Grand Prix de Pau Historique: status of the next edition

There is currently no confirmed date for the next Grand Prix de Pau Historique. The historic meeting on the Pau-Ville street circuit, created in 2001 and run at the same period as the modern Grand Prix de Pau, was last held in 2023.

The 2024 meeting was cancelled when private partners redirected their spending towards the Paris Olympics. According to Auto-Hebdo, those partners had covered 90 per cent of the 2023 edition's €2 million budget, with the Pau conurbation contributing €200,000, and mayor François Bayrou announced the 2024 cancellation at the council meeting of 18 December 2023. In October 2024 the organising association, ASAC Basco-Béarnais, asked the Pau judicial court to place it under safeguard proceedings, citing an unpaid sum of €150,000. The 2025 edition did not take place, and neither did 2026. Local daily La République des Pyrénées summed up the position: no Grand Prix de Pau in 2026, but hope remains for 2027.

The heritage behind the event is exceptional. The French Grand Prix was held at Pau in 1930, the annual Pau Grand Prix began in 1933, and the street circuit was raced by Alberto Ascari, Jochen Rindt and generations of Formula 2, Formula 3000 and Formula 3 drivers. Historic editions ran from 2001 to 2019 and again in 2022 and 2023.

Until the organiser and its partners announce a new meeting, the event should be treated as suspended.