A sea of change
After ten years of absence and under the impetus of Christian Estrosi, France is back on the international motor sport scene and is once again integrated into the calendar of the Formula 1 World Championship.
It is in the form of a GIP (Groupement d’Intérêt Public) that the French Grand Prix returns to the Circuit Paul Ricard, with public and private partners such as the Région Sud Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the Métropole Toulon-Provence-Méditerranée, the Conseil Départemental du Var, the Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur, the CCI du Var, the CCI Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the Communauté d’Agglomération Sud Sainte-Baume, and the Circuit Paul Ricard. Lewis Hamilton won the 2018 and 2019 French Grand Prix in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators, followed by Max Verstappen in 2021, in front of nearly 2 million viewers in France and tens of millions more worldwide.