Have a watch of the full length 60 min final from the Montpellier GP
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Grand Prix de Montpellier – the iconic season opener on the Cote D’azur coast of France, known for its piercing sun as well as icey cold conditions, 2013 proved no different as Elliott Boots was crowned Champion, here we present the race in 20 selected photos. Click ‘More’ to see all the photos.

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Elliott Boots completed an overdue win as he converted his TQ from yesterday into overall victory after the hour-long main, not only will the young Brit be delighted win the win but also finishing a final which saw many front runners fade with car issues.

The semis produced a few upsets and surprises – bad luck again striking Robert Batlle as he came off the fast double in the infield a mystery landing caused his servo saver plate (plastic) to break – a known issue which is being worked on with the MBX7, the 2012 World Champion was understandably upset – his second race retirement after problems also struck him at the Italian Job race in January. The likes of Martin Bayer, Borja Hernandez & Ignacio Candel also fell by the wayside, Martin was running comfortably in the bump up spots, but a series of crashes basically lost him a lap and he spent the rest of the semi being flung around like a rag doll in the bottom 5 where your either drive and dive in hard or go home. The 2nd semi almost witnessed the demise of Yannick Aigoin as he flamed out early on the back corner by the trees, his ever rapid pitman re-fired him and he was out and visibly laid the hammer down as he unlapped himself and sliced his way past the pack like an experienced jedi knife thrower at the top of his game.

Semis over and Reno Savoya started in P1, he led away from Oscar Baldo in 2nd and Boots on the 3rd spot; a great showing from Oscar Baldo not to mention his brother Bryan who was running for a top 5 position long into the final until a center driveshaft came off – cue slight bemusement as suddenly Bryan appeared sprinting across the straight to retrieve the driveshaft for his crippled car just getting out of the way of an oncoming car at the end of the straight – stranger things do happen apparently. Anyway, up front, Baldo clung on for a couple of laps until Savoya shimmied past along with Boots going by with Lee Martin 2nd, this was the running order for a while until Boots closed up and assumed the lead, it changed a bit with pitstops but it was clear Savoya was going a bit longer, Lee looked to have 3rd fairly safe but would lose out to Yannick Aigoin – Lee then continued to fall down the pegging order as flame outs cost him time.

Out front it looked like Boots had the measure of Savoya, the cat and mouse game as pitstops cycled through, credit to both drivers as they drove supremely on tough track – snowed on this morning which then turned to slick conditions. Towards the end it looked as if Yannick might challenge Reno for his 2nd spot but some late clutch issues saw Boots reduced in runtime and Savoya would close up but not enough, a strong result for Boots on his debut for Pro-Line – also running the new Diamond Back tyre in the final. The top 2 finishing 1,2 as they qualified suggests that we have quite a European season in store for us…

Sunday Finals Photos