Organisers of the first French Grand Prix in a decade are aiming for a relatively small crowd in their first year, in order to ensure the event runs smoothly and traffic in and out of the Paul Ricard venue can be controlled.
The circuit, which is located in the south of France just 180km west of Monaco, will host the first French GP since Magny-Cours in 2008, and despite having a capacity of 90,000, commercial director Aurelie Letellier says they are aiming for a race day crowd of just 70,000 – half the number that pack into Silverstone for the British round on the calendar.
"We are confident we can have a big capacity but we are also being very humble," Letellier told Reuters. "So we are working on an estimate of accommodating 65-70,000 people for the race. That is a reasonable objective."
Despite improvements to the road system, one of the reasons for the smaller crowd is to ensure traffic flows freely and Letellier is confident it won't be an issue with further planning in place.
"We are pretty confident we are going to find creative solutions to make the access easier," she added. "Clearly there are challenges but we are working on solutions and creative ways to get around them."
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