Former McLaren racing director Eric Boullier who is the boss of the French GP has revealed that it was quite an ordeal for his team to put together the French GP at Paul Ricard after it was moved ahead following the cancellation of the Turkish GP which had in fact replaced the Canadian GP. Boullier was asked to move the race to June 20 in order to make room for the extra race in Austria on June 27. "It was a big problem. You don't set a grand Prix up in the last three days. It's a few months' works which we had to scrap and to adjust and to move. During the Grand Prix, I've got 1,200 people, they had booked their week to work for us, and when you move the date six weeks before, they have to change all their plans. Then the spectators, obviously. Everybody has booked his plane, train, accommodation or whatever, and they had to change everything again. So it's been a challenge," Boullier told motorsport.com explaining the challenges he went through.
Boullier also revealed that when it had moved the date by the week before the most recent F1 request, the race lost 20 per cent of the spectators, however, those tickets were resold almost immediately. Due to the pandemic, like anywhere, organising such a big event has been a challenge.
The event had been cancelled in 2020 but this time Paul Ricard was given special dispensation to have more spectators than normally permitted even at Roland Garros (the French Open) which recently concluded. This means that the race at Paul Ricard will be the biggest sporting event in France since the advent of the pandemic.
The track at Paul Ricard is the home track for the Alpine F1 team
"In France normally you cannot have more than 5,000 spectators per event. Because of the specific design or layout of the Paul Ricard track, which is obviously very big, we can have three bubbles that are completely independent. We've been allowed to have 15,000 spectators, so three times 5,000. And every bubble is completely independent. They have their own access, their own parking. Nobody can cross the path of anyone," he revealed.
"It's been a strange time for everybody. We are happy we can have a race, happy we have some spectators. We're going to be the first big event in France. There's Roland Garros and the Cannes Festival, but with 15,000 spectators, this is the biggest so far. So it's good to be back," said Boullier revealing how big a deal this event was.
Boullier also revealed that 85 per cent of the spectators were from France while 15 per cent were foreigners. This spread wasn't too dissimilar from what happened at a normal French GP but this year it was a challenge to organise all the paperwork for personnel to be allowed into France especially the ones travelling from the UK considering that's the home base for 7 teams and much of the most of the production crew.
"To be honest, the challenge has been mainly to deal with the authorities, between the health minister or home office minister, to actually to get the laissez-passer for the UK people to come in, because they have been in Baku, which is outside Europe, less than 14 days before entering the French territory. That has been the biggest challenge, to get the authorisation from the government to let them in," he said.
As a parting thought, Boullier threw Paul Ricard's hat in to host another race this season if there would be a need to fill in for a cancellation. He also pointed towards the favourable conditions at the track which makes it usable till the end of next year, unlike many other European tracks.
