* Grand Prix racing originated in France. The first ever GP was staged at Le Mans in 1906 as an assertion of the country’s then-dominant position in the automotive world. Held over two days and comprising 12 laps of a 64-mile course of rough roads that broke up under the heavy pounding, it was won by Hungarian Ferenc Szisz in a Renault at an average speed of 63mph.


* The French GP was part of the inaugural Formula 1 world championship in 1950. It took place at Reims in the Champagne region of northern France and was won by Juan Manuel Fangio in an Alfa Romeo.


* There has been a French GP every year since, apart from 1955. That year’s race was cancelled in the wake of the tragic accident at Le Mans that killed Pierre Levegh and more than 80 spectators.


* Reims became the spiritual home of the French GP in the 1950s and 1960s. It comprised long straights and full-bore curves linking a pair of tight hairpins and one other major corner, and vied with Spa-Francorchamps for the honour of being the world’s fastest road circuit.


* The 1953 French GP at Reims is regarded as one of the greatest races of all time. Englishman Mike Hawthorn triumphed, beating the great Fangio by one second after two and three-quarter hours of flat-out racing. The top four finishers were blanketed by just 4.6 seconds.


* Giancarlo Baghetti etched his name into the history books by winning his very first (and, as it turned out, only) world championship grand prix in the 1961 event at Reims. To this day he is the only man to have achieved that feat.

Follow up:

* Reims hosted its last French GP in 1966. The crumbling pit garages and billboards still survive by the roadside today as ghostly reminders of a glorious racing past.


* Another major French venue in the post-war period was Rouen in Normandy, which staged five French GPs up to 1968. Laid out in the wooded valley of Les Essarts, just west of the cathedral city, it was a classic public road circuit with every type of corner, notably the dauntingly fast curves leading to the cobbled Nouveau Monde hairpin.


* The 1962 French GP at Rouen was won by Dan Gurney in a Porsche. It remains the German marque’s only grand prix victory.


* By 1965 yet another circuit had been found to host the French GP, the Circuit de Charade – a five-mile roller-coaster ride through the Auvergne mountains above the town of Clermont-Ferrand. Purported to be built on the rock of an extinct volcano, Clermont was nicknamed the ‘mini-Nurburgring’ for its dizzying succession of corners and hilly topography.


* As the 1970s ushered in a more safety-conscious era in Formula 1, the traditional public road courses gradually gave way to modern, purpose-built ‘autodrome’ circuits. The French GP was the prototype for this trend, when in 1971 it took place at a state-of-the-art new circuit at Le Castellet on the Mediterranean coast, bankrolled by the pastis tycoon Paul Ricard.


* Paul Ricard was popular for its location and climate but the circuit itself was somewhat bland, at least by comparison with the old road circuits. However, it established itself as the de facto home of the French GP in the 1970s and 1980s.


* Ricard is now owned by Bernie Ecclestone and has been totally rebuilt. Undoubtedly the most modern circuit in Europe, it offers a bewildering number of track configurations and is used extensively for F1 testing.


* In the 1970s and early 1980s the French GP alternated between Paul Ricard and Dijon-Prenois in the Burgundy wine country. Where Ricard was fast, flat and featureless, Dijon was all swooping corners and adverse cambers. Its short lap distance meant that negotiating slower traffic was always a major headache.


* Jean-Pierre Jabouille’s victory at Dijon in 1979 was the first for a turbocharged grand prix car. It was also Renault’s maiden F1 win, 73 years after it took the honours in that landmark ‘grand prix’ in 1906.


* The 1979 race witnessed arguably the greatest dice in F1 history – Rene Arnoux and Gilles Villeneuve repeatedly swapped positions and banged wheels as they disputed second place in the closing stages. Villeneuve finally prevailed.


* Renault went on to win a hat-trick of French GPs in 1981-83, each time with a Frenchman behind the wheel. Alain Prost won in ’81 and ’83 and Arnoux triumphed in ’82.


* In 1982 France held two rounds of the world championship, but the second, at Dijon, was designated the Swiss Grand Prix, despite racing having been banned in that country since the 1955 Le Mans tragedy.


* In 1991 the French GP moved from Paul Ricard to Magny-Cours near Nevers for domestic political reasons. A modern, ultra-smooth track, the layout is not without challenge for the drivers but strikes most observers as bland and sterile all the same. Nor does Nevers have the compensations of Provence...


* The French GP is one of the few long-established races on the F1 calendar that Ayrton Senna never won. His best result was second in 1988.


* Alain Prost is by far the most successful French driver of all time with four world championships and 51 grand prix victories. He won his home race no fewer than six times between 1981 (his maiden F1 success) and 1993.


* But Prost’s number of French GP wins was trumped by Michael Schumacher in 2004, who won the event for the seventh time. He goes into this year's race looking to become the first man to win the same race on eight occasions.


* Then-McLaren driver David Coulthard set the fastest race lap for five consecutive French GPs from 1998-2002 – but he only won the race once, famously passing Schumacher at the hairpin in 2000.


* Remarkably, nine of the last 12 French GPs have been won by Germans. In addition to Michael Schumacher’s seven victories, brother Ralf (2003) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (1999) have scored a win apiece.


* Fernando Alonso took a convincing home win for Renault in Magny-Cours last year, comfortably seeing off Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren and Michael Schumacher's Ferrari.


* Unsurprisngly given his record in France, Schumacher holds the lap record at Magny-Cours – a 1m15.377s set in his 2004 Ferrari.


Source: ITV-f1


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