They call it gentleman racing. But there is nothing genteel about five days and thousands of kilometers across France on the Tour Auto. There are no pace notes. No radios. Just a driver, a co-driver, and whatever the car feels like giving you that day. Sometimes it’s speed. Sometimes it’s smoke. Sometimes it’s exactly what you needed.
Sébastien Berchon didn’t grow up thinking he’d be there. He watched F1 during the Prost-Senna days, fell for the noise and the names like anyone else that had a proclivity for speed, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen. “I quickly realized the dream was out of reach,” he says. “So I didn’t insist too much.”
In 2015, a friend invited him to the start of Tour Auto at the Grand Palais in Paris. The hall was packed with machines he’d only ever seen on posters. Ferraris. Facel Vegas. And Jaguars. “That’s when I had a real spark,” he says. “And the following year, I was on the starting line. That’s where it all began.”
Less than twelve months later, Sébastien was strapped into a 1962 Jaguar E-Type, helmet on, fuel scent in his nose, staring down five days of timed stages and track sprints across France. “It weighs a thousand kilos,” he says. “Race prepped, it puts out around 400 horsepower. The power-to-weight ratio is excellent. If you want to be competitive in classic racing, there aren’t that many options. The Cobra, the Shelby, the Cooper. But for me, it’s the design. That British class. The E-Type, without hesitation.”
This is what he means by “knowledgeable, dreaming gentleman.” It’s not a branding statement. It’s a mindset. He’s not out there to cosplay some romantic past. He’s in it. Elbows up. Tools out. He learned the race craft the long way. Through trial and throttle. Through broken parts and missed apexes.
Tour Auto isn’t about rosé and goodie bags. It’s dust, and oil, and late-night repair jobs under parking lot lights. It’s blowing a gearbox on day two. It’s praying your radiator doesn’t split somewhere outside Valence. “So many factors come into play,” he says. “Until the final day and the last moment, until you’ve crossed the finish line, you’re never sure if you’ll win or even make the podium.”
He has. He won in 2023. Second in 2021. A regular face in the top ten. But it’s not the silverware that matters. “What attracts me most is being able to drive a piece of history,” he says. “My Jaguar, in the years 1960–61–62, those were cars that raced at Goodwood, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”
Tour Auto itself has history. First run in 1899 as the Tour de France Automobile. Revived in 1992. In 2025, more than 240 cars took the start. The route ran from Paris to Nice. Through Alsace, the Massif Central, the Côte d’Azur. Five days. Mountain roads. Closed tracks. And the occasional moment of silence, when the engine cuts out and all you can hear is the gravel ticking into the floorpan.
Racing, for Sébastien, is about chasing down the dream he boxed up as a kid. The one that never really left. It just waited in the shadows for the right noise, the right smell, the right spark. And every time the helmet clicks into place, it comes flooding back.
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Report by Kris Clewell for petrolicious.com
