Carreras Colombia Cobra at the 52nd Grand Prix L'Age Dor

The Grand Prix L’Age Dor is the oldest historic car meeting in France as the first Coupes de l’Age d’Or was held on the Rouen-les-Essarts circuit in 1964 as a curtain-raiser to the French Formula 1 Grand Prix. After Montlhéry, the event is now held on the Dijon-Prenois circuit, the theatre of the most epic duel in the history of F1 during the 1979 French Grand Prix between Gilles Villeneuve in his Ferrari and René Arnoux in his Renault. The 2022 edition marked the 52nd anniversary and despite threatening weather forecasts over 6,000 spectators attended the event over its three days.

The event’s highlight race the third round of Peter Auto’s Sixties Endurance championship in which DK’s Acquisition Consultant Harvey Stanley took part alongside long term friend and former meber of the DK Team; Jeremy Cottingham. Jeremy’s first race in a Cobra and the first outing for the well-known “Carreras Colombia” Cobra since it was savagely Dutch harpooned at Goodwood back in March, which had come as a shock to the team and the spectators at Goodwood. The grid was at a capacity and fortunately void on this occasion of any doubledutch which set the scene nicely for an enjoyable (and significantly less expensive) weekend for everyone else.

Frustratingly the DK / Cottingham Blue Chip pairing suffered an unfortunate wheel bearing issue in qualifying which meant that the car was not able to place near the front of the grid for Saturday evening’s race and in fact lined up 46th of 50 starters for the 2 hour evening spectacle - following repair work by “Pursuit” the team that run the car, from their Bicester HQ. Harvey took the start and with the “bit between his teeth” managed to scythe his way through the pack, picking of some 28 cars in the first lap alone. Making best use of an early safety, which bunched up the pack, the pale blue Cobra was up into third and within a second of the lead by the opening of the pit window at 45 Minutes, the three leading cars battled until the end of the window and all pitted around the 1 hour 10 mark; Jeremy taking over from Harvey and Pierre Alain France handing over to father Erwin, and Maxime Guenat handing over to Guillaume Mahe and behind, the relative new comer Saif Assam handing over to Sam Hancock. Jeremy did an excellent job of getting to grips with the Cobra and closed the gap to Mahe before that car expired and then retired, but with Sam Hancock on a charge to the front, Jeremy dropped back to third whilst Hancock took the lead, which he would retain to the chequered flag - sadly a time penalty due to a “track limits” infringement demoted the Stanley and Cottingham pairing down to 4th, missing the podium but just 2 seconds – but still a very commendable achievement having started almost last.

The Carreras Colombia Cobra, always a crowd pleaser, and particularly so on the continent, will next been seen at the Le Mans Classic in July.

Jeremy Cottingham's website can be seen here https://jeremycottingham.co.uk/

For more infomation on Pursuit visit https://www.pursuitracing.co.uk/