The Brasserie Wepler is known for its oysters.
It is a large restaurant on the Place Clichy. You cannot miss it. It’s red. Very red – and Belle Epoque in style. The brasserie, in the north of Paris, has been in business since 1881 and was a celebrated place where writers and artists used to hang out. The list of clients, so they say, included Henry Miller, Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice Utrillo.
It is at the foot of the Butte Montmartre, on top of which are the famous Place du Tertre and Sacré-Coeur, but the Place Clichy is not very touristy. For years it was a place where car people would meet. It is just around the corner from the Grand Garage de la Place Clichy, the biggest garage in Paris in the 1920s, with space on multiple levels for 1,000 cars, in addition to a workshop and a Renault dealership.
Real car nuts will know that this belonged to Charles Escoffier and afterwards, when his daughter Michelle married Jean Rédélé, it became the birthplace of Rédélé’s first Alpines.
Even back in the 1920s, the district attracted car people. The Wepler was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week and in 1922 it became the regular watering hole for the staff of the weekly sports newspaper L’Aero-Sports, which had offices on the floors above the restaurant. The magazine was set up that year by Alexandre Lamblin, the owner of a hugely-successful radiator company. Late in the war he had invented a new type of radiator for fighter planes, these were known as “lobster pots” and he sold around 30,000 of them in the years after the war. He then expanded the business into automobiles and even air conditioning systems. He had more money than he knew what to do with. His offices were on the rue de Copenhague, an easy walk from the Wepler, and so he would often dine with his staff and they would be joined by racing folk who frequented Escoffier’s garage.
One evening over dinner in 1923 the discussion turned to the need for a speedway in the Paris region. Monza and Avus were already open and there was an oval being built at Miramas, near Marseille, and another by the Spanish at Sitges-Terramar. Lamblin understood what was at stake and said: “I’ll build an autodrome”.
He soon found a 1,000-acre estate on a wooded plateau of Saint-Eutrope, above the village of Linas, on the Route Nationale 20, the main road from Paris to Orléans and Toulouse. The location was perfect because although few people owned cars, they could get to Linas on a steam tramway line that ran from the Porte d’Orleans to Arpajon. From the station they would walk up the hill.
The work cost a fortune. In modern terms it was in the region of $250 million and Lamblin had to buy extra land in order to create a road course so that his circuit could host the Grand Prix de l’ACF. But no-one worried much about planning permission and the work was done with impressive speed and the oval was ready for the opening race in October 1924.
The track held the Grand Prix in 1925 and although the circuit went bankrupt in 1928, it continued to be the centre of French motorsport until the 1960s and continued to hold big races until the 1970s and Formula 3 went on until 1989.
I remember in 1984, the local “county council” commissioned a study to see whether the circuit could be revamped to hold a Formula 1 race and a very clever plan was drawn up to put a 2.8-mile road circuit into the infield and convert the oval into grandstands.
The problem was the cost, while access and parking were also complicated. The reason I write all of this is that with a (rare) break from F1 at this time of year, I was able to do things I would not normally do (like watching the leaves at home change colour). I was offered the chance to go to the 100th anniversary celebration at Montlhéry and was delighted to accept.
The circuit has been owned since late 1946 by a company called UTAC, an automobile development and validation testing company, which uses Montlhéry for its tests. I’d never been inside the facility before because public events were few and far between.
The invitation came by chance because one of the top executives at UTAC used to work for Williams F1 and we bumped into one another in a Paris airport a few years back. I had no idea what UTAC did, but I was aware that it owned a test centre (a former Simca facilty) hidden away in woodland not far from Senlis, if only because I had driven past it and wondered what was behind the impressive gateway. Nowadays UTAC owns the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire and a similar facility at Leyland in Lancashire, plus others elsewhere.
Vehicle development and homologation testing must be a very good business as a huge amount of work has been done at Montlhéry and the track is nicely preserved. It has also benefited from a vast tree-planting programme, which is good for environmental reasons and, of course, so that prying eyes cannot see what is running around inside.
There are actually a lot more tracks like this than one might imagine with at least nine others that I can think of in France – and probably a lot more than that – because one only ever sees these things when you fly over them. Many years ago I wrote a book about racing circuits and have been interested in old venues ever since and so if I happen to be in an area where I knew there was once a track, I will make a detour to take a look. When it comes to the big old road circuits from the early days of the sport this can be quite an adventure, but I have done all manner of them over time, most recently the Gordon Bennett Cup circuit in the Taunus mountains to the north of Frankfurt. There is little left to show these days.
Some years ago, when I was living near the forest of Compiegne, I discovered that there had been a circuit around the area and discovered to my amusement that it had passed in front of my own front door.
I have been to many tracks which have disappeared without trace under housing developments or industrial parks. It is the way of the world. But it is nice to find one that is looked after properly.
I had a splendid day at the Autodrome, looking at marvellous old cars, wandering around buying obscure books, which was a welcome respite from F1 circuits the world over. I was even lucky enough to be driven around the track in a souped-up Alpine.
This week I am off to Austin and while the F1 has been pretty quiet of late, there are a lot of race contracts up for renewal. I thought it was fascinating in recent days to see that a German-speaking Belgian politician Pascal Arimont, who comes from the Spa area and is a European MP, is saying that Liberty Media has too much power in sport. This is a very bad sign for Spa. Belgium is trying to negotiate a new deal with F1 for the future and this is just the sort of things that will antagonise Liberty Media. Arimont’s comments are most likely related to these negotiations and may indicate that the Belgian GP has got a limited future. Or it could just be that Arimont is clumsy.
Some politicians are, but let’s not get into that…
It was interesting to see Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party candidate for US president, saying that she is an F1 fan and that her whole family loves watching the Grands Prix. She says that the recent campaigning and the timing of the races makes it difficult at the moment but she says she is a big Lewis Hamilton fan.
Lewis, in the meantime, is using his fame to sell things. The word is that Ferrari will next year feature sponsorship from Almave, a non-alcoholic tequila that is co-owned by Lewis and the drinks giant Pernod Ricard. It makes sense. He has also gone into business with the American firm Bramble Pets, which produces plant-based vegan dog food, which it seems that Roscoe is happy to eat. Lewis is not the only one making money from his success and of late Max Verstappen has applied to trademark the phrase “Simply Lovely” and will no doubt start selling Simply Lovely products at some point in the not-so-distant future. As a driver you have to cash in when you can because once your career is over, you fade very quickly from the public spotlight. Most have made enough money to live happily ever after, but some still need to have things to do, so they don’t get bored. This is why so many of them become TV commentators. I have not done a full count this year but in most years there are more ex-F1 drivers in the paddock at each race than there are actual drivers…
Beyond all this there have been some stories kicking around about the future of a number of F1 races. Some races on the F1 calendar today are heavily reliant on the presence of a driver. A good example of this is the Dutch GP, which would not happen if Max Verstappen was not in F1. Races like this rarely get government funding and rely on private promoters who make their money by pulling in big crowds. If the demand falls, they are not going to carry on for long. Not all the fans are really Formula 1 supporters, but they follow the sport because they enjoy the national glory that a driver in F1 brings. Will these people part with money to watch only foreign drivers? Almost certainly not… but having a driver in F1 is no guarantee for the success of a Grand Prix. Germany and France both have drivers in F1, but there is no race in either country.
There have been some stories kicking around in F1 of late with the idea of there being a Grand Prix in Argentina. I’d love to see that because I have fond memories of visits to Buenos Aires between 1995 to 1998. The problem is that the country is in a dire economic situation. More than half of Argentina’s 46 million people are now living in poverty, according to the country’s statistics agency, with the latest figure being 52.9 percent, compared to 41.7 percent in the second half of last year. Some of this hike has been due to the policies of the new president Javier Milei, who has slashed subsidies for transport, fuel and energy and sacked thousands of civil servants, trying to bring down inflation and reduce government expenditure. The country’s inflation rate this summer was still an impressive 230 percent.
Whatever the details Argentina is no state to pay for a Grand Prix.
People tend to forget that F1 races take place because money flows into the F1 coffers. If that is not going to be the case, there will not be an F1 race. Nothing around F1 is related to charity… It is the same with most championships. If they do not pay, they die.
One needs only to look at the now-defunct W Series, the receivers for which are trying to sort out the financial mess left behind. According to the annual returns the company owes $22 million, with creditors including Formula 1, the circuits that hosted races in 2022, suppliers of various kinds and even the drivers who have not received the prize money promised. The cars and equipment have been sold, along with the intellectual property (IP) surrounding the name (which went to Formula E. Go figure…). The championship lost a total of $61 million in the course of its three years in operation, which equates to $2.9 million per race.
Not very impressive.
Selling off IP is an interesting way to make money and one quiet whisper I have heard in recent days, for a very good source, is that Cadillac has recently acquired the IP of Renault’s 2026 engine. This is entirely logical, although no-one is ever going to admit such a thing. I remember a similar deal years ago when Honda quit F1 and Ferrari is supposed to have bought its V12 technology. These days people seem a little less uptight about saying they are buying technology from others, but I guess that GM is probably very old school in this respect. Still, there is nothing new under the sun. Engine technology has flowed between manufacturers since the dawn of motorsport…
Luca de Meo said recently that the Alpine F1 team is not for sale – and I have now decided to believe him. It is probably true, in the sense that you cannot buy the team TODAY, but I have heard that this is because there is a contract with Flavio Briatore that there is a specific date after which the team can be sold (my spies say it is towards the end of 2026) and then it will be sold to the highest bidder. Briatore is keen to improve performance and wipe out costs and his reward will come not in heaven (it is doubtful he’d make it…) but rather because he will take his percentage and Renault will get the rest. So, technically-speaking de Meo is probably not being untruthful. By the end of 2026 he will probably be gone from Renault anyway, as his ambition seems to be to be put in charge of the bigger Stellantis, although this might be merged with Renault by then as the French government tries to defend the country’s car industry against the slings and arrows of more efficient rivals.
I am also hearing (still) that Sauber is up for grabs if you offer the right deal. It has been clear for a long time that Audi’s F1 project is not popular with everyone (one might even say anyone) in the Volkswagen Group, even more so since the finances of both companies are suffering because of falling sales in China. It is often forgotten the Qatari government owns 17 percent of the voting shares in VW. It is the third biggest shareholding in this respect after the Porsche family (53.3 percent) and the State of Lower Saxony (20 percent). One option would be to sell the F1 team to Qatar, but keep the Audi branding, so as not to lose face, although Audi obviously wants to recoup as much of the investment made in F1 as possible. There is also some wariness of such a deal because of the recent opposition in Germany to the Qatar sponsorship of Bayern Munich. There is believed to be some support for F1 from within the Porsche family – as a means of promoting the business – but it has always made more sense for the project to be a Porsche one, rather than Audi. In the end Porsche’s planned deal with Red Bull fell through and the Audi purchase of Sauber went ahead, although everyone involved in the Audi decision has now gone from the company. Audi is stuck with an asset it does not really want and so is looking around for a solution that will not look bad. Qatar might be the answer. The country is big on F1 these days and is keen to lead the market for electric and hybrid vehicles in the Middle East. Range anxiety is not a problem in much of the region because no-one drives very far (there are not that many roads) and there is a good network of charging stations in many of the countries. This was why Qatar last year hosted the Geneva International Motor Show, to help drive the idea that Qatar is a hub for innovation and technology. And why Qatar is now embracing F1.
There are still buyers out there because F1 is booming and new deals in recent weeks underline the current success. The only really exciting news of late has been a few big sponsorship deals and the interesting partnership between Haas and Toyota. The most astonishing is the deal between F1 and Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), which will cover a number of F1 product areas, notably podium champagne and timekeeping. I’m told this is between $100 million and $150 million a year for 10 years, so it’s massive, the first of its kind in F1.
Two other deals are worthy of comment: Lego and Hot Wheels. It has always amazed me that the sport has never really embraced the world of toys. Kids are the fans of the future and I do remember as a child that I would push toy cars around on imagined circuits following the patterns of carpets. I see kids today still doing the same thing. Engaging with them is a great strategic move and it is worth also looking at the success of a couple of promotions in the past. The best known was in 2000-2001 when the McDonalds Corporation and Mattel got together: McDonalds wanted to sell more Happy Meals and agreed to give away a free diecast model F1 car with the each meal. Four of the F1 teams (McLaren, Williams, Jaguar and Jordan) agreed to allow branded models (and I am sure they made money) while McDonald’s produced a red car, with its own branding, as Ferrari obviously did not want to join the fun. The McDonalds-Mattel Formula 1 promotion lasted for a month and 21 million F1 cars were handed out, as kids “encouraged” their parents to buy more Happy Meals.
In the same era Shell offered diecast models of Ferraris at a reduced price if its customers bought a certain amount of fuel. The promotion was done through the fuel company’s 48,000 forecourt shops around the world – and 25 million models were sold. A similar promotion with Lego was less successful, but it still sold around nine million kits.
Thus the Mattel and Lego deals that F1 has now announced promise to earn considerable money as well.
Having said all of this, sometimes people get involved in the sport on the basis of passion alone and some pay the price for that enthusiasm. Lamblin lost everything because of Montlhéry and died penniless… so having big ideas over dinner can be quite painful, even if people remember you 100 years later.
