Guilvert Receives His Prize

Gregory Guilvert today received his prize for winning the 2009 THP Spider Cup after wrapping up the championship ahead of the final round.

The big kahuna

Here at LotPro.com it’s hard to get a jump on the rest of the media when it comes to many of the stories on this side of the pond we call the Atlantic. We could’ve written about the Lingenfelter Trans Am concept due to be unveiled at SEMA, but that’s been plastered all over the web. Ditto the story about “Maximum” Bob Lutz taking on all comers in a Cadillac CTS-V.

So that leaves us with what is arguably a very niche story, from across the water, regarding Grégory Guilvert’s prize for winning this year’s Peugeot THP Spider Cup.

Peugeot THP Spider Cup

Originally established by Peugeot Sport as a one-make series offering a level and competitive field of open-cockpit sports cars, the class served its first two years as the opening act to rounds of the Le Mans Series, where it competed at some of Europe’s most famous racing circuits, as well as FIA and WTCC events.

Although the front clip of the Spider resembles Peugeot’s 207, the rest consists of a purpose-built chassis that is currently awaiting homologation for the FIA GT Championship’s new GT4 category, which covers vehicles for a number of one-make challenges.

The Prize

Soon after clinching this year’s THP Spider Cup (ahead of the final round, no less with Guilvert winning 11 of 12 races so far), driver Grégory Guilvert traveled to Le Castellet to claim his prize – a test session in one of the Le Mans-winning factory LMP1 Peugeot 908 HDi’s.

Here is his reaction: “It was the 908’s brakes that most impressed me to begin with; that was a big step for me. I was also surprised by the steering. To get a good feeling for the car, you need to go quite quickly, just as you do with a road car whose power steering gets stiffer as you pick up speed. I was therefore forced to push harder, but I felt more and more comfortable with every run, and it was such an incredibly exhilarating experience. It was a fantastic prize, and Nicolas Minassian gave me a great deal of advice. Maybe I’ll do another season with my Spider in 2010 to perhaps win a chance to do the same thing again next year.”

Tags: bob lutz, cadillac, cadillac cts-v, gregory guilvert, le mans, lingenfelter, lingenfelter trans am, peugeot, peugeot sport, peugeot thp spider, peugeot thp spider cup, sema