Fabien Delaplace and Laurent Piguet: “Champagne to celebrate our 2014 victory, that wouldn’t be bad”

The Lamera Cup regularly allows motorsport novices to experience their first adrenaline rushes in competition. Often, they get a taste for it and come back for more. Laurent Piguet and Fabien Delaplace are among these rookies who have taken to this single-make formula. And for good reason! They were the actors in an unusual story ten years ago.

“We have known each other for a long time through work.” says Laurent, a metallurgical products trader. “As we both enjoy motorsport, we decided to sponsor Nicolas Beraud, a childhood friend from my native Normandy”, continues Fabien, boss of an industrial sheet metal workshop. "Nicolas notably competed in the Porsche Carrera Cup. He is also a driving instructor. Seeing our enthusiasm for racing, he offered us lessons. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to find endurance races to compete in together. With good preparation though…

© Alexandre Montesinos

"We took part in around ten days of private testing, notably with a Porsche 996 GT3 Cup. First on the Magny-Cours training circuit and then at Lurcy Levis." As for the choice of the Lamera Cup, it was made following Laurent Piguet's visit to the Val-de-Vienne circuit.

“In September 2014, after a day spent riding my motorbike, I saw some Lamera Cup trucks line up in the paddock. I asked around and this formula seemed interesting to me. Of course, before tackling a full season, we wanted to see if we would like this type of car and this type of racing. Wilfried Merafina, the boss of Lamera, advised us to contact the CTF team to rent a car. That's how we found ourselves in Dijon a few weeks later.

Test transformed into… victory

"The crazy thing is that we won the race", says Laurent Piguet. "Of course, we benefited from special circumstances and we were very well helped by Nicolas Beraud, our team-mate-coach. But never, ever, had we participated in a car competition until this weekend of October 18 and 19, 2014." Should we add that the two friends were more than excited by the experience to the point of playing the entire season in 2015?

"We finished 6th overall and were quickly reclassified in the Elite category. In 2016 and 2017, we won the title and, still with CTF, we took part in 24 Hour races in Dubai, Portimao and Austin the following year."

Fabien Delaplace. © Alexandre Montesinos

With this experience, Fabien Delaplace and Laurent Piguet won the title of French champions in Ligier JS Cup in 2020 and became vice-champions in Ligier European Series two years ago.

Ten years to the day after their triumph in Dijon, the two friends are back in the Lamera Cup. Still with the CTF team. But this time, the 3rd man is called Thomas Piguet, Laurent's son. "Ah, if we could celebrate this anniversary with a champagne shower on the podium, that would be great.", the two friends smile.