Like the French, Australians liked to share their premier open-wheeler race around. The French invented the term ‘grand prix’, holding the world’s first ‘great prize’ at Le Mans in 1906, and of the 90 Grands Prix de France held since, 17 venues have been used. Of those, six were used just once. The extraordinary Montlhéry on the outskirts of Paris, part speed-bowl, part drive out into the country, hosted the race from 1933-37 and therefore came close to providing a semi-permanent home after the great Italian Tazio Nuvolari won for Alfa Romeo on the high-speed triangular Reims-Gueux in 1932.
The race returned to Reims for the last two GPs before World War II and, when the world championship was introduced in 1950, the venue bounced between ‘the champagne capital’ to the north-east of Paris and Rouen, north-west of the nation’s capital. Then came the roller-coaster-like Charade circuit at Clermont-Ferrand before the new Paul Ricard track near Marseille in the south-east set new standards for safety and amenities. Politics was very much behind the move to Magny-Cours ‘in the middle of nowhere’ in 1991. At last the French GP had a home —
