Inside the box there is a double sided board. Both sides depict two fictitious courses, one English and one French. The tracks are overlayed with a square grid and the cars race around the track, not in the squares like Formula De, but on the intersections of the squares. There are eight cars available to race with and each car has a racing pawn, which is the crux of the movement system the game uses.

Suppose you car moves 3 forward and 1 to the right. The pawn is then placed 3 forward and 1 to the right of the cars new position. The next turn, you car can now move to any position around the pawn within a four square grid of the pawn, with the pawn at the centre of that grid.
So, in the above example, you could move a minimum of 1 forward and two to the right or left, or 5 forward and two to the right or left, and anywhere inbetween, all the while your car has to stay on the track, although your pawn can and will leave the track! This of course means you cannot go flat out into a bend at say, speed 7, as your pawn will then leave the board and be several imaginary squares beyond!

This really gives a feeling of inertia as you go around the curves, with each action you take having a consequence and works really well for a racing game - you can almost feel the g-forces as you try to get around the curves, especially the hairpin bends!

We did uncover a couple of things in the Italian translation.

One is that you can use a Booster each turn to move the position of your pawn by rolling on a table. This table refers to gears, which had us stumped as the game doesn't use gears. Checking this out since playing, the word gear simply means speed, so when it says 4th gear in the table, it means you can go speed 3 or less, or speed 5 or more, but cannot go speed 4 until you get the car fixed at the pits, which is where the other problem lies.

We didn't find the rules all that clear on how to get through the pitlane. My first attempt took me several turns and by the time I emerged the other cars were well down the track and uncatchable.
What actually happens (checked with the designer)is that when you cross the 'Pitstop In' line you then move your car (without using the pawn) to the Pitstop box to do repairs, or the half fuel box if you need fuel. The turn after you then move your car to the 'Pitstop Out' line and continue racing. This will take you two turns on the English track and 5 turns on the French track, (due to the position of the two boxes). (Also note that you must enter the French pitlane at only speed 2, no speed limit on the English track)

SUMMARY:
So, if you enjoy racing games, like Formula De, then this is well worth buying. It has a quite different feel to it than Formula De, and, despite the rule translation problems above, still makes a fine game. A race will take about an hour a lap, depending how many players there are, of course.

Review by Brian