Pace, Pressure and Perseverance in the South of France.
Paul Ricard · August 2026
The weekend at Paul Ricard started strongly for Legacy Outlaws Racing, with both cars performing well throughout Thursday testing. The sun was shining, the temperatures were high and the pace was looking pretty hot too.
Then, in the final session of the day, things took a turn.
The T292 returned to the pits with oil pouring from the gearbox. The rear casing had cracked and suddenly we had a sizeable challenge on our hands: could we get it repaired in time for official practice the following morning?
The paddock was scoured for anyone who might have a spare gearbox, but this time luck wasn't on our side. We started looking at every possibility, including getting another gearbox driven or even flown out from the UK.
Then CMS managed to source the spare parts we needed and, after several calls back to our gearbox specialist in the UK, it was decided that a repair might just work.
The gearbox was stripped and the rebuild began. Huge thanks to Francois Rivaz for lending us the parts we needed to continue.
The team worked on into the darkness and, in what is rapidly becoming an almost traditional part of a Legacy Outlaws emergency repair, pizzas were collected from the local takeaway and consumed sitting on the floor of the awning in the dark!
But the job got done.
After a huge effort from everyone involved, the gearbox was rebuilt, the T292 was back together and we were ready for Friday.
Friday – Wet Track, Strong Pace
Friday brought a very different Paul Ricard. Temperatures were still reaching around 25°C, but the circuit was wet.
First out was the T70 and the signs were immediately encouraging. It topped the practice timesheets with a 2:32.143, ahead of Bruno Pereira and Charlie Hyatt on a 2:35.474.
Things were starting to look very good.
The T292 was out later in the day, with Chris taking the wheel first. He was fastest during the early part of the session before the heavens opened and he brought the car back into the pits.
There was simply no point taking unnecessary risks in a practice session.
Jan waited in the car in case conditions improved, but with nothing to gain from running in the heavy rain, the decision was made to stay in the pits. Most importantly, the repaired gearbox had been tested and everything was working exactly as it should.
The session eventually continued as the circuit dried, allowing others to improve their times and leaving the T292 fifth on the final timesheets.
The important thing was that we had two healthy cars ready for qualifying.
Saturday – Qualifying
The hot, sunny weather returned on Saturday and first up was qualifying for the T70.
Both drivers were required to complete a minimum of three laps, with the average of their fastest times determining the final grid position.
Jan went first and recorded a 2:11.630 before the session was interrupted by a red flag.
When qualifying resumed there were just 15 minutes remaining. Chris went out and delivered a 2:11.160, giving the pair an average of 2:11.395.
It was enough for pole position – by just 0.042 seconds!
C. Roddaro in the Porsche 917 would line up alongside, with Breitmeyer in his Lola T70 a further 0.882 seconds behind.
Next came CER2 qualifying and the T292.
Jan was first behind the wheel and produced an outstanding 1:58.869.
Chris had a much more difficult run. Traffic made finding a clear lap difficult and a couple of his quicker times were deleted for track limits, leaving a 2:00.401 as his fastest counting lap.
Their combined average was 1:59.635, putting the T292 third on the grid, just three tenths away from the pole time of Maxime Guenat, with Yves Scemama in second.
On paper, three tenths looked like very little.
But there was another factor to consider.
Neither of the drivers ahead would carry the additional time penalties we would have to serve during the race. With the qualifying times so close, we knew we had a huge challenge ahead.
Sunday – Race Day
There wasn't a rain cloud in sight for Sunday's CER1 race. Air temperature was 25.5°C and the track had climbed to 43.4°C.
From pole position, Jan took the start in the T70 but initially dropped back.
It didn't take him long to respond.
By lap three he was back into first place and from there he began to build a lead, consistently pulling away from the competition. By the time the pit window arrived, Jan had stretched the advantage to 16 seconds.
Now came the difficult bit.
We had an additional 35 seconds to serve in the stop – 20 seconds for the Elite driver penalty and another 15 seconds Burden of Glory penalty.
Despite that, Chris emerged from the pits in second place, just six seconds behind the McLaren of Max and Andrew Banks.
The instruction from the pit wall was simple:
Push for a 2:13.
Chris did exactly that.
The gap began tumbling and the race was really starting to heat up. With four laps remaining, there was only a two second gap and it looked increasingly likely that Chris would catch the McLaren and have a genuine opportunity to fight for the lead.
Then, suddenly, the lap times increased.
Something was wrong.
Chris began dropping back through the field over the remaining laps, but he refused to give up and did everything he could to get the T70 to the chequered flag.
Only when the car returned did we discover the problem: the gearbox had stuck in fourth gear.
For the final three laps Chris had wrestled the T70 around the tight and twisty sections of Paul Ricard with only one gear available. Simply getting the car home was an achievement.
The T70 crossed the line fourth overall.
There was no podium this time, but there was a finish – and Jan's fastest lap of the race on lap 10 was another reminder of just how much pace the car had shown throughout the weekend.
One More Race – The T292
There was little time to dwell on what might have been because the T292 race was still to come at the end of the day.
This time Chris would take the start from P3.
From the outside, nothing obviously appeared to be wrong, but Chris simply couldn't stay with the much more powerful three-litre cars along Paul Ricard's long straights and began to drop back.
He brought the T292 into the pits early in the pit window and, as the car arrived, Rob Bicknell spotted something that helped explain the lack of pace.
A pin had dropped out of the rear bodywork, meaning the back of the car wasn't sitting correctly. It was affecting the handling and, crucially around a circuit with straights as long as Paul Ricard's, creating additional drag.
The problem was quickly rectified in the pits and the car was made ready for Jan.
Then came the wait.
This time we had an additional 40 seconds to serve – 20 seconds for the Elite driver penalty and another 20 seconds Burden of Glory following our class win at Dijon.
That meant the T292 had to remain stationary for 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
Standing in the pit lane watching the clock tick down, it felt like an eternity. One by one, the other cars arrived, completed their stops and disappeared back onto the circuit while the T292 remained stationary.
Finally, the clock hit 2:40 and Jan was released.
He rejoined in ninth place – and he was immediately on a mission.
Jan pushed from the moment he left the pit lane and began working his way back through the field. But despite everything he could extract from the T292, there was no escaping the reality that the car simply didn't have the straight-line pace of the more powerful three-litre machinery ahead.
With the deficit created by the additional pit-stop time, our only realistic hope of challenging for the overall win was for one of the leaders to make a mistake.
They didn't.
But Jan kept pushing.
From ninth after the pit stop, he fought his way all the way back to third overall and first in the two-litre class, crossing the line almost 50 seconds ahead of the next car in class.
The overall victory went to Stéphane Nguyen in his T282, with Yves Scemama taking second in the TOJ SC304.
On this occasion, the power of the bigger-engined cars proved just too much for us to challenge for the overall win. But there could be no disappointment in the performance of either our drivers or the team.
Another Weekend to Remember
From a cracked gearbox casing on Thursday night and pizzas on the awning floor, to a rebuilt gearbox, pole position and fastest lap for the T70, and a P3 overall and class victory for the T292, Paul Ricard had thrown just about everything at us.
And every time, the team responded.
There are weekends when the results alone don't tell the whole story, and this was certainly one of them. Both cars showed the pace to compete at the front, the drivers never stopped pushing and, when problems arose, the team simply got on with finding a way to overcome them.
We leave the South of France with another class victory, another overall podium and plenty of positives – but, most of all, incredibly proud of the effort that went on behind the scenes to keep both cars racing.
Next stop: Estoril.
And this time there's a new challenge ahead.
Chris will be racing at the Goodwood Revival, which means Jan will have a new teammate sharing the T292 for the penultimate round of Peter Auto.
So keep your eyes open for a new name on the Legacy Outlaws T292…
Welcome, Gonçalo Gomes!
Estoril, here we come.
