Le Mans, the Short Way Round

Le Mans held a single Formula 1 Grand Prix, in 1967, and it was run not on the famous 24 Hours course but on the compact Bugatti Circuit.

Formula 1 came to Le Mans once, and took the short way round. The Circuit de la Sarthe is known everywhere for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, first held in 1923, and its endurance course joins private racing sections to public roads that close only for the event. In its current form it runs to 13.626 km, which puts it among the longest circuits anywhere. Its heart was once the six kilometer Hunaudières straight toward the village of Mulsanne, where cars spent almost half the lap at full throttle until two chicanes were added in 1990. It is also where the 1955 disaster happened, the deadliest accident motor sport has known.

In 1965 a far shorter permanent track was built inside the grounds and named the Bugatti Circuit after Ettore Bugatti. It shares the pit complex and the opening corner under the Dunlop bridge with the 24 hour course before turning off into an infield section of its own. In its first form, used from 1965 to 1985, it measured 4.422 km, about a third of the great lap.

The 1967 French Grand Prix was run on the Bugatti Circuit, the only time the World Championship ever used it. Jack Brabham won from second on the grid in a Brabham Repco, a car that carried his own name, and his teammate Denny Hulme followed him home for a one two, with Jackie Stewart third for BRM. Then the French Grand Prix moved on, and Formula 1 never came back.

The Bugatti Circuit has been reshaped several times since, and today, at 4.185 km, it stages the French motorcycle Grand Prix, a 24 hour motorcycle race and the final round of the European truck racing championship, which makes for a varied guest book. To most of the world, though, the name still means one thing: the great endurance race on the full course.

Every Grand Prix here

• 1967 French Grand Prix