Photo: Fotospeedy
The municipal council of the city of Pau sat yesterday for a session in which they confirmed their famous grand prix will not take place next year.
One of the focuses of the session was reviewing how this year’s budget was spent and presenting an initial 2024 budget. There were also key points about accelerating the use of renewable energy in the city and subsidising local sports associations.
Falling between the gaps of those two objectives is the city’s biggest sporting event, and one that is aiming to move towards using more sustainable energy. Last year the Formula 3-level Euroformula championship included the race in its calendar, then French Formula 4 did this year after Euroformula failed to meet the city’s biofuel requirement.
Pau’s mayor Francois Bayrou opened his statement about the race’s future by getting straight to the point: “We will not have a Pau Grand Prix in 2024, which will delight some and worry others.”
He said that last year the city had found private funding to finance the event, and off the back of that the council did not want to “expose public money” to make future editions happen even though it “is part of the city’s tradition” and “heritage”.
“So from this point of view we’re going to try to rework the idea of an evolution of the Pau GP,” said Bayrou, referencing how historic motorsport events such as the Goodwood Revival have evolved to be more sustainable.
“I don’t know if we’ll get there, I hope we’ll find original paths, in any case I don’t want us to take any financial risks,” he admitted.
Financial difficulties meant the 2010 Pau GP did not take place (a decision from a previous mayor, who also wanted the event to evolve), and the COVID-19 pandemic meant no races in 2020 and ’21. Before that the last year without the grand prix was 1956, but Bayrou proposes that its future “is not necessarily annual” and the next two runnings will likely be in 2025 and 2027.
“[This] year we organised the grand prix with a large part using green fuels, various fuels, biofuels and electricity, all of which naturally offers a way which allows us to respect at the same time the heritage side of the grand prix and the particular sensitivity of current generations.”
Eric Saubatte, Pau’s deputy mayor in charge of Sports, then adressed the council and said he respected the mayor’s choice “to no longer commit public funds” to the race. He revealed the city subsidised €200,000 of the event’s €2 million budget for 2023, and private funding would have been harder to find for 2024 since “certain partners have dedicated a large part of their budget to the Olympic Games” being held in Paris.
Saubatte reckons totally decarbonising the event (which would rule out many series, like occurred with Euroformula) will be key to attracting financial backing, and the organisers are already “regrouping our strengths” for 2025.
“The Pau GP is not dead, the institution of the grand prix is very much alive and we’re turning to the future.”