He set up the AKKODIS ASP Team in 1999, which means the 2024 season marks the team’s 25th anniversary. Policand is celebrating the occasion by entering the WEC with the RC F GT3.

As soon as you set foot in the AKKODIS ASP Team workshop, your eyes are immediately drawn to the scores of gleaming trophies that line the walls. To date, the team has claimed more than 150 such honors. There’s a history of talent and triumph here that’s palpable

But there’s another great presence that can’t escape attention: the racing machines, all being tuned to perfection for their forays into fierce competition across a range of categories. Among them is of course the RC F GT3, being prepared for this season’s WEC.

AKKODIS ASP Team Principle Jérôme Policand started his career as a formula driver before creating a name for himself in the world of GT racing.

“Compared to formula racing,” he says, “the range of manufacturers and machines that compete in GT makes the competition that much fiercer, and the races that much more appetizing.”

Policand’s obvious passion for the GT scene is clearly working for his team. In both 2022 and 2023, AKKODIS ASP Team claimed the GT World Challenge Europe team cup. And they made the 2023 season a double victory, claiming the driver’s cup as well.

On practically the same premises, the AKKODIS ASP Team go from handling the leading-edge technology required to compete cars in some of the fastest races on the planet to helping keep yesteryear’s automotive heritage alive at Storic and Race Cars.

At first glance, it might seem like these two disciplines are worlds apart, but Policand has a different point of view. “The cutting-edge and the classic—it’s there, in the fusion of those two, that you find the real charm and dynamism of cars.”

These cars include the thoroughbred Lexus RC F GT3, built to garner the highest accolades in the fastest races, and its performance road-going cousin, the Lexus RC F Track Edition. Despite differences in tuning—like the body kit fitted to the RC F GT3 so it conforms to the exacting LMGT3 regulations—when these two vehicles are side by side in the workshop’s maintenance bays, their road car roots are easy to spot. You can see it in the aerodynamic package they are built on and their fluid, lightweight bodies.

It’s a highway that links Paris to the Mediterranean coast and beyond into neighboring Spain. Cruising along it in the RC F Track Edition, vast mast-like structures come into view—a little too inland to be rising from yachts moored in the riviera’s marinas.

In fact, it’s the Millau Viaduct—the brainchild of world-renowned architect Norman Foster. Completed in 2004, it spans a total of 2,460 meters. At 343 meters tall, the pillars visible through the RC F’s windshield outstrip the Eiffel Tower (324 meters) in height, earning this magnificent structure the title of “the world’s tallest bridge.”

Terront claimed a spectacular victory. He rode almost continuously with only brief stops to change flats—a vast difference from his opposition, who took leisurely baths between tire fixes. The second-place rider, on the hitherto de rigueur solid tires, completed the race an astonishing 8 hours and 27 minutes later.

As news of the victory rolled off the presses, some 10,000 cyclists switched to Michelin changeable tires the very next day—or so the story goes. But fact or fiction, it was an epoch-making moment in the history of Michelin’s tire business.

Right next to the original site of André and Édouard Michelin’s first tire factory is the Michelin Group’s beautiful headquarters, with an eye-catching wooden façade composed of streamlined curves. About 10 kilometers north is the Ladoux Research Center where Michelin’s innovation takes place.

Here in this ordinary white building, some 3,000 elite researchers gathered from 41 countries work day in, day out at the forefront of tire technology in 350 research divisions. This is the beating heart of Michelin’s operation, turning out a staggering 15,000 prototypes every year.

“The year 2050 is Michelin’s self-imposed target for the development of tires using 100% sustainable materials. We draw on innovations in the latest racing tires to improve our more widely used stock car tires.”

Leaving Clermont-Ferrand behind, it’s on to the Magny-Cours Circuit, which until 2008 was home of the French Formula 1 Grand Prix. It’s still a hub of French motorsports, hosting some 20 race meets a year. These include the LAMERA Cup endurance race and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe, as well as two-wheeled and track events.

Under a banner of “customer experience and future mobility,” the circuit hosts a gamut of other activities too, such as motorsports-oriented corporate team building exercises and events organized by local racing teams.

What better place to stop for a little “degustation” of France’s long-running automotive culture?

The Cathedral of St. Etienne of Bourges, a chef-d'oeuvre of French Gothic construction and a UNESCO World Heritage site, is known as an important stop on one of the many Christian pilgrimage trails leading to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.

But for a motor-racing fan on a pilgrimage to Le Mans, the most important stop along the way is the Hôtel de France. Over the years, it has hosted a vast number of racing giants: Englishman Roy Salvadori, victor of the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans; Derek Bell, five-time winner of the same race; and the inimitable Stirling Moss. It can even lay claim to a pit stop by Steve McQueen, star of Le Mans on the silver screen.

With garage space for auto maintenance behind the hotel, secure private parking for racing machines, and the Drivers’ Room next door serving delicious fare, the facilities and layout of the venue more than justified Wyer in his choice.

Even when his team allegiance later changed to Ford and then Porsche, Wyer’s loyalty to the Hôtel de France was unwavering.

It is with Aston Martin, however, that the hotel’s deepest affiliation lies. Even today, when the 24 Hours of Le Mans comes around, over a hundred racing aficionados flock to the hotel in their beloved motors. In fact, every year, this now-legendary hotel plays host to another chapter in the beautiful history of motorsports.

Durand’s answer was a new endurance race, initially proposed to be 8 hours long. This was later upped to 12 hours to “increase the amount of driving in the dark and improve automotive night-time lighting,” before the organizers finally decided to go the whole hog and make it a 24-hour race. A year later, in 1923, the first 24 Hours of Le Mans opened to the public.

This marathon, with its unprecedented heritage, took place on the Circuit de la Sarthe, including stretches of public highway commandeered for the event, and a portion of the purpose-built Bugatti Circuit (at a total length of 13.629 km). Of the many named sections and bends along the track—the Porsche Curves, the Tertre Rouge, the Ford Chicanes, to name but a few—the most infamous is surely the Mulsanne Straight.

Sunk into the sidewalk here are handprints honoring the finest drivers to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This puts the boulevard firmly on the list of must-see attractions for racing fans. Until recently, these handprints could be found in the old town, but they were relocated to this main thoroughfare in 2023 to mark the centenary of the great race.

A young man is eyeing the Lexus RC F Track Edition now parked in La Place des Jacobins. It turns out he’s a photographer and editor based in Le Mans.