Motorsport

Switzerland reopens to circuit racing after seventy years

The Federal Council's decision makes the repeal of the ban introduced after the Le Mans disaster in 1955 applicable from 1 July 2026. Authorisations will pass to the cantons: no automatic green light, but a paradigm shift for a country that is already central in the international motorsport ecosystem.

by Alex D'Agosta

6 May 2026

La Ferrari (n. 21) di Masten Gregory, statunitense, e Jochen Rindt, austriaco, taglia il traguardo aggiudicandosi l'estenuante 24 Ore di Le Mans, tenutasi a Le Mans, in Francia, il 20 giugno 1965. La Ferrari (n. 18) di Pedro Rodriguez, messicano, e Nino Vacarella, italiano, si è classificata settima, mentre la Ferrari (n. 27) dei piloti svizzeri Armand Boller e Dieter Spoerry si è classificata sesta, percorrendo 2.862,7 miglia a una media di 121,09 miglia all'ora. (Foto AP)

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

From 1 July 2026, motor racing on circuits will again be possible in Switzerland. The Federal Council decided this at its meeting on 6 May 2026, bringing into force the amendment to the Federal Road Traffic Act (StVO), which lifts the ban on circuit car racing.

In parallel, the amendment of the Ordinance on Road Traffic Regulations (VVZO) adapts the enforcement provisions, defining the conditions that the cantons will have to comply with when issuing permits. This is a historic turning point, but not an unconditional liberalisation. The cantons will be responsible for issuing permits and will have to verify, on a case-by-case basis, compliance with safety standards and federal environmental protection requirements.

The ban that came from Le Mans

The origin of the ban dates back to 11 June 1955, when at the 24 Hours of Le Mans a car went off the track after a collision and threw debris towards the grandstands. More than eighty people died. It was the biggest catastrophe in motorsport history. In the following months, several European countries suspended or restricted circuit racing. Switzerland chose the strictest line: the ban became firmly established in the law and, with the exception of the derogation introduced for electric competitions, remained the regulatory reference for almost seventy years.

The result was an all-Swiss anomaly. Speed races on closed tracks were banned, but motorsport did not disappear. Swiss drivers continued to race abroad; the country, meanwhile, consolidated a leading industrial and technological role. From Hinwil, the home of Sauber (now Audi, with Hulkemberg and Bortoleto as drivers), to the network of suppliers specialising in precision mechanics, the know-how remained. And there has been no shortage of top drivers: above all Sebastien Buemi (with double passport thanks to his Sicilian-born grandfather): 29 points with Toro Rosso in Formula 1, Formula E champion in 2016, four-time winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Lacking, until now, was the possibility of hosting competitions.

No motoring Wild West

The new framework is prudent. It does not create an automatic right to organise events and does not eliminate authorisation steps. Every competition will have to be assessed by the cantonal authorities, also in the light of noise, environmental and safety impacts.

Therefore, in the short term, it is difficult to imagine an immediate return of major international events or the rapid construction of permanent racetracks. The absence of dedicated infrastructures and Swiss sensitivity towards territory, noise and land consumption will probably make the first few years a test phase: targeted events, temporary solutions, projects to be verified one by one. Even the hypothesis of a Swiss Grand Prix remains, for now, more suggestion than concrete prospect.

A signal for the ecosystem

The weight of the decision is also symbolic. Switzerland had remained on the fringes of European motorsport, not because of a lack of competence or capital, but because of a regulatory choice that had become almost identifiable over time. Removing it is not a technical detail.

The context, compared to the 1950s, has changed radically. Contemporary motorsport is a global platform for technological development: electrification, simulation, computational aerodynamics, advanced materials, data management. These are areas in which Swiss industry already plays a major role. Now the country will, at least in theory, be able to complete the chain in terms of events as well. Even if it comes a little late: once, in Geneva, there was the world's most elegant trade fair. Suspended for Covid, it was finally abandoned for lack of top exhibitors.

Among the voices that greeted the news with the most participation was that of Laura Villars, a Swiss-French driver originally from Geneva. In 2025 she had attempted to run for the presidency of the FIA: she would have been the first woman to lead the body in its history. Her candidature failed (as did that of all the other challengers) due to a contested electoral mechanism that made Fabiana Ecclestone, the only candidate available for the South American vice-presidency, an exclusive element of Mohammed Ben Sulayem's ticket: without her, no one else could complete their list. Ben Sulayem was thus re-elected in Tashkent in December 2025 without an opponent. The case is still pending before the Paris Judicial Court. This is the profile of the person who wrote, upon hearing the news: 'Thank you Switzerland. After 70 years, the ban on circuit racing has been lifted. The Federal Council has put the revision of the Road Traffic Act into force, with the cantons issuing licences. A big step forward for Swiss motorsport, its drivers, its talent and an entire industry that had been waiting for this signal. The work begins'.

Not the promise of a racetrack around the corner, but the end of a ban that weighed on the relationship between Switzerland and a sport that the country had never really stopped nurturing. For the Alpine arc and the industrial regions of northern Italia, too, the measure opens up a dossier to be followed closely. Not in the immediate future, perhaps. But the regulatory framework, as of today, is no longer the main obstacle.

The previous two: Zurich 2018, Berne 2019, then silence

In seventy years of prohibition, only one exemption had managed to pass. Maa produced two races, not one. Indeed, in December 2015, the Federal Council approved a specific exception for electric vehicles, paving the way for Formula E. On 10 June 2018, for the first time since the 1954 Swiss Formula 1 Grand Prix (held on the Bremgarten in Berne and won by Fangio), a motor racing competition returned to Swiss soil: the Zurich ePrix, on a temporary city circuit built along the lake in the Enge district, in front of more than 150,000 spectators. Lucas di Grassi in an Audi won.

The following year, Formula E moved to Bern. On 22 June 2019, the Swiss E-Prix was run on a city track in the capital, with unusual gradients for the category. Jean-Éric Vergne in a DS Techeetah won; third on the podium, at home, Sébastien Buemi. A moment the Swiss public had been waiting a generation for.

Then, again, silence. Zurich did not renew the authorisation: unsustainable logistics, overlap with other events, opposition from residents of the district who had signed a petition against the race. The Berne organisation, for its part, declared bankruptcy at the beginning of 2020. Formula E did not return. Two editions, two cities, two different stories and the same epilogue: Switzerland once again found itself unable to hold the races at home, not because of the law this time, but because of the sum total of local resistance, crossed vetoes and organisational fragilities that the regulatory framework alone could not resolve.

It is exactly this knot that the 2026 reform will have to untie in practice. The norm changes, but the context (municipalities, neighbourhood committees, environmental and noise impact assessments) remains the same as ever.