Circuit de Dijon-Prenois

Circuit guide by Chris Pollitt · dates updated 2 November 2026

Dijon-Prenois opened in 1972 on a hillside about 15 minutes north-west of Dijon. It held the French Grand Prix several times, and the 1982 Swiss Grand Prix, and it's best known for the 1979 wheel-banging battle between Gilles Villeneuve and René Arnoux. The original 3.289 km layout was extended in the mid-1970s, adding the Parabolique loop and taking it to the current 3.801 km. It's mostly fast sweepers rather than hairpins, with the road rising and falling with the land.

It's one of the closest proper continental circuits to Calais, and it's popular with UK organisers as well as French, German and Swiss ones. Car and bike days run regularly. The lap is short, so you'll learn it quickly, but the blind crests and banked corners mean it takes a while to get the most out of it. It suits drivers and riders with a few UK days behind them who want a fast, old-school track without the drive to the south of France.

A lap of Circuit de Dijon-Prenois

Layout: Grand Prix, 3.801 km (2.36 miles)

The pit straight is long, and the fastest part of the lap. At the end of it you brake for the Double Droite de Villeroy, a double-apex right that you'll reach at a decent speed. The track has been widened on the outside with tarmac, so a wide exit can be recovered from, but the trick is to be patient for the second apex rather than turning in early and running out of room.

Next is the S des Sablières, a left-right sequence where the car needs to be settled before you change direction. A clean exit is important, because next comes La Bretelle, a blind corner where you need to be confident of your line before you can see the exit. This is where a few sighting laps or a session with an instructor pays off.

The Parabolique is the corner people talk about, an uphill hairpin added when the circuit was extended. It's the heaviest braking zone on the lap, and because it's uphill you can brake later than you think. The banking helps hold the car on the way round, so be patient and get a strong exit, because you're about to accelerate hard for a long time.

From there the lap runs through the Combe and into the Courbe de Pouas, a very fast, long curve that feeds onto the pit straight. Pouas is the key to your lap time. Get it right and you carry big speed all the way down the straight. Get it wrong and you'll lose time for the whole straight, or run out of road on the exit. The corner and the run to it were widened in 2014, but it still deserves respect.

Track day tips

• Dijon is full of blind crests. Take your first few laps steadily and watch for flags over the brows.
• Pistenclub days run to 100 dB(A), and other organisers can be stricter. Check your car before you make the drive.
• The Parabolique is the heaviest stop on the lap. Use fresh fluid and good pads and leave a margin until you know it.
• Pouas is fast and long, and loads the tyres for a long time. Watch your pressures and tyre temperatures through the day.
• There's a karting track on the same site, so check where you're going when you arrive at the gates.
• Dijon is close enough to Calais for a one-day drive, so it works well as a first European trip or the first stop of a longer tour.

Getting there

Dijon-Prenois is roughly 550 km from Calais, most of it on the A26 past Reims and Troyes and then the A31 to Dijon, so it's a single day's drive off the Dover to Calais ferry or Eurotunnel. The circuit is about 15 minutes north-west of Dijon city, out in the countryside. Dijon itself has no regular UK flights, so look at Lyon, Geneva or Paris. Dijon has plenty of hotels, and there are guesthouses in the villages around Prenois.