Jean Todt supports the French GP

Jean Todt, the new president of the International Automobile Federation, confirmed that he supports and will continue to support the idea of a Grand Prix in France, an event that disappeared from the calendar this year.

The problem for the French Grand Prix is the same as for Silverstone. To be included in F1, the organizers must pay very heavy fees to Formula One Management (FOM), managed by Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder of the sport, with an annual inflation of over 10%. These fees amounted to 16 million euros for Magny-Cours 2008. For Silverstone 2010, Bernie Ecclestone, in a rare act of generosity, reduced his offer to 10 million euros.

But the terms of the contracts stipulate that ticket sales are the only source of revenue for the organizers. In 2008, the local communities in Burgundy had to cover a deficit of 7 million euros, and Silverstone announced a net profit of 734,000 euros.

Magny-Cours was therefore unable to organize the race in 2009 for economic reasons, and the efforts made since to establish a new venue have so far proven unsuccessful. The French race was on the calendar from the very first Formula One World Championship in 1950, and it took place on the Reims circuit. Since then, the French Grand Prix has only been absent from the calendar twice, in 1955 and in 2009.

Last August, the president of the French Federation of Automobile Sports, Nicolas Deschaux, said he believed that the election of Jean Todt as president of the FIA could facilitate efforts to bring back a Grand Prix in France. Following Jean Todt’s election, Nicolas Deschaux was appointed as a member of the new World Motor Sport Council.

« This will be part of the files we will review. I have already discussed it with friends from the French Federation of Motor Sports, members of the government, the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister… I wish for France to have a Formula 1 Grand Prix, » stated Jean Todt to AFP, the day after his induction.

Bernie Ecclestone, responsible for developing the annual Formula One championship calendar, had been skeptical about the chances of the French Grand Prix returning. “I sent them a contract and it was not sent back to me,” Bernie Ecclestone explained to the newspaper Le Parisien. “It’s a shame because it will be more difficult to find a spot in the calendar. They must act quickly because time is running out.”