Next weekend we will have the last French Grand Prix in Magny-Cours. The little village some 250 kms from Paris has hosted the race since 1991, but it was always difficult to find hotel accommodation close to the circuit, traffic was usually terrible and for the VIP guests (not to mention the rest of us!) Magny-Cours was simply too far from everything

It took 15 years for the French organisers to realise that Magny-Cours was never going to be a great success, but now they have asked to have the race removed from the 2008 calendar. That means next season will be the first since 1955 with no French Grand Prix: The race has been a permanent fixture in the Formula 1 World Championship since the start back in 1950, and the 1955 race was only cancelled at short notice because of the tragic accident during the Le Mans 24 Hours race, which killed more than 80 spectators.

The French Grand Prix is likely to make a comeback in the F1 calendar but at the moment it is not clear when and where. There has been talk of a street race near Paris and even Disneyland Paris has been mentioned as a possible location for the “new” French Grand Prix (not necessarily at a “Mickey Mouse circuit”, I understand!). The race could also return to the Paul Ricard circuit near Marseilles, which hosted the race 14 times from 1971 to 1990. This is now a high-tech test circuit (this is where the first Panasonic Toyota Racing cars were developed a few years ago) and it currently lacks the infrastructure (grandstands and so on) to host a Grand Prix. BUT - it is owned by a certain Bernie Ecclestone, whom I understand he can afford to bring the circuit up-to-date as far as spectator facilities goes.

But that is all one or two years into the future - first we have next weekend´s race in Magny-Cours. Panasonic Toyota Racing had a promising race in Indianapolis last week and after a successful test at Silverstone, I am sure the team will travel to Magny-Cours in a positive frame of mind.

While the area around Magny-Cours is not very exciting, the circuit itself is actually quite interesting. It offers a good mixture of slow and fast corners, which calls for a high-downforce set-up. Another feature of the Magny-Cours circuit is the surface., which is very sensitive to changes in temperatures.: The right set-up in the cold of the morning is not necessarily any good in the heat of the afternoon.

Overtaking has always been difficult in Magny-Cours, but each lap offers one good opportunity: Under braking for the Adelaide hairpin, where the cars arrive in seventh gear and a speed close to 300 km/h and have to brake down to first or second gear and a speed of 60-70 km/h.

I will be back on Friday with more news from Magny-Cours!

I arrived here in Magny-Cours late on Thursday afternoon after a flight to Paris and a three-hour driver down to Magny-Cours (that is the problem with Magny-Cours: It takes me as long to go to the French Grand Prix as it takes me to get to Sepang in Malaysia. Well, almost...)

Last night Panasonic Toyota Racing invited me to a cocktail party in their motorhome. As always, it was nice to chat the drivers and team members in a relaxed atmosphere, and we had a great time with good food, nice wine and good company.

Third driver Franck Montagny was there, of course. For Franck, the French Grand Prix is his home race - except he is not going to actually take part in the race. As the Panasonic Toyota Racing third driver, Franck´s job involves a lot of waiting time and “standing by”, but he did actually take part in the 2006 French Grand Prix with the Super Aguri team. “It was good to race here in France last year, and Super Aguri gave me the opportunity to do it, so I was grateful and I had a good time with them. But now it’s a different year and a different team,” he says.

The third driver job has changed quite a lot this year as the “Friday testing” before the Grands Prix has disappeared and “regular” testing between the races has been reduced quite significantly. “That is truer - there is not a lot of testing,” Franck says. “At the beginning of the year it was quite OK. I had a lot of work to do with the team and we developed the car quite well, but since the beginning of the year one of the two drivers is struggling a little bit with the car, so he’s asking to do more testing. We only have one car, so all my days which were on the planning have been taken off (by him) unfortunately for me. That’s the deal; when you sign the contract you know it can be like this. You hope it’s not going to be, but there is the possibility.”

But despite not driving a lot of laps, Franck is still a busy boy. “Every time the car is on track, I am there because I want to be close to the team and I want to be involved one hundred per cent, so if I’m testing or not, I want to be there. So last week I spent all the week at Silverstone.”

Like all third drivers, it is Franck´s ambition to become a full-time race driver. “I always feel there is a possibility. We are only in July or August and it is the same for all the drivers. We are all speaking with all the teams and they are speaking with us, so we are working on that and we will see what happens next. So you will have to be patient...,” he says.

Patience - but only for 24 hours - will also bring us the grid position of Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher for the French Grand Prix. In the practice session this afternoon. Ralf was 10th. and Jarno was 14th. so there is cause for optimism.

Qualifying for tomorrow´s French Grand Prix here in Magny Cours saw Felipe Massa take pole position. Lewis Hamilton was second while Panasonic Toyota Racing drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher will start from eighth and eleventh position respectively.

One of the key members of the Panasonic Toyota Racing team, John Howett (official title: Toyota Motorsport President) was invited to take part in yesterday´s FIA press conference. Here John talked about several things - first of all last week´s test in Silverstone, which saw the Panasonic Toyota Racing drivers produce some promising lap times. Did John expect those promises to be reflected here in Magny-Cours?

“We hope so!” John said. “There’s still a gap, obviously, between us and the top teams, but we’re making steady progress and we hope to see that progress reflected this weekend.”

Improving a Formula 1 car during the season is always a hard job because everybody are developing their cars - the “targets” are moving all time, so to speak. With this in mind - was the jump forward the teams seem to have made at the Silverstone test more than expected?

“I don’t think it’s a jump, really. Basically we’re evolving the car, we have a lot more to come for the rest of the season but we hope we’ll be back more to the competitive position of Barcelona here and at Silverstone,” John said.

As third driver Franck Montagny suggested in yesterday´s diary, Ralf Schumacher has had a difficult time with this year´s Toyota TF107. What exactly is the problem?

“You really have to ask Ralf but the fundamental issue is the front end of the car and the tyre grip at the front and getting the car balanced and giving enough front potential to give him something he can use with the style he has. We are gradually improving that,” John explained.

But why is it affecting Ralf more than Jarno? “I think Ralf has probably less acceptance of an understeering car and therefore we need to get more front performance and more potential onto the front of the car for him,” John said.

Also in yesterday´s diary, third driver Franck Montagny talked about his ambitions to become a race driver. Could he take over from Ralf in 2008?

“That probably depends on next year,” John said. “We have two race drivers and he’s the test driver and third driver in the team and that’s the status that we support. The issue really is whether we continue the contract with Ralf next year, which we are discussing
with him and obviously then, if not, what we would do in the future. But the priority at the moment is to focus on this year, improving the performance and giving Ralf the maximum opportunity with the car.”

And finally John was asked about the future of the French Grand Prix. At the moment, there is unlikely to be a race in France next year as the organisers here in Magny-Cours has asked to be removed from the 2008 calendar.

“Obviously, as a country, France is very important for Toyota,” John said. “We have few plants here and therefore it is a country that we want to race in, but ultimately, the decision is that of the Commercial Rights Holder. We hope that there will be a Grand Prix in France.”

If 2008 is in doubt, there WILL be a French Grand Prix this year. I will tell you about it tomorrow!

The 2007 French Grand Prix produced a fine win for Kimi Raikkonen with Felipe Massa second. Panasonic Toyota Racing drivers Jarno Trulli retired on the first lap while Ralf Schumacher finished in tenth position.

In the media centre, we have the usual fight to finish off our stories and upload our photos, as everybody will want to get out of the circuit before the traffic gets really bad. Most of us will drive up to Paris, which is a three-hour drive under normal circumstances, but with race traffic abound the circuit and the usual Sunday night traffic jams around Paris, it will probably be close to midnight before I check in at my hotel in Charles de Gaulle Airport.

BUT - when I sit in the traffic jams, I will at least know that this is the last time I spend Sunday evening on the >Autoroute A77<. Magny-Cours is likely to have hosted its last French Grand Prix today, and if you get the feeling that I wont miss it too much, you are
absolutely right. The circuit and the area is actually OK - but the long drive to and from the circuit and local robbers disguised as hotel owners made the French Grand Prix one of the least popular races in the F1 calendar as soon as the race moved to Magny-Cours.

Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen seems to agree with me: “The circuit is nice to drive, but it IS a bit difficult here. There is really nothing around the circuit and I don´t think it will be missed too much.

And F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone is not a Magny-Cours fan either. In Friday´s edition of the paddock newspaper Red Bulletin, he said: “I haven´t got a single good memory of Magny-Cours. Not one! Jean-Marie Balestre (former president of both the French FFSA and the FIA) made promises of a motorway to link the circuit to Paris as well as luxury hotels, restaurants and what have you. But it never happened. Magny-Cours is really not a place for Formula One.”

If most of the international visitors will not miss Magny-Cours too much, the absence of a French Grand Prix in the 2008 calendar is obviously a loss to Panasonic Toyota Racing third driver Franck Montagny. “I grew up with the “Grand Prix de France”! I remember, one time I went there with my family and Rene Arnoux bitted into my croissant. And last year I took part in the race with a Super Aguri. Even if the performance of the car would not let me hope for a first place, just taking part in a race in front of my public was a very special feeling. As a driver, my job is to do the best I can on all tracks around the world, but the support of the Magny-Cours public really touched me.”