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.

A rather damp looking Franck, presumably after getting out the car: Photo Credit: chkltcow

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.

Somehow, although I was vaguely aware of Franck taking part in the LMS race this weekend, I didn’t see or hear anything about it until after the event. I have managed to gather together the pertinent facts, though. Firstly, Franck and Sarrazin were left in the lurch when Nicolas Minassian pulled out due to some sprained ribs. He sustained the injury during some training earlier in the week, which is eerily similar to Franck’s broken leg last year - also picked up in training. Perhaps these intense training catchups are not such a good idea?

The team have launched, and so this is just a note to make sure you check out the photos on the Superleague Formula Facebook album. As you might expect, there are loads of Franck pictures! FKM has also written about his first weekend with the team on his site, available to read (in French) here.

The first race of the new season took place at Silverstone this past weekend, and it wasn’t really a success for our Franck, although it could have been a lot worse. Things got started pretty well, with GD Bordeaux third in free practice - although the fastest car was up about two seconds on FKM. Qualifying was hit by some wet weather, but I don’t know if that directly affected Franck. Firstly, I didn’t watch it, and secondly, I still don’t really understand how it works. Nevertheless, Montagny qualified 14th out of 17 cars.

Words from the man himself about how he came to be racing in the Superleague Formula this year. The story begins thus: OK, I don’t know neither the car or the drivers who will be playing in the field with me… so let’s talk about what I actually know, it will be faster and probably much more interesting for you, guys! So once upon a time… Hehehe, bless. Girondins de Bordeaux have a blue and white team badge and thus the car should look something like this:

There’s more news about Franck today, although not directly relating to him, and it has me even more confused about this Superleague thing. The story suggests that FKM is getting a French teammate, but actually, he’s not in the same “football team” as he is, but they are the same race team. My investigations reveal that the race team is Barazi-Epsilon, and they provide the means for two football clubs to race - Galatasaray S.K. and our favourites GD Bordeaux. Tristan Gommendy has transferred from another team to the Galatasaray one, whilst FKM is happy at Bordeaux.

So, here are my findings on this bizarre formula. A race weekend consists of the following: Saturday - two 45 minute practice sessions, one hour rookie session, qualifying Sunday - two 44 minute races, the second one with a reverse grid Some kind of Super Final race at the end of the season I’m already confused. Don’t let’s even talk about qualifying. The benefits of racing in this sport include very high prize money, and a test for the champion in an as-yet undecided F1 team.

Now, it’s not unusual for a misspelling of Franck’s name to occur. Quite often the unusual ‘c’ is missed out, and whilst grating, it is understandable. Most of the time, when I try and write it spelt the other way, as in Frank Williams, I add in the extra ‘c’. This is a much more acceptable spelling mistake, I find. With FKM’s new gig in the Superleague Formula, I pointed out the nice photo that came with it. I was too distracted by a certain smiley Frenchman to actually notice the glaring errors.

Thanks to F1 Wolf who pointed out this tweet from Adam Cooper (how friend of a friend is this?): Franck Montagny is the latest ex-F1 guy to sign up with the Superleague Formula series. The official Superleague site has the news, and here’s the basics. The Superleague Formula was introduced in 2008, as a way to cross over the divide between football and motorsport fans. The teams are all football clubs, the drivers are all motorsport guys, and supposedly we are all supposed to enjoy the mix.

The official Franck site has updated with talk of what he’s been up to for the past few days: This week FKM took part to his first official practice session with Peugeot at Paul Ricard circuit. The weather conditions were obviously not perfect, wet track and very windy, but still Franck was way too happy to complain! Being back at the wheel was just what he had been waiting for for the past few weeks.

Peugeot Sport held a press conference this week to confirm their plans and drivers for the year ahead. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of Franck talk, but that’s probably because a lot of the focus was on new boy Anthony Davidson. The 5live commentator will be getting behind the wheel alongside Marc Gené and Alexander Wurz. Davidson gets to be in the number 1 car, whilst Franck remains in the #2, with his French companions.

Oh dear. If you ignore the bad acting, and the fact that Herbie is criminally underused in a film where he is supposed to be the title character, then you have a story so formulaic, you can almost predict the next line before it happens. I knew it would be bad but I wanted to give it a chance. I wish I hadn’t.

Today, Autosport and Castrol announced they were teaming up to produce driver rankings, on a weekly basis. There is a secret formula that works out whether a driver should move up or down the rankings, presumably based on his performance, although it’s hard to tell. They were released today, but already have a year’s worth of data in them - and get this, Franck started 2009 in 20th position, but is currently sitting in 243rd.

Rumour has it that the lovely Franck will be at Autosport International in January, racing in a charity karting event. All the information you need: David Brabham will be reunited with his Le Mans 24 Hours winning teammate Alex Wurz and fellow Peugeot Sport stars Franck Montagny and Nicolas Minassian as they join the Celebrity Karting Challenge primarily in aid of Malaria No More UK at Autosport International, on Friday 15 January.

Being an F1 fan, it would be impossible not to want to read a book by the legendary commentator. I managed to get my hands on a copy and settled down with interest. Unfortunately, I found it quite slow going. Half the book is taken up with his previous life as an advertising executive, which is somewhat interesting. The rest is a whistle stop tour through his life as an F1 broadcaster.

I have been holding off blogging about the Renault talk in the hopes that they might actually announce something, but it doesn’t look like there will be anything forthcoming for a while. So, the talk is that Franck confirmed he had spoken to Renault about a potential seat with the team next year. Add to that the speculation that the team will want to rebrand and reinforce their French heritage, then it starts to look quite good for our hero.

Franck has returned to Le Mans this weekend, for a Peugeot Sport Meeting. I’ve never heard of this event before, but it looks like it’s all different types of Peugeot cars and drivers head to the track to entertain the fans. Franck won’t be in the 908, but is still happy to drive, and will be sharing the wheel with Minassian and Sarrazin. If you’re lucky enough to be near Le Mans, here’s a schedule for the weekend:

It’s very quiet in Franckland at the moment - by the way, wouldn’t that be the best theme park ever? The only bit of news doing the rounds is a rumour about a potential 2010 F1 drive with Renault. From what I can see the source is this interview [link no longer available], which was about the Singapore scandal, and doesn’t mention driving for the team at all. My French is not that great though, so perhaps I am wrong.

From the Peugeot press release: Franck MONTAGNY: “It’s great to have won the Mini Le Mans! It all feels very weird, but I think the organisers were right to stop the race, because the conditions really were dangerous. We had an excellent strategy and our car was very fast once we were able to run on slick tyres.” I am wondering if mini Le Mans has been translated badly, but I quite like it. I may call it that from now on. Here’s a picture of lovely Franck with added trophy.

Franck won the race - hoorah! The Montagny/Sarrazin car was in the lead when the race came to an end, although it wasn’t exactly a stunning victory. The entire race was marred by bad weather, with a lot of the running halted due to lightning concerns. McNish was dominating up until a serious downpour, when he spun on his cold tyres, and let the lead change hands. It may not have been a thrilling way to take the trophy, but nevertheless, a win is a win, and it’s all about being in front when it matters. Well done to Franck, he did a fabulous job!

The first test day is complete, although Audi finished the day on top just ahead of FKM and Sarrazin’s car. The difference was only about 0.16 seconds, so that is a good start. One very important thing to note, from the Peugeot press release: Running in blue and chrome livery, the two Peugeots will be distinguished by: white mirrors and wing for the N°07 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP Pedro LAMY (Portugal) / Nicolas MINASSIAN (France), blue mirrors and wing for the N°08 Peugeot 908 HDi FAP Franck MONTAGNY (France) / Stéphane SARRAZIN (France)

I really enjoyed this film, despite its obvious flaws and that really awful supposedly French accent. There were laugh out loud moments which make up for some of the bad points, and it was a good story with a happy ending. What’s not to like?

Franck’s official site has updated with thoughts on the race at Sonoma, and confirms what we all thought - a disappointing race but FKM still showed well. We would have loved seeing Franck repeating his last year’s success in Long Beach as he scored a strong second place for his first Champcar race. That was finally not the case this weekend but Franck still did an amazing job getting used to the car so quickly. He scored the 3rd-fastest laptime during the race! Pretty good for rookie!

Boo. I can honestly say that I stayed up to watch the race, and then went to bed once Franck had to retire from the race. How disappointing. FKM had been involved in an incident on the very first lap, when the cars in front tangled together leaving little space for those behind to squeeze through unscathed. Although he was now running towards the back, miles away from his 8th place starting position, it was still going okay.

Hello! I know I have been quiet since Franck’s race seat was announced, and I should have been following his performance in testing as well as in qualifying yesterday. Apparently rookie’s get a bit of extra time on track which is a really good thing to see. I saw some of qualifying yesterday, although I never really established which car was Franck on screen, and only caught the last few minutes of Round 2.

There has been some speculation recently that Franck would be signed up by AGR to race for them in a forthcoming IRL event, and now it has been confirmed. FKM will take to the wheel of the No. 25 on the 22-23rd of August, in his IRL debut. He says: I am certainly looking forward to my IndyCar debut in Sonoma with AFS and Andretti Green Racing. I was able to test one of the team’s IndyCars last year and very much enjoyed driving it. Being able to test the track later this week will be very helpful for me to learn the circuit and prepare for the race. We have a lot of work to do to get ready, but I believe we are up to the challenge.

Our hero FKM has finally opened up about Le Mans, and it makes good reading (even when murdered by Google Translate). There’s a lot of detail about the broken leg, and the race itself, but the best bit comes at the end, when he talks about why he looked grumpy on the podium: Sorry … I am not proud of this moment for my guys, for all the work we have done, I should have a smile of pride to belong to this family … but tired, hurt and disappointed, I struggled on. But do not worry after a few hours, I was the first to open the fridge door truck to offer drink to the winners and 2009 … with a smile!

Finally, there is word on the official FKM site regarding the Le Mans race. A couple of days ago, The Joker (site admin, I believe) posted reaction to the 24 hour race. On the entire day: Sweet and sour… that’s what these 24 Hours in Le Mans taste like. But with three podiums for his three last participations, I think the stats and figures are pretty good! FKM wants to win in Le Mans. It didn’t work this year, that was pretty close though, but for sure he will keep fighting and he will make it for sure!

And there it was, Le Mans in all its glory. Franck started the race, Bourdais finished it, and between the three drivers, they came in second. It was a race of high attrition, with the Audi’s struggling, giving Peugeot their best change to break their rival’s run of victories. Good for Peugeot, they managed a win, bad for Franck it was the other team. The #8 Peugeot at the hands of FKM, Bourdais and Sarrazin led for the start of the race, but spent an unfortunate ten minutes in the pits with a wheel problem that saw the lead change hands. Towards the end of the race, Bourdais was gaining on his sister team at the front, but there was a notion that the team had been told not to race each other. Peugeot didn’t want to risk their chance at a win. Montagny was not impressed:

Credit: mansalio/Flickr

After the first session of qualifying, Audi were on pole, with our man Franck second. However, once the second session was complete, it was Peugeot all the way, with the #8 car on top at the hands of Stephane Sarrazin. #7 was third and #9 was fifth. Naturally, the Audi of McNish, Kristensen and Capello was second. After the shock news that Franck had broken his leg, it was even more of a surprise to see him put the car on pole in the early stages of qualifying. The team maintain that they were concentrating on race setup for the most part, and it was only once they were happy their work was completed that they went for a time.

It’s unclear exactly how this slipped through the net, but it turns out even Radio Le Mans didn’t know until they asked the man himself why he was limping. That’s right, Franck has only gone and injured himself. During training in the Alps, Franck made it through all the rock climbing and dangerous stuff with ease, but then stood on the ball during a game of footie, and broke his fibula.

Free Practice ran for six hours last night, with teams getting a feel for the circuit both in daylight hours, and during the night. The requirements were for new drivers to run at least ten laps, and all drivers to complete three in the darkness. I watched some of the live timing screens but couldn’t dedicate six hours to it (sadly). Instead, I’ve scoured the web for news regarding our hero, his team, and his rivals.

The Le Mans site has confirmed that all the cars got through the second day of scrutineering successfully, with the following words of wisdom: None of the cars had any problems today and will all be expected to appear in the first free practice sessions tomorrow (Wednesday) from 18:00. The forecast is for yet more rain, but it will get warmer and dryer for the weekend and the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans.

Although the race isn’t until the weekend, preparations for Le Mans have been taking place for a long time, and the action really begins this week. Yesterday, Monday, the cars began to face scrutineering, with Audi going first. Peugeot are due to be inspected today. Scrutineering isn’t just a chance for the regulators to check all regulations are being met, but it’s also a time for the fans to get a great view of the cars close up, and some of the drivers as well. This is really important for 2009, as there’s no test day for the Le Mans race this week. Apparently it rained yesterday, but was still a good day.

Credit: Eugene Moore/Flickr

Just a couple of days ago, Franck climbed back behind the wheel of the Peugeot 908, reminding us all that Le Mans is rapidly approaching. On Monday, at Magny-Cours, Franck put his recent training to good use by lapping the French track and getting some good testing miles under his belt. He got plenty of good running in, which will be good practice for what comes next. The entire Peugeot team are heading to the Alps for more physical training. Apparently some pictures will appear on FKM’s official site soon, so I will keep you posted.

Following his appearance on TF1 for the Bahrain GP, Franck has been invited on the Eurosport channel to discuss all the action from Spain. A translate from his official site says: For this new issue, it will be with other guests on the Grand Prix of Spain, which will take place this weekend in Barcelona and signal the return of Formula 1 in Europe… Note in your diaries… Eurosport on Monday 11 May at 22:30.

Some days I wish I lived in France. It turns out that Montagny might have had a bit of a spot on French TV Channel TF1 during their Bahrain GP coverage. I only read about this afterwards, and there’s not much I could have done about it anyway, but yay for Franck!

A couple of new updates on the official FKM site give us an insight into what the man himself has been up to off track. Whilst he’s not actually racing at the 1,000K of Spa, Franck turned up to a photoshoot with Peugeot. The Google translate suggests: Well, it’s true that taking poses in front of the lens is probably not his favorite exercise, but it could be harder and FKM knows.

So, as it turns out, Peugeot have decided that the lovely Franck won’t be racing at the 1,000 km of Spa. After such great fun at Sebring, I’m disappointed. Olivier Quesnel - Director of Peugeot Sport - says: This is not a delay in our preparation or our work, but an adjustment in our organization. The priority remains Le Mans and I do not want to wear the team preparing three cars for this race… We have chosen six pilots selected according to their respective mileage at the wheel of the 908 HDi FAP.

Just popped over to the official FKM site and saw this post that is asking for helmet designs. Now that Franck is in the US, he fancies a change and wants some help redesigning his helmet, with the one stipulation that it has to reflect the colours already in place: The famous fuschia, white, gold, silver, black, playing on effects mat and shiny… Come on, now, it’s pink, and we all know it is.

Franck’s keeping positive: I am disappointed by the outcome but still satisfied because we have worked well. We came to learn a difficult circuit. 12 hours here is worth 24 hours in Le Mans! The new Audi was within reach on land which is not in favor of the 908, very responsive. The team worked hard all winter and that’s what makes me optimistic for the future. He’s got two test days now at Sebring, before returning to Europe to prepare for the race at Spa in April.

Argh, it was just so disappointing. I was looking forward to posting a picture of Franck on the podium but he looked so utterly miserable, I couldn’t bear it. They got off to a really bad start, when the car had to begin the race from the pitlane after developing problems. Franck was the first behind the wheel and had soon made his way up to third. The number #7 Peugeot didn’t finish race distance, coming to a halt in the closing stages of the race.

Finally the race arrives, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to see Franck in action. The 12 Hours of Sebring kicks off today, and if you want to follow along, then I would highly recommend Sidepodcast.com (well, I would, wouldn’t I?). A live thread will be available ahead of the race, and chances are there will be many more knowledgeable people than me. What else can I say, other than: Today is Franck day, and have fun!