Jump to content


Photo

Comminges/St. Gaudens


  • Please log in to reply
8 replies to this topic

#1 Barry Boor

Barry Boor
  • Member

  • 11,557 posts
  • Joined: October 00

Posted 24 May 2005 - 19:08

Our other circuit tour, on the return journey last week was at the Comminges/St. Gaudens circuit.

Posted Image - - - Posted Image

A remarkable place in that they built a huge concrete grandstand on the hillside above the start area and there it stands to this day; marked in blue on the right-hand map.

Here is what it looks like today, photographed from point #1 on the smaller map above:

Posted Image

The start/finish point would have been a few yards down from where Roger is standing.

From the far end of the grandstand (point #3) looking back down the road towards the last real corner on the lap:

Posted Image

The large building with the white roof, where the road disappears from sight is the apex of the last right-hander before the climb back to the pits. What a view!!!!

This is taken from point #2 on the concrete terrace, looking at the last kink before the start.

Posted Image



At the bottom of the terrace by the road, more or less in line with point #2, but looking towards the first corner:

Posted Image

...and finally, from point #1, looking up to the first corner, which is now a roundabout:

Posted Image

The cars turned right by the white sign board in the centre of the photo. (sorry about the sun!)

As with Cadours, there will be more of the rest of the circuit later, when I get my computer sorted!

Over to Roger for better composed images!!!!

Advertisement

#2 mark f1

mark f1
  • Member

  • 4,569 posts
  • Joined: February 00

Posted 25 May 2005 - 00:53

Looks like it would have been quite a steep uphill start! Clutches would have loved that....

#3 LittleChris

LittleChris
  • Member

  • 4,066 posts
  • Joined: April 01

Posted 25 May 2005 - 21:19

The white building the other side of the roundabout in the last picture is a restaurant and does a cracking lunch buffet should anyone be in the area !! :up:

#4 Roger Clark

Roger Clark
  • Member

  • 7,570 posts
  • Joined: February 00

Posted 25 May 2005 - 22:43

My pictures don't add much to Barry's apart from this one which demonstrates that the locals have not forgotten their past.

Posted Image

Anthony Blight described "one of the finest motor racing panoramas in the world - with a 200-km chain of the Pyrenean peaks as an incomparable backcloth against the southern sky.." He was writing about the original 27.664-km circuit used until 1933, but the same applies to the circuit we looked at. The start/finish area was the same.

The original circuit is illustrated on Darren Galpin's site:

Posted Image

From 1933, a new link road was built to make a more easily managed 11.05 km circuit. I think this is the road shown by a dotted line on Darren's map and labelled (incorrectly?) the 1949 circuit. This link road joins the N117 just to the east of Villeneuve-de-Riviere. It was at this time that the concrete grandstands were built. Nowadays, there is a roundabout at the junction and the link road contains an industrial estate.

After the war, the circuit was shortened again to the 4.4-km circuit shown on Darren's upper map.

Posted Image

I assume that this involved construction of another new road, from the 1933 link road to the N117.

#5 Adam F

Adam F
  • Member

  • 430 posts
  • Joined: October 02

Posted 25 May 2005 - 23:34

Barry/Roger,

This is the circuit as used in 1948, from the race programme.
I think it corresponds to the "1949 circuit" on the previous map.
It was apparently just over 11km in length at this time, and seems to have been used from 1947 onwards.

Posted Image

#6 Dennis Hockenbury

Dennis Hockenbury
  • Member

  • 672 posts
  • Joined: April 03

Posted 26 May 2005 - 00:43

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. This has been very enjoyable stuff as I am just now reading Mr. Blight's wonderful book.

Dennis

#7 Roger Clark

Roger Clark
  • Member

  • 7,570 posts
  • Joined: February 00

Posted 26 May 2005 - 18:20

Originally posted by Adam F
Barry/Roger,

This is the circuit as used in 1948, from the race programme.
I think it corresponds to the "1949 circuit" on the previous map.
It was apparently just over 11km in length at this time, and seems to have been used from 1947 onwards.

Posted Image

I'm sure you're right, although I believe that the 11km circuit was used from 1933 until 1951.

I should have mentioned that the road following the first right hander is the Bd Jean-Pierre Wimille and road parallel to the N117 is the Rue Ph Etancelin.

#8 MCS

MCS
  • Member

  • 4,787 posts
  • Joined: June 03

Posted 26 May 2005 - 20:46

Originally posted by Roger Clark
The original circuit is illustrated on Darren Galpin's site:

Posted Image


What an extraordinary resemblance to the (original) Kyalami...

Mark

#9 mat1

mat1
  • Member

  • 351 posts
  • Joined: April 00

Posted 28 May 2005 - 07:26

I was a couple of years at St Gaudens, and the view from the "grandstand" is breathtaking indeed.

And the backend consisted of those typical french treelined roads. Beautiful but dangerous.

Oh nostalgia....

:)

mat1