Circuit Bremgarten

Race track

Bremgarten, Switzerland's Forest Circuit

Threading a forest on the edge of Bern, Bremgarten hosted the Swiss Grand Prix until Switzerland banned circuit racing after the Le Mans disaster of 1955.

Circuit Bremgarten never had a proper main straight. Its 7.280 km lap was a chain of high speed corners strung through the Bremgartenwald, the forest on the northern side of Bern, and the trees were never far from the road. The circuit opened in 1931 as a motorcycle track, held its first car race in 1934 and remained the home of the Swiss Grand Prix until 1954.

Those trees helped make it one of the most dangerous circuits of its day. They lined the road and kept the light dim, and the surface changed from one stretch to the next, a hard combination in the wet. Hugh Hamilton was killed at the first car race in 1934, and in 1948 Achille Varzi and the motorcycle racer Omobono Tenni both lost their lives there.

The Swiss Grand Prix belonged to the very first World Championship season, and Bremgarten held 5 championship rounds from 1950 to 1954. Giuseppe Farina won the 1950 race, and Juan Manuel Fangio won twice, in 1951 for Alfa Romeo and in 1954 for Mercedes. Piero Taruffi chose this forest for the only championship victory of his career, with Ferrari in 1952, and Alberto Ascari won in 1953.

The end was abrupt. After the Le Mans disaster of June 1955, Switzerland outlawed racing in which cars compete for position, leaving only hillclimbs and rallies, and that August's Swiss Grand Prix was cancelled. Bremgarten has staged no official race since. An attempt in parliament to lift the ban was withdrawn in 2009, and later Swiss Grands Prix had to cross the border to Dijon Prenois. Much of the old circuit now lies under buildings or a forest cycle path, though a few paved stretches, among them the right hand Eymatt and Tenni curves, still trace the old line through the woods: a racing line with no races left to run.

Every Grand Prix here

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