Motorsport: Great to see the French GP back

The French Grand Prix was last held in 2008. Photo / Getty Images

After a long break with the last event taking place in 2008, the good news story in Formula 1 at the moment, amongst a sea of acrimony after the Azerbaijan GP and normal paddock politics of course, is that the French Grand Prix is back on the calendar, at least for 2018.

The oldest Grand Prix of them all, the very first one dating back to 1906, is one of those races that should be on the season's destinations almost by right. If the German inventors Benz, Daimler and Maybach gave birth to the internal combustion engine then France was the cradle of motor racing in those very early days and pushed the boundaries in inventive horseless carriage manufacture.

During the late 1880s small motorcar manufacturers suddenly appeared in almost every European country, as well as the USA, and the 'need for speed' saw the development over the next decades of untold numbers of the 'stagecoach' style driven by steam, electricity and finally petrol.

Individual contests for motorcars soon proliferated but they were all in the endurance bracket with France leading the way with a race from Paris to Rouen, a distance of just over 120kms and the first to complete the distance in a time of 6 hours and 48 minutes was the magnificently named 'Count Jules-Albert de Dion' but he was later disqualified as he had a 'stoker' on board, against the rules, to maintain the steam pressure.

With the largest car manufacturing industry in Europe at the time the French carmakers wanted to show their wares and along came the first 'official' Grand Prix, held with help from the local mayor and businesses, at the now famous Le Mans.

In the fashion of the time the race followed the endurance model and was run over two days and a total of 1,238.16 kilometres open to all comers, national or international.
In typical French pomp a major Parisian newspaper of the time wrote " If we (the French) win the Grand Prix we shall let the whole world know that French motorcars are the best. If we lose, it shall merely be by accident, and our rivals should then be grateful to us for having been sufficiently sportsmanlike to allow them an appeal against the bad reputation of their cars".

Clearly the French attitude has changed little over the years. A Renault won the race.

The early French motor sport authorities founded many of the rules and regulations for motor racing and even today the governing authority for much of the worlds motor sport and motoring activities is based in the 'Place de la Concorde' in the heart of Paris.

Since those days the French Grand Prix found many homes. In the modern era of the Formula 1 Grands Prix, since 1950, seven different courses have been used with two of them, Reims and Rouen being public road tracks.

In December of last year it was announced by the FIA that the Grand Prix de France had a scheduled date during the 2018 F1 season and just last week the FIA confirmed the date for the race on June 24th 2018 at the Circuit Paul Ricard near Marseille, a track which last hosted an F1 GP in 1990 and a complete antithesis to the likes of the Monaco and Azerbaijan tracks.

That track brings back many good, and bad, memories for me.

The bad revolves around accidents on track and especially the death of Elio de Angelis in testing his Brabham F1 car 1986. The good are more personal with the track being close to the Mediterranean, to the port town of Bandol, the delightful Rose wine of the region, race wins for McLaren with both James Hunt and Alain Prost and simply a good place to be.

As an aside the Circuit is owned by a Bernie Ecclestone 'Family Trust'. You really cannot keep a good man down.

Unlike the Magny Cours track near Nevers in central France which, in 1991 was as unpopular as any track can be. Striking French truck driver blockades, officious and overbearing officialdom, and a track that was uninteresting for both the drivers and spectators.

With the final timing line just metres after the last corner McLaren driver Ayrton Senna reckoned the way to get the fastest time would be to come around the corner as fast as possible even though he may well have been out of control. He did just that and went across the timing line backwards but none the less achieved his fastest qualifying time in doing so.

However it was not all bad with the famous Sancerre wine region just down the road from the town of Nevers.

With Liberty Media, the new owners of Formula 1 publicly saying that it was important for the sport to concentrate on it's roots, there can be no deeper root than the French Grand Prix and the Circuit Paul Ricard at Le Castellet in the Var region of France is a very welcome and fitting returnee to the series.