The nine most unbelievable circuits F1 no longer races on

The history of Formula 1 is studded with incredible — and, at times, unbelievable — moments, from six-wheeled race cars to unlikely champions. And yes, there have been some frankly incredible race tracks, too.

Today, we’re paying tribute to nine of the most unbelievable tracks that Formula 1 no longer races on.

F1’s most unbelievable race tracks

Circuit de Reims-Gueux

To win a race at Reims-Gueux, a driver needed patience. The 5.6-mile circuit was built on roads carving through the French countryside, in a roughly triangular shape. To have the edge, you needed to learn how to master the art of the slipstream.

The French Grand Prix at Reims — hosted 11 different times — was a huge hit with the Formula 1 fraternity, for one big reason: It came with a huge prize. In an era where the best of the best could be expected to make about $20,000 per year in racing, the starting purse for Reims was $3,000 per entrant.

Add to that the cases of champagne distributed by race organizers for every minor accomplishment — setting the fastest time of the day, being the first driver to set a lap above a certain speed — and you could guarantee a compelling race through the high-speed straights.

Circuito de Monsanto

In 1959, the Circuito de Monsanto in Portugal hosted its first and only Formula 1 Grand Prix. The street track was built in Monsanto Forest Park near Lisbon, and its racing surface was composed of a multitude of different surfaces.

In his 1959 race report for Motor Sport Magazine, Denis Jenkinson described the circuit as such: “The whole nature of the circuit is one of pure road racing with nothing in the way of banked corners or wide open spaces to make things easy for the drivers; in fact, just the opposite, with tricky cambers, braking to be done on curves, blind corners, tree-lined sections and all the normal difficulties met with in everyday motoring.”

Stirling Moss won the race in 1959. The track closed for good in 1971.

Sebring

Sebring International Raceway earns a slot on our list for a variety of reasons. In 1959, it hosted the first US Grand Prix (at least, the first that wasn’t the Indianapolis 500), and it emerged from a series of rough outlines sketched onto a defunct military airbase.

Sebring emerged as the result of an interpersonal conflict between the SCCA and the AAA, two distinct motorsport sanctioning bodies in post-WWII America, and it gained legitimacy when street circuits were banned in the United States. Almost every notable track at the time — Watkins Glen, Road America — ran on public roads. Sebring became the only road course situated on private property until locals were able to revive their favorite circuits.

But its location on a military airbase made it reviled. In Robert Daley’s 1961 book Cars at Speed, he has nothing but criticism: The track is 90 miles from the nearest airport, there’s no way for spectators to arrive except by car, the circuit is flat, and the local hotels jack their prices for the weekend.

Looking at Sebring now, it’s almost impossible to imagine that it once hosted Grand Prix cars.

Nürburgring

Though the Nürburgring is a well known and widely renowned race circuit, it is still truly incredible to consider the fact that this winding, dangerous track was once so incredibly popular in Formula 1. The 14.2-mile circuit regularly hosted F1 events intermittently between 1951 and 2013 — and it is treated with a kind of reverence.

Back then, there were over 170 curves per lap, straining the very limits of a driver’s ability to memorize the nuance of each turn. The surface was laden with bumps and wound through the forested mountainside of the Rhineland.

The track was such a notoriously difficult one that, in Robert Daley’s 1961 book Cars at Speed, Stirling Moss claimed that “only 30 drivers in the world are skilled enough to race at Le Mans or the Nürburgring.” That organizers allowed many more than that to take part in various events only made the races there all the more precarious.

More on historic F1 tracks:

👉 Six forgotten Grand Prix circuits that Formula 1 used to race on

👉 Seven F1 tracks that deserve a place on the calendar forever

Ain-Diab Circuit

When we think about Formula 1 races in Africa, we often think of the South African Grand Prix hosted at Kyalami — but well before that circuit appeared on the Formula 1 calendar, we had Ain-Diab, located in Casablanca, Morocco.

The track, built in 1957 in just six weeks, was only used for a single F1 event in 1958. The circuit was roughly rectangular in shape, tracing both the desert road towards Azemmour and the coastal road running through the Sidi Abderhaman Forest.

Unsurprisingly, the circuit was a highly dangerous one. In its sole F1 outing in 1958, Stirling Moss won the race — but his Vanwall teammate Stuart Lewis-Evans was killed in a fiery wreck. Ain-Diab never returned.

Circuit Bremgarten

Located in Bern, Switzerland, Circuit Bremgarten was a mainstay on the early Formula 1 calendar. The 4.5-mile track was renowned for its thrilling nature, a collection of high-speed corners without the relief of a straight, snaking though the Bremgartenwald forest.

As you might imagine about a forest circuit, the track was lined with trees — and those trees created a variety of obstacles. Leave the track and you were certain to hit one, yes; but the thick foliage also blocked the light, leaving much of the racing surface bathed in shadow. If it rained (which it was likely to do), the water also pooled in those shaded areas, making the conditions even trickier.

Though the track claimed the lives of drivers like Achille Varzi, it was ultimately only shuttered in 1955 as a result of the Le Mans disaster.

Pescara Circuit

Before World War II, the 15.894-mile Circuito di Pescara was better known as the track that played host to the Coppa Acerbo — a name that was changed after the war, as the founder’s brother, Giacomo Acerbo, was a well-known fascist politician.

The track appeared on the F1 calendar just one time, in 1957, after both the Dutch and Belgian Grands Prix were canceled. The track was so large that it featured two distinct 3.4-mile straights; race organizers didn’t bother collecting ticket or charging fees for most spectators, because it was too vast to make sure every viewer was a paid up.

Understandably, the circuit was never used for F1 again; it only lasted a handful of years as a sports car venue before racing was totally discontinued in 1961.

AVUS

The 1959 German Grand Prix took place at the fearsome AVUS (Automobil-Verkehrs- und Übungsstraße, or “automobile traffic and training road”) circuit. This track was composed of two long straightaways — part of a highway through the Grunewald forest — linked by two fearsome turns.

The most frightening in particular was the so-called “Wall of Death” at the north end of the track. This highly banked turn, a whopping 43-degrees, was paved with bricks and featured no retaining wall on the top end. You needed to take the turn at high speed to withstand the banking, but go too fast, and you’d fly off the edge.

During the Grand Prix weekend, racing star Jean Behra was killed in a support race by doing just that. The track was never included on the F1 calendar again.

Per Robert Daley in his 1961 book Cars at Speed, drivers hated AVUS. Stirling Moss called it a dump, and the author himself described it as a “freak track” and a “travesty.”

Circuit de Charade

Circuit de Charade, also sometimes known as Clermont Ferrand, is one of the most absurd race tracks in Formula 1 history. The 8.055-kilometer circuit twisted around the base of the Puy de Dôme — an extinct volcano. It hosted Formula 1 in 1965, 1969, 1970, and 1972 before the sinuous, twisting track layout was eventually nixed from the schedule.

Why? Well, in 1969, drivers like Jochen Rindt suffered from severe motion sickness thanks to the never-ending slew of sharp turns and elevation changes.

Then, in 1972, the track’s very nature — as in, the fact that it hugged a volcano — became an issue. No fewer than 10 drivers suffered punctures due to falling rock, and Helmut Marko was blinded when a rock embedded itself in his eye mid-race. The track was deemed a danger and removed from the F1 calendar.

Read next: Meet the street circuit that hosted the first-ever Hungarian GP in 1936