Charade Circuit

Motorsport track in France

Charade, a Circuit Around a Volcano

Looping around an extinct volcano above Clermont Ferrand, Charade was a ribbon of unbroken curves that staged the French Grand Prix on four occasions.

Few circuits can claim an extinct volcano as their centerpiece. The Circuit de Charade, also called Clermont Ferrand or the Circuit Louis Rosier, wraps around the base of the Puy de Grave Noire, which commands the skyline above Clermont Ferrand, at Saint Genès Champanelle in the Puy de Dôme department of the Auvergne, in central France. After the Second World War, Jean Auchatraire of the regional automobile club and the driver Louis Rosier shaped a course out of the existing roads around the mountain. Work began in May 1957, and the first races followed in July 1958.

The original lap ran to 8.055 km and was likened to a Nürburgring with even more turns and even more speed. It offered almost no real straights, only one curve after another, rising and falling, and it earned both fear and respect. The constant turning could unsettle even a professional stomach, and Jochen Rindt complained of motion sickness in 1969. The volcano supplied a further hazard. Dark rocks tumbled onto the verges, and a car running wide could flick them into the path of whoever followed.

Jim Clark won the first French Grand Prix held here, in 1965 for Lotus, and that same year the film Grand Prix shot scenes at the circuit, with local residents cast as the crowd. Charade staged four championship rounds in all, in 1965, 1969, 1970 and 1972. Jackie Stewart won twice, with Matra and then with Tyrrell, and Rindt won in 1970. In 1972 the loose stones exacted their price. Ten drivers had punctures, and a rock thrown up by a car ahead went through Helmut Marko's visor, costing him the sight of his left eye and ending his career as a driver.

On a mountainside there was no room for run off, and the French Grand Prix went to newer, safer circuits. After the full course was raced for the last time in 1988, the regional council paid for a new 3.975 km circuit on the southern part of the old one, which opened in 1989. Since 2000 it has been closed to public traffic, a permanent home for track days and historic events, while the rest of the original route still carries everyday drivers around the volcano.

Every Grand Prix here

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