the race this weekend. Plenty of dramatic music, some Eau Rouge action, and even a Michelin Man or two.
Fun Franck-spotting as well. I particularly like the helmet shot at the beginning of the race, and the champagne afterwards.
I may have misjudged him, as it seems FKM was happier than I first thought. Yay!
After all that worry, Franck came second:
Pos Class Drivers Team/Car Time 1 LMP1 Gene / Wurz / Davidson Peugeot 908 6:02:03.799 2 LMP1 Montagny / Sarrazin / Minassian Peugeot 908 + 42.965s 3 LMP1 Capello / Kristensen / McNish Audi R18 TDI + 1 lap I didn’t watch much, if any, of the race, but that seems rather incredible. From 50th to 2nd? Still, everyone said it was a long race, and I guess it must have been so.
So, this happened:
Ortelli/Makowiecki Krohn/Jonsson Montagny/Sarrazin/Minassian Belicchi/Boullion Peugeot were trying to be tactical, leaving it late before attempting a flying lap. And then there was an accident and red flags and Sarrazin didn’t set a time.
Boo.
Just boo.
People say it’s a long race and Franck is starting and he’ll overtake half the field on the first lap anyway, but still, it’s not as good as starting in the top five, is it?
Two practice sessions complete, with the results looking a bit like this.
Practice 1 Pos Class Drivers Team/Car Time 1 LMP1 Capello / Kristensen / McNish Audi R18 TDI 2:03.844 2 LMP1 Bernhard / Dumas / Rockenfeller Audi R18 TDI 2:04.054 3 LMP1 Lamy / Bourdais / Pagenaud Peugeot 908 2:04.217 4 LMP1 Fassler / Lotterer / Treluyer Audi R18 TDI 2:05.329 5 LMP1 Montagny / Sarrazin / Minassian Peugeot 908 2:05.392 Practice 2 Pos Class Drivers Team/Car Time 1 LMP1 Fassler / Treluyer / Lotterer Audi R18 TDI 2:03.124 2 LMP1 Capello / Kristensen / McNish Audi R18 TDI 2:04.361 3 LMP1 Bernhard / Dumas / Rockenfeller Audi R18 TDI 2:04.405 4 LMP1 Lamy / Bourdais / Pagenaud Peugeot 908 2:05.472 5 LMP1 Lapierre / Duval / Panis ORECA Peugeot 2:06.962 6 LMP1 Gene / Wurz / Davidson Peugeot 908 2:07.150 7 LMP1 Amaral / Pla Quifel-ASM Zytek 2:07.543 8 LMP1 Montagny / Sarrazin / Minassian Peugeot 908 2:08.547 The second practice session came to an end when Pedro Lamy smashed up the other Peugeot. Boy am I glad that he’s not sharing with Franck this weekend. Although they were faster than FKM’s car in both practices, which isn’t so great.
Well, my goodness, it’s time for more racing, is it?
The 1,000km of Spa takes place this weekend, with two practice sessions today. There’s another practice on Friday, plus qualifying, and then the race itself gets underway on Saturday.
Franck is in the number 8 once again, and teamed up with Stéphane Sarrazin and Nicolas Minassian (phew, Lamy is in the other car!).
Good luck Mr Montagny.
It’s quiet in Franck-land again.
I did enjoy looking at Google News for any mentions and finding they’ve done this:
I think every webpage should have a Franck quote at the top.
With a reformatted Mac comes the opportunity to start things over, to organise better. I decided that I would try out iPhoto in all it’s proper glory - as in attempting to use it as a photo library, instead of as just a way to get pictures out of the iPod.
I’ve sorted everything out into Events, which was pretty dull, and then I took a look at the face recognition part of it.
It was a long, old race. 12 hours, I suppose. The challenge from Audi fell by the wayside quite early on as a coming together between Marc Gene and Allan McNish, plus some reliability issues, meant they fell far down the order and had to make their way back up.
Meanwhile, Montagny, Sarrazin and Lamy spent a good while leading the race, swapping between the other Peugeot and the Highcroft car, but a few mistakes cost them dearly. Lamy (who I am not a fan of anymore) spun after a pit stop left him with cold tyres (mini picture here), and then one of the last pit stops of the race took far too long.
Stephane Sarrazin did the business in qualifying for the 12 hours of Sebring, putting the Peugeot on pole position ahead of the race today.
Talking about his day, Sarrazin said:
We arrived here with new car and new rules so it was hard for us this week. We have been improving the balance of the car. Things were much better in qualifying than free practice because of the traffic. I did my lap without a mistake and it was very good.
I find it very tricky to follow the build-up to Sebring, so I will just leave it to Autosport to tell you how it is:
Only one of the latest generation Peugeots ran today, but the Franck Montagny/Stephane Sarrazin/Pedro Lamy car set the quickest time of the opening day in the morning session with a 1m47.678s.
Having said that, I am attempting to fire up the Factbyte Factbox (our live blog) for Sebring, so if you’re around this weekend - keep your eyes peeled.
It’s been officially confirmed that Franck will be the driver behind the wheel of the #8 Peugeot when the 12 Hours of Sebring race gets underway.
Sharing duties with Stephane Sarrazin (who will be qualifying it) and Pedro Lamy (who will also be there), Frank will kick things off on the 19th March, which is not this Saturday but the one after.
Technical director Bruno Famin reiterated what Peugeot have always said, that these races are always just a test for the real deal - Le Mans.
Franck!!!
Taking part in a Peugeot press conference. And by taking part, I mean sitting looking a bit bored.
Although he did get to speak for about ten seconds, so he was a bit less bored then.
♥
I’m rubbish at birthdays, okay?
Many happy returns to Franck who turned 33 yesterday. I wonder what he did to celebrate, wherever he is hibernating away for the winter.
The worrying news is that Franck’s website is no longer working for me. Anyone else? I mean, it’s not like it had been updated in forever anyway, but even so.
At this rate, I will not only forget FKM’s birthday, but I’ll be forgetting about him too!
It looks as though FKM has disappeared again, after his win in Zhuhai. His website has not been updated, and the only place to go for any Franck related goodness is Facebook.
There are a couple of cool (but old) videos that were posted recently, but as they are in Facebook, I can only share the links. Here is one, and here is another one.
So, last time I was here, we discussed the Thursday test, in which Peugeot dominated.
The weather turned against the drivers during Friday practice, and the first session saw Bourdais’ car on top again, with Franck and Sarrazin finishing slightly further down.
1 Team Peugeot Total – Peugeot 908 HDi FAP – 1:28.751 7 Audi Sport Team Joest – Audi R15 TDI – 1:29.389 8 Audi Sport Team Joest – Audi R15 TDI – 1:30.041 2 Team Peugeot Total – Peugeot 908 HDi FAP – 1:31.093 (FRANCK!) In the second session, the weather was worse, and you can see from the times that it was a slow lap.
Franck was out and about today, as he and teammate Stephane Sarrazin took to the track at Zhuhai for two test sessions. These are pre-practice sessions for the weekend, which seems a bit odd, but any testing time is good.
The first session had Peugeot on top, but it was the other one, with Bourdais and Pagenaud. Franck’s car was third, with a pesky Audi splitting the two of them. In the second session, they improved and finished first, with Bourdais’ car in second place - a 1-2 finish for Peugeot. If the race could go like that too, I’d be happy.
Franck’s next assignment takes place at the beginning of November, when the LMP1 class of cars turn up at the Zhuhai International Circuit. The 7th November will see Franck partnered with Stephane Sarrazin, whilst a second Peugeot car will be fielded by Bourdais and Pagenaud.
That’s still a couple of weeks away, of course, so while we’re waiting, here’s a photo gallery (on Facebook) of Franck at Petit Le Mans.
Yum.
Another tiny quote from Mr M:
We were the fastest on track again this year. We didn’t steal this. Same car, same team, same results - the only difference was the rain!
Last year’s race clearly affected him more than it appeared!
Franck, along with Sarrazin and Lamy, won the 2010 Petit Le Mans yesterday. I didn’t watch it but all I’ve seen suggests it was a great race, interesting throughout, and it wasn’t until the final couple of hours that Peugeot seemed to have it in the bag. They took up two steps of the podium with Allan McNish for Audi in third.
A snippet from the Autosport report:
…the Audi R15 of Allan McNish/Dindo Capello/Tom Kristensen had a very real chance of winning, while the second 908 of Anthony Davidson/Marc Gene/Alex Wurz was waiting in the wings on the lead lap.But when Capello was briefly blinded when his balaclava slipped over his eyes, causing him to concede the lead to Montagny and then to pit out of sequence and thus drop off the lead lap, the cars fell perfectly into Peugeot’s hands.
Not a lot, but at least it is something:
I want to win at least one race with the 908 this year! But I’m going to have to hurry, because there are only two races left! I would especially like to win Petit Le Mans because the atmosphere is so special. It’s unique, and I like that!
He has seemingly disappeared completely. Still no word on his official site, he’s not in the news for any rumours, and he’s definitely not participating in Superleague - Girondins de Bordeaux went and found another driver instead. Silly people.
I miss him.
He will be back though! He is on the entry list for Petit Le Mans, which takes place next week - the race itself on the 2nd October.
Ignore everything I said in the previous post about Superleague in Italy. Franck is not racing there this weekend. Supposedly the team withdrew because of financial difficulties. Probably a mixture of that and a rather annoyed FKM after the last race they did manage to attend.
What a mess.
Franck has seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet, and so it is left to other drivers to preview the upcoming Superleague Race. I’m assuming FKM is still driving in the series, although last we heard he was a little bit peeved at the entire thing - his team included.
This weekend the gang head to Italy, the Adria International Raceway for Round 8 of the 2010 Superleague Formula Championship. The official preview suggests:
In the ongoing saga of Montagny versus Superleague, it looks as though our favourite Frenchman is still not happy, particularly after events at Brands Hatch this weekend.
In this week’s Autosport magazine (available digitally here), they suggest that the team behind the football name Barazi-Epsilon gave priority to Tristan Gommendy when it came to pitstops. Franck said:
We had good pace here, we were fast, but I think we gave away a podium finish at least. I like the series, I like the cars but I’m quite upset again with the team. I was screaming at them to let me pit, but it was a big mess and lack of communication.
As we established, Franck was back in the car for Girondins de Bordeaux for the Brands Hatch weekend, although we still don’t know where or why he went away for round 6. Maybe he just needed a rest.
I didn’t get to see any of the action, apart from a few videos of the terrible crash for Chris van der Drift that overshadowed the entire day. It was an awful accident but he appears to have escaped with relatively minor injuries - a broken ankle and the like. Hope he recovers quickly.
I’m officially confused. Franck is back with Girondins de Bordeaux for the next Superleague round at Brands Hatch.
But why did he go? Why is he back? Why did he have to come back on a weekend when I can’t watch it?
So many questions.
There was no Franck Montagny at the Superleague race in Zolder this past weekend, and we aren’t the only ones who missed him.
Firstly, the team finished 12th in the first race and 10th in the third (which sounds better but is actually only second to last).
Meanwhile, there’s a post on the Superleague site today suggesting the team aren’t happy without him. Apologies for the rather dodgy Google translation:
Autosport is reporting that Franck Montagny won’t be driving for Girondins de Bordeaux at Zolder this weekend, and it reads as though his time with the team and with Superleague has come to an end.
Bourdais left the sport just a couple of days ago, and he said:
I’ve stopped for the moment and I’m not pointing fingers at anyone or anything, but I don’t see it getting any better. The team doesn’t have the time, the equipment or money to to compete against structured, experienced teams. We wanted to do well, but we were struggling along and breaking down every weekend. It’s frustrating.
The Superleague Formula is back in action this weekend, with the football themed cars taking to the track in Belgium at the Zolder circuit.
A brief intro from the official site:
The 2.492 mile, 10 turn circuit has remained a staple of the championship since its inception in 2008. Indeed, it is the only venue to have been included on the calendar throughout Superleague Formula’s brief history to date.
Don’t rely on my knowledge of timings, but I think the first race starts at 9am BST on Sunday, and the second at midday. Live streaming will be available as ever.
Well, I didn’t see it because someone scheduled it the same time as the European GP, but it looks like Franck came second. The report from Superleague says:
Earlier in race 2, Alvaro Parente claimed victory for FC Porto after holding off a late-race challenge from Bordeaux’s Franck Montagny.
Parente led right from the start after both he and Montagny got past pole-sitter John Martin (Beijing Guoan FC) at the first corner. The Portuguese driver’s lead was up to 2.7 seconds as Montagny pitted for his compulsory stop and the Porto car rejoined from its stop two laps later ahead of the Frenchman, although a stunning lap from Montagny had closed the gap to less than a second.
Well it was nothing to write home about, was it?
Franck started way down the grid, 16th. He stayed out longer than everyone else, which meant he was leading the race for a moment until he came into the pits. He wasn’t about to win the race, but he might have made up a few places.
Unfortunately, there was a delay in the pitstop which meant he finished the race in 15th. As ever, the only good news is he starts the next race further up the grid. We’ll hope for better things then.
Before you even have a chance to think about taking a breather, Franck is back in action again this weekend. The Superleague Formula rocks up at the Nurburgring in Germany. The intro on the official site reads:
Superleague Formula by Sonangol journeys from central Spain to western Germany this weekend for the football-themed championship’s fifth round of the season at the Nürburgring.
Nestled in the spectacular Eifel Mountains alongside its formidable Nordschleife forbearer, the circuit returns to the calendar after hosting the second-ever Superleague Formula round in 2008.
So, I missed out on the first race, and tuned in just in time for the start of Race 2. By all accounts, the first race didn’t go so well. I know Franck started 12th, and he began the second race on the front row. With a reversed grid, that would suggest it wasn’t a result to write home about, and after further research, I learnt they had to retire with a mechanical issue. Boo.
With the Le Mans disaster still fresh in our minds, we must turn our attention to the next event for Franck - Superleage Formula at Jarama.
This weekend, FKM will be back in the car for Girondins de Bordeaux, and for the first time, the official Superleague site will be offering Qualifying streaming on Saturday, as well as all the racing action on Sunday. More information can be found here (Facebook link).
A Q&A with the man himself.
On not anticipating any problems:
We were not really pushing, we were very focused on the targets, not on qualifying. We just focused on one point, which was the win. We were just so relaxed and peaceful working together. I could sleep very easily this week, and during the race too. I was just checking the lap times and everything we’d said before was done, no problem at all. It was just great.
The race isn’t over yet, but our dreams for a Montagny win really are.
The #2 car was leading but… well, Autosport tell it best:
Franck Montagny was on his out-lap from a scheduled fuel-stop when flames and smoke started pouring from the right side exhaust of his 908 at Tertre Rouge.
He tried to get the car back to the pits, but was forced to park it up at the side of the Mulsanne straight. He has remained by the side of car, still hoping to find a way to get it back to the pits, but the failure looks terminal.
But our driver is not at the top. Sadly, I didn’t get to see any of qualifying either - who decided to put Le Mans on when I am just crazy busy?
Still, according to the Autosport report on things:
Stephane Sarrazin, who had taken the last three consecutive 24 Hours poles, was denied the opportunity to extend his streak when the final stint in the #2 car was given to Nicolas Minassian.
It’s always exciting when I find a Montagny mention on Autosport, as I usually go there in search of F1 news - and he is pretty hard to find in that section! However, they’re making a special Le Mans effort, and we have word from the great man himself. The word is: mega!
During the transition between practice and qualifying, FKM speculated:
I had 35 laps on the tyres, it’s not as good as a new set of tyres, and when there’s soft tyres and no fuel, it’s going to be mega.
Ah, it is that time of year again, the race we have all been waiting for. None of that silly Superleague stuff, we’re talking 24 Heures du Mans.
We are hoping to live comment lots of the action over on Sidepodcast, and there will be threads popping up throughout the next few days so that we can keep an eye on everybody’s favourite Frenchman. (And probably a few other people as well.)
With a reverse grid for the second race, Franck lined up 8th. An incident on the first lap allowed Franck up to sixth, and then he overtook another car to move up to 5th - a pretty good first couple of minutes.
It was all for nothing, though, as Bourdais went and crashed into him in the corner, knocking out three Frenchmen from the French race. Good work Le Seb.
Franck qualified for the first race in 13th place, which isn’t that impressive. If you take into account his topsy-turvy season so far though, plus the fact that he’s driving with injuries, it’s a little bit more acceptable. Autosport labelled Franck as a “surprise dropout” so at least they have noticed he is rather good.
Made up a couple of places on the start, up to 11th. After the pit stop, he came out in 10th and stayed there until the finish. In the last minute or so, there was a worrying moment when the Beijing car tried to overtake, but Montagny wasn’t having any of it.
This is a must watch video, if only because Franck is very cute when he gatecrashes other people’s interviews.
Also, I appear to have missed out on the news that FKM has four broken ribs. How did that happen?
I sacrificed watching some of the Monaco GP to tune in to Franck for the second race at Assen. When I switched over, he was being interviewed on the grid, and didn’t sound too optimistic about what they could do.
Franck started fourth, though, which was the only bonus of retiring from the first race. At the first corner, he moved up to third with some great work. He held station there, but closed up to the leaders as they were scrabbling for position.
I hadn’t planned to watch the racing this weekend, but I woke up with two minutes to spare, so I grabbed the laptop and watched.
Franck started the first race in second, lining up on the first row. During the outlap, he backed the pack up a little, and when the pace car disappeared, he had a great first bid to try and overtake for P1. He didn’t make it stick and settled for second.
This weekend, Franck will return to action for Girondins de Bordeaux at the second round of the Superleague Formula series. This time they are at Assen, and the official SF website describes it as thus:
Better known as the cathedral of motorcycling, the 2.830 mile circuit located in north eastern Holland should prove a real challenge for the championship’s V12-powered 750bhp single seaters thanks to it being specifically designed with motorbikes in mind.
During the Free Practice commentary for the Monaco weekend by 5Live, David Croft and Anthony Davidson discussed a certain driver that we all know and love (even more so because of this!)
Transcript
Croftie: Sir Stirling Moss… very much enjoying the interactive tweeting that’s going on this morning and he sent us another tweet as well - thank you for this! He says in 1960, us drivers did 100 laps and we drove three and a half hours which required supreme concentration. Can you imagine, three and a half hours, around Monaco? Your eyes would be affected for weeks afterwards.
I’ve found a couple of great videos from this weekend’s racing in Spa. The first is a build up to the event and features lots of drivers - but keep watching because not only does Franck make a couple of appearances, but in one of them he is hugging Bibendum. My two favourite people!
The second video is footage from the podium, in which Franck is standing to the far left. It gets a bit shaky in the middle when the camera operator tries a zoom, but if you stick with it you get some great footage of Franck leaning against the wall, and sticking his hands in his pockets. As if coming second in a six hour race is an every day occurrence.
