The French Are Back!!!

By Simon

On Friday, I mentioned I was saddened that F1 has dropped from its calendar countries that have a strong motor racing culture—France is one of those countries. The French Grand Prix was dropped a few years ago, but it looks as if Bernie Ecclestone has struck a new deal and the French GP is back.

However, instead of returning to Magny Cours which has been the home of the French GP for the last twenty years, it will take place at Paul Ricard, which was the on and off home to the French GP from 1970-1990. All sounds pretty fine and dandy until you take a look at the track. Regardless of whether you use to the long or short circuits, Paul Ricard has massive straights. The Mistral Straight is 1.8 km long! This makes Paul Ricard a mega fast track, but also one of those tracks where it’s easy to run out of revs, so it’ll be interesting how the gearing will go.

That said, Paul Ricard is a popular F1 test track, so I’m guessing it’ll have few surprises for most of the teams. It’ll certainly be interesting to see a modern F1 car turning wheels there again compared to the late 80’s.

Either way, Paul Ricard is a balls out track that'll hard on engines, which means it should make for a great race. :-)