• Home
  • News
  • F1
  • Flavio Briatore dreams of the return of the French Grand Prix… but in Paris
F1

Flavio Briatore dreams of the return of the French Grand Prix… but in Paris

For Flavio Briatore, executive advisor ofAlpine, France must regain its place in the Formula 1 calendar. However, the Italian believes that neither Magny-Cours nor Le Castellet are suitable.

Published 19/02/2025 à 12:33

Dorian Grangier

  Comment on this article! 6

Flavio Briatore dreams of the return of the French Grand Prix… but in Paris

© Xavi Bonilla / DPPI

It wasn't just the drivers who put on a show at the ceremony on Tuesday. F1 75 Live in London. Team directors and leading figures from the industry were also present for this unprecedented launch of the 2025 season. While some took the stage and harangued the crowd, like James Vowles or Christian Horner, others remained more discreet... at least, in front of the cameras.

Flavio Briatore, executive advisor ofAlpine, was on site at the O2 Arena to experience the event and the presentation of the A525 livery. Before the ceremony, the Italian leader quickly spoke with the media present on site, including AUTOhebdo, in order to answer a few questions. And one of them was about the possible return of the French Grand Prix to the calendar. And as one might expect, the 74-year-old sulphurous businessman has a very strong opinion on the matter. Flavio Briatore confided that he dreamed of seeing a French Grand Prix on the Formula 1 calendar again… but "not in Magny-Cours or in Castellet, but in Paris". According to the leader ofAlpine, only the French capital can offer an exceptional setting, both in terms of hospitality and tourism, to host Formula 1.

"In Magny-Cours, there is half nothing and in Castellet, it was impossible for traffic. Formula 1 deserves a Grand Prix in Paris, says the Italian leader. Not in the city centre, not under the Eiffel Tower but over there, it's magnificent. [You have to go] where there is all the hotel capacity to accommodate everyone that F1 attracts, the sponsors, the people who work for F1. It's not Le Castellet and even less Magny-Cours that can offer that. Everyone wants a Grand Prix in France, Formula 1 is missing from France! A Grand Prix in Paris would be great.

A French GP in Paris, not such a new idea…

Since its disappearance from the Formula 1 calendar in 2022, the French Grand Prix has been the subject of many rumors. The latest news is that in June 2024, Stefano Domenicali assured that he had not yet "met anyone" on this subject. "I saw (...) the president of the FFSA, Nicolas Deschaux (since replaced by Pierre Gosselin), and Christian Estrosi, who is in charge of the French GP file for your Ministry of Sports. But nothing more. I understand and respect the decision of your government which is focusing on the Olympic Games. Maybe after that, they will have a little more time for us to come back together on this file", said the F1 president with The TeamA few months earlier, the Italian leader had raised the idea of ​​a Grand Prix in Nice, but This hypothesis was immediately refuted by the city's mayor, Christian Estrosi..

The idea of ​​a French GP in the Paris region is not new, since in the 2000s, the project of a circuit close to Disneyland Paris, in Marne-la-Vallée, had been discussed. Other projects in Flins, Sarcelles and Satory had also been put on the table, without success.

ALSO READ > Doohan worried by Colapinto at Alpine ? “I was told he was a reserve pilot…”

Autohebdo Store / Flash Sales

See the shop

Dorian Grangier

A young journalist nostalgic for the motorsport of yesteryear. Raised on the exploits of Sébastien Loeb and Fernando Alonso.

Comment on this article! 6

Continue reading on these topics:

Alpine F1 Flavio Briatore Grand Prix of France
Read also

Comments

6 Comment (s)

L

Lucas Paul

20/02/2025 at 09:46 a.m.

In other words, it's like in politics, you can do all the horrors possible, but you'll still be taken back :(:(:( to be liquidated....for the well-being of F1.......

Yves-Henri RANDIER

19/02/2025 at 04:48 a.m.

Il Magnifico "Brille A Tort" likes to get moving, unless he also has an excellent supplier of weed! Even if he still has a good address book, there is no point in hoping for anything from the bitterness of Paris or the region to pay for a (yuck!) track in the city (the Formula E coffee grinders having already disappeared from the Parisian landscape) or to create a new circuit in the nearby suburbs, or even to renovate the Linas Monthléry track. In any case, with the record debt that is weighing us down for a certain number of years, it is difficult to imagine financing a return of F1 to France!

1

B

Bouttefort

19/02/2025 at 03:33 a.m.

Another urban circuit? What a joke (a real circuit rather)

DANIEL MEYERS

19/02/2025 at 02:51 a.m.

@dedeHJ37: Magny-Cours?: No accommodation, terrible track, no covered stands, impossible to accommodate more than 80000 spectators there at most and the norm today is at least 100000 per day. A good point, the motorway that passes in front (in fact the extension of the A77 by the Nal 7 made into 2x2 lanes) The fact remains that despite this, I'm not sure it won't take less than 2 hours to get out of the car parks!

1

DANIEL MEYERS

19/02/2025 at 02:40 a.m.

Go dig through the archives of Auto Hebdo Mr Grangier and find us the issue where the project of a GP on the Champs Élysée was presented (in fact more or less the usual route of the intra-muros Tour de France)

2

D

dedeHJ37

19/02/2025 at 02:36 a.m.

the aging playboy boasts about wanting to get along with the Parisian bobos but he forgets an essential site: Magny-Cours which has the big advantage of being in the center of France and would be appreciated by many enthusiasts while the Castelet benefits the southerners and the Italians, as for Paris no interest except the bling-bling

1

To write a comment