Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours

The Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours is a motor racing circuit located in France, near the towns of Magny-Cours and Nevers. It is most famous for staging the Formula One French Grand Prix, which has been held here since 1991.

Usually dubbed Magny-Cours, it was first built in 1960 by Jean Bernigaud and was home to a racing school, which provided such notable drivers as François Cévert and Jacques Laffite. However, come the 1980s, the track was in a very bad shape and it wasn’t until the Regional Conseil de la Nièvre bought the track, that international motor racing started to return.

In the 1990s the Ligier (and, after Ligier was bought, Prost) Formula One team was based at the circuit and did much of its testing at Magny-Cours.

The track nowadays is a modern, smooth circuit with good facilities for the spectators. Most corners are named after other racing circuits, e.g. the fast Estoril corner and the Adelaide hairpin. It is a flat circuit, with negligible change in elevation.

The circuit doesn’t provide a lot of overtaking opportunities, which means the races here are commonly regarded as quite uneventful, with the exception of the recent races in which it rained. Most notable of these races was the 1999 race, which was interrupted by a downpour. After a restart, most top contenders developed problems, which paved the way for Heinz-Harald Frentzen to claim a surprising victory in his Jordan.

In 2002, the final corner and chicane were changed in an effort to increase overtaking, with little effect. This did, however, change the approach to strategy at this circuit as it made the pitlane much shorter. Because less time was lost making a pit stop, Michael Schumacher was able to win the 2004 French Grand Prix using an unprecedented four-stop strategy.

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Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours website
Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours wikipedia entry
Formula 1 website

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