Circuit Paul Ricard
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| Location | Le Castellet, France |
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| Time zone | GMT +1 (DST: +2) |
| Coordinates | 43°15′2″N 5°47′30″E / 43.25056°N 5.79167°ECoordinates: 43°15′2″N 5°47′30″E / 43.25056°N 5.79167°E |
| Major events |
WTCC French Grand Prix MotoGP FIA GT 6 Hours of Castellet |
| Current layout (with Mistral chicane) | |
| Length | 5.861 km (3.642 mi) |
| Turns | 25 |
| Long Circuit (1970–1999) | |
| Length | 5.809 km (3.610 mi) |
| Turns | 14 |
| Lap record | 1:39.914 ( Keke Rosberg, Williams-Honda FW10, 1985) |
| Club Circuit (1986–1999) | |
| Length | 3.812 km (2.369 mi) |
| Turns | 9 |
| Lap record | 1:08.012 ( Nigel Mansell, Ferrari 641, 1990) |
| Website | www |
The Circuit Paul Ricard is a motorsport race track built in 1969 at Le Castellet, near Marseille, in France, with finance from the eccentric pastis magnate Paul Ricard. Ricard wanted to experience the challenge of building a highway.
Opened on 19 April 1970, its innovative facilities made it one of the safest motor racing circuits in the world at the time of its opening. The circuit had three track layout permutations, a large industrial park and an airstrip. The combination of modern facilities, mild winter weather and an airstrip made it popular amongst racing teams for car testing during the annual winter off-season.
The original track was dominated by the 1.8 km long Mistral Straight that is followed by the high-speed right hand Signes corner. The long main straight and other fast sections made the track very hard on engines as they ran at full revs for extended spells. Engine failures were common, such as Ayrton Senna's huge crash during the 1985 French Grand Prix after the Renault engine in his Lotus failed and he went off backwards at Signes on his own oil and crashed heavily, fortunately with only light bruising to the driver. Nigel Mansell crashed at the same place in the same weekend during practice and suffered a concussion which kept him out of the race. Mansell's crash was the result of a slow puncture in his left rear tyre causing it to explode at over 200 mph, which detached his Williams FW10's rear wing. The Honda powered FW10 holds the race lap record for the original circuit when Mansell's team mate Keke Rosberg recorded a time of 1:39.914 during the 1985 French Grand Prix. During qualifying for the 1985 race, Swiss driver Marc Surer clocked what was at the time the highest speed recorded by a Formula One car on the Mistral when he pushed his turbocharged, 1,000 bhp (746 kW; 1,014 PS) Brabham-BMW to 338 km/h (210 mph). This compared to the slowest car in the race, the 550 bhp (410 kW; 558 PS) naturally aspirated Tyrrell-Ford V8 of Stefan Bellof which could only manage 277 km/h (172 mph). Not surprisingly, Bellof qualified 9 seconds slower than Surer and 12 seconds slower than pole winner Rosberg.
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Wikipedia