Grand Prix of the Golden Age 2019 – Report and Photos

The Grand Prix of the Golden Age 2019 was staged 7-9 June at the 9-turn, 2.415-mile Dijon-Prenois circuit in Dijon, France. Organised by Peter Auto, nearly 15,000 spectators enjoyed watching the nine races on the program.

The 55th edition of the Grand Prix de L’Age D’Or, the oldest race of its kind in Europe, featured nearly 300 historic racing cars over six grids, giving spectators the opportunity to relive the history of motor sport in the years 1950 to 2000.

 

On the first day of the 2019 Grand Prix de l’Age d’Or, a strong wind greeted the cars and slightly perturbed free practice and qualifying. Of course, the weather conditions didn’t prevent the cars from taking up their places on the grid or the fans of historic cars from coming to attend the races.

After qualifying, the first race was The Greatest’s Trophy comprising cars that marked the major endurance events between 1950 and 1960. The race was won by Guillermo Fierro’s Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage. In the late afternoon, the spectators saw the competitors in the Sixties’ Endurance grid racing: Pre-1963 sports cars and Pre-1966 GTs, which were real icons of their era in endurance championships. Jon Minshaw’s Jaguar Type E won the race, followed by no less than five Shelby Cobras in the final classification.

Between the two races, the Endurance Racing Legends put on a demonstration to show off GTs and prototypes built between 1990 and 2000, while the young drivers in Formula Junior also went at it hammer and tongs on the Dijon circuit.

On Sunday morning, it was the turn of the cars in Classic Endurance Racing (CER 1) to set the ball rolling in a race led by Claudio Roddaro in his Porsche 917. Then the Greatest’s Trophy grid was back on the track for its second race of the weekend. This time victory went to Carlos Monteverde and Gary Pearson in their Jaguar E-Type. The morning ended with the race for the Porsches in the 2.0L Cup grid won by Andrew Smith and Olivier Bryant.

The afternoon was marked by the second Classic Endurance Racing (CER 2) grid event won by Philippe Scemama and Nigel Greensall’s Lola T600. The final race of the weekend was for drivers in the Heritage Touring Cup grid consisting of cars that had shone in the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) between 1966 and 1984, and victory went to Christian Traber in a BMW 3.0 CSL. Another demonstration by the Endurance Racing Legends grid in which the 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra GTS1 made a big impression rang down the curtain on the 55th Grand Prix de l’Age d’Or.

The next events on Peter Auto’s calendar include Chantilly on 30th June for the Concours d’Elégance and then the second staging of the Hungaroring Classic on the Budapest circuit between 12-14 July.

In addition to the 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2018 editions, Sports Car Digest also documented the 2019 Grand Prix de L’Age D’Or with the following selection of images from the Dijon-Prenois circuit in France.

Grand Prix of the Golden Age 2019 – Photo Gallery (photos: Photo Classic Racing, Julien Hergault)

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