Spa alternation plans ’no longer on agenda’

Spa-Francorchamps is no longer part of the proposal to revive the French grand prix.

Prior to ex president Nicolas Sarkozy losing the general election, plans to alternate a single annual race between Paul Ricard and Belgium’s fabled Spa were well advanced.

But with Francois Hollande in power and his sports minister Valerie Fourneyron in the driving seat of the grand prix project, the situation is now very different.

French reports this week say Fourneyron has told France’s motor racing sanctioning body, the FFSA, that Paul Ricard and Magny Cours are competing to secure the rights to a grand prix that the state will not contribute to financially.

And according to the Belgian news agency Belga, the formerly proposed race alternation between France and Spa will remain merely an "unconfirmed possibility".

"Alternating with Belgium is no longer on the agenda," a report by the French language news agency Agence France-Presse added.