The French GP file will be re-examined

Recently appointed as the head of the Ministry of Sports, Valérie Fourneyron, who was in charge of the Sports division for François Hollande during the presidential campaign, will have to tackle the thorny issue of the return of the French Grand Prix. While the previous government had clearly expressed its desire for France to host a race on its territory as early as 2013, specifically at the Castellet circuit, the new administration is not making it a priority, although it is not opposed to organizing such an event.

The mayor of Rouen, as François Hollande had done in an interview with the newspaper L’Equipe on April 27, believes that the handling of the issue was hurried due to the electoral deadline facing the then-sitting president: « There was a distinct acceleration on this issue towards the end of the campaign. There hasn’t been a Grand Prix since 2008. There isn’t any opposition to having a Grand Prix in France. »

Ms. Fourneyron indicates that guarantees will need to be provided by the local authorities in charge of the dossier, but also by the governing bodies of the flagship discipline: « But we need transparency on this dossier, on financial opacity, and on the lack of effort by the F1 leader regarding the environment. It’s a dossier that deserves a lot of attention. We also need to know to what extent the State backs a potential deficit of this F1 venue. In Castellet, there are significant accessibility issues. All of this deserves more than a 10-minute consideration. We are not assured of seeing a Grand Prix in France next year, but we are not opposed to it. »

François Hollande expressed, on May 1st during a visit to Nièvre, his desire to see a Franco-French alternation set up from one year to the next, between Magny-Cours and Le Castellet. This solution would allow, similar to Germany currently and Spain from next year, to keep one race per year, while spreading the costs among local authorities, as the new President of the Republic has already indicated several times that the State should not spend a cent on these projects.

If the decision therefore seems far from being made at the moment, it should be noted that on the eve of the second round of the presidential election, on May 5th, the creation of the public interest group “Grand Prix de France” was formalized and made public through the official journal of the Republic. One of its missions is to implement the legal, financial, technical, and commercial means for the promotion and organization of the French Formula 1 Grand Prix. Its members include the state, the Var department where the Paul Ricard circuit is located, as well as the Var Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the French Motorsport Federation. The full text is available on the Légifrance website.