He didn’t think he was saying that well. Few remember it, but in 2009, the Lyon president registered his club in the Europa Superleague, a car championship which brought together teams sponsored by football teams and wearing their colours. The adventure, rather mixed, lasted two years for the Rhone club.
Let’s go back to June 2009. OL presented its brand new car on the Champs-Elysées, in the presence of Nelson Panciatici, a young 20-year-old driver recruited for the occasion. On the car, prepared by the Barazi Epsilon team, number 69, obviously. Lyon then joins other major football clubs, such as Liverpool, Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven and AC Milan, in this Superleague Formula, the first race of which takes place on the Magny-Cours circuit in Nevers. Nineteen teams are entered in this event approved by the International Automobile Federation, which intends to assert itself for its second year of existence.
Race weekends are intense. The Grands Prix start on Saturday with practice and then qualifying inspired by football knockout matches. Two cars take off for one lap and the best one advances to the next lap until the final for pole. On Sunday, two or even three races are scheduled. The first based on the qualifying grid from the day before, a second with a reverse grid system starting from 8th place in the ranking. The last one is contested between the six best of the two races. All on circuits well known to motorsport fans, such as Donington Park or Estoril.
That year, Liverpool won the championship. OL finished in 17th place, out of 19 competitors, with a total of 160 points.
But the objective of Jean-Michel Classes is elsewhere. The strong man of OL wants to develop the image of his club, and not only on the football fields despite qualifying for the Champions League several seasons in a row. “The fact that 16 other world clubs participate in this competition was an important reason in our decision. It was a reflection of several years, we did not launch into this challenge with our eyes closed“, explained the Lyon leader, who saw in this new adventure “a link between car racing and football“.
At the end of the 2009 season, all the lights are green. More than 100,000 people watch the championship on a regular basis, a video game is released and the main sponsor, Sonangol, an Angolan oil group, seems solid. More and more renowned drivers are interested in the concept and for its second participation, in 2010, Lyon offered itself Sébastien Bourdais. Thanked by Toro Rosso in Formula 1, the Frenchman entered the Superleague Formula with Sevilla FC, winning a race in 2009, before his transfer to Lyon. “Having recruited Sébastien Bourdais is the guarantee of having one of the best current drivers behind the wheel. In addition, he already has experience of this championship where he started last year with success“, congratulated himself at the time Laurent Redonthe leader of the Lyon team.
If OL no longer manages to win football trophies after a long hegemony on the national scene, the 2010 season is off to a good start on the circuits. The 69 single-seater wins the second race of the year. This will be Sébastien Bourdais’ only feat of arms with Lyon. The driver leaves OL after five races. He is replaced at short notice by Celso MiguezThen Franck Pererabut it is Tristan Gommendy who finds himself at the helm of the car for the last four Grands Prix. “The atmosphere was really nice“, remembers the pilot, now 44 years old, for Lyon Foot. “We had a lot of races in some pretty impressive places, like Beijing or Ordos in Mongolia. The level was very high and no one had anything left to prove, we were not there to compete with F1“, remembers Tristan Gommendy. “OL followed the circuit closely. Jean-Michel Aulas came the first year and the club provided funding, I had done quite a few operations with them“, continues the former driver who also drove for Galatasaray and the Girondins de Bordeaux.
2010 will be the last year for OL in Superleague Formula. Most of the other teams will also go out of business as the main sponsor leaves the adventure. “We can talk about failure, of course. The players were very busy and did not come. Automobiles and football were two worlds that intersected but did not coexist. On social networks, it was starting to take off quite a bit, but football fans didn’t come to watch our races with the aim of supporting their club. It is from this point of view that it is a failure. There have never been any strong commitments from football clubs“, regrets Tristan Gommendy.
Lack of money, the championship, initiated by the English businessman Robin Webbstops in 2011. We will never hear about the Superleague Formula again.
FL
