Peak performer: Alpine A110 racing at Silverstone

Alpine A110 kerb

Our man curbs his Alpine A110. in a good way

We are entering a new-make racing series for the beloved mid-engined French sports car

The organizers think that this is also exclusively in French, but I rather liked the atmosphere in the Alpine Elf Cup, one-make racing series for the Alpine A110s. It turns out a little that the route of his visits to France. By the end of the weekend at Silverstone, I remembered how they shrugged their hands resignedly and said “J.I. Feeney douzième” in a convincing accent. Almost native.

Maybe that's how it feels to be in a French Le Mans, only no one threw a bottle of piss into a passing TVR because his driver didn't burn out.

But the organizers of this pan-European series of races would like more participants from different parts of Europe. A British team, a German or a Spanish or an Italian team, perhaps to match the fact that of the six places the series is released, there are tours in Spain, Belgium, Germany and the UK, along with two in France. At the moment all 18 cars on the grid are entered by French teams and mainly by French drivers. There is one Swiss and one Belgian and usually a hired upstart who, on this occasion, is me.

Car in A110s that we know and love, but more racy. While 'my' car is on its air jacks with wheels, I ask the Series Technical Director' what are the differences in suspension between an expensive car and a racing car. It's easier to say what is the same thing, he tells me: it's struts and wishbones.

With a few tweaks, A110 racing is stanced, isn't it? – maybe a GT4 race, on a series, too. The A110 makes an interesting GT4 endurance racer, with a small engine and tiny frontal area meaning it's less powerful but much more aerodynamically efficient than the supercars it competes against, so it's as close as you get to the classic series where the little ones take on ford galaxies.

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The differences between the two racing series specifications are small enough that you could swap the same Alpine back and forth between the Alpine Cup and the GT4 class, but no one does: I think the GT4 class will feel like the next step.

So this race must be a breeze, I was led to believe. Just a bunch of old rich dudes nobbing into a car they weren't very good at riding a chain they never had.

Hmm. No. As it turns out, out of 18 drivers, there are a few young and hot-shoes who want to make it as GT drivers and some old dude who used to race in the Renault Clio Cup – that nutcase series is the birth of racing car drivers. Laurent Hurgon, a Renault Sport engineer who sets the Nürburgring lap times in hot RS models, features series-but by no means guaranteed-six finishers.

Plus, you know a lot of cars. And they've been to Silverstone before. And I don't speak a lot of French, the team doesn't speak loads of English, so when we set it up, we're just offhand. And one of my teammates wants a limited-slip diff out of my car between races because it's more aggressive than his; which is fair enough because it pays to be there and I can see how it changes handling.

In any case, these excuses are basically two races - one on Saturday, one on Sunday - that each last 25 minutes plus one lap and have a head start.

Silverstone is a big chain, but when your last race here was in a Citroen C1, it seems to be shorter than usual. Racing the A110, with 266bhp and at 1135kg, it's well suited to this on Michelin slicks that provide quite a mega amount of lateral grip. Those, plus the right sequential gearbox in place with a dual-clutch road car, plus the safety gear, mean the A110 looks like a terrific racing car. But there are elements of the character the road is intact. It's very agile, happy to move around as you lift and turn, but due to the limited-slip differential that's missing from a road car, it engages when accelerating more easily, albeit with more grip and traction than it does now, with heavier steering that bags feelings. With a less aggressive differential, there's less initial hook-up under acceleration and more outboard swing into a skid later on.

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All cars make the same power for the same aerodynamics, passing hard, as it seems to us, the time-honored passes of the Clio Eurocup technician to insert your car into the path of another and allowing them to avoid you.

Getting familiar with it, I finish 12th out of 18 in the first race, and 13th in race two with all body panels intact, which, at £90,000 for the car and another $90k or so to race on year, exactly the same. If I had the means, I would return.

Race road

Race-spec Alpine A110s get pretty thorough busting. The engine is internally the same as the road car's 1,8-liter four-cylinder turbo, but new intakes and exhausts raise its output by 18bhp. What's more, the rear subframe is shoveled to accommodate a firewall between the cockpit and the engine compartment, brace the area and allow the box to be completed with sequential racing and pneumatic shifting. At the front there is a new fuel tank, while all around spoke suspension with adjustable springs and dampers drops the overall height of the car by 62mm. Undressed inside, the car can weigh as much as 1050kg, but the minimum race weight is 1125kg (road road, 1098kg is the smallest).

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