Battling Hardman ensures that it's not all Chiles play

Tour Auto

After an almighty five-day battle against the Ferrari 250LM of Peter Hardman, Chris Chiles took a second consecutive Tour Auto victory in his Ford GT40.

After a mix of timed road stages and circuit races across central and southern France en route to the finish in Cannes, Chiles had a winning margin of just 13sec.

For much of the event it had been a three-way lead battle courtesy of Danny Sullivan in a Porsche 911RSR, but gearbox failure after two laps of the Ledenon circuit put the former Indy 500 winner out with only one road stage left to run.

Jean Ragnotti was the French hero of the event, taking his Alpine A110 to third place overall once Sullivan had retired.

It proved a disastrous event for British-entered AC Cobras. The Jon Minshaw/Martin Stretton car crashed out on a road section and was later hit by the similar car of Justin Law.

On the highest parts of the road stages near Aix-les-Bains, the stages were fringed with snow despite the Tour running in dry conditions.