A government ban, the loss of two drivers and a circuit nobody would repair: three European races that dropped off the calendar for three different reasons.
Swiss racing ended with a 1955 government ban, the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp stopped after 1978 following two driver deaths and a sponsorship shortfall, and Portugal's Estoril races ended after 1996 when the circuit was never upgraded. Portugal is scheduled to return to the calendar at Portimao in 2027.
Switzerland banned circuit racing in 1955 after the Le Mans disaster, and the ban was lifted entirely only in 2026. It cost the country a Grand Prix that had been run at Bremgarten since 1934, and it is the most abrupt of three European races that dropped off the Formula One map.
The Swiss, Swedish and Portuguese Grands Prix each ended for a different reason: a law, a pair of deaths and a lack of money, and a circuit that never got its repairs.
Why did Switzerland ban motor racing?
Switzerland banned circuit racing in 1955 because its government declared the sport unsafe after the Le Mans disaster in France, which killed more than 80 people. The ban forced organisers to cancel the Swiss Grand Prix that year, and the Bremgarten circuit was abandoned and never used for racing again.
The Swiss Grand Prix, the country's premier race, began in 1934 and ran every year until 1939, then every year from 1947 to 1954, always at Bremgarten near Bern. The circuit was a fast 7.27 km (4.52 mi) loop of public roads running through forest, without any real straight. The trees, the often poor light and the changing road surface made it dangerous, particularly in the wet, because drips fell from the branches onto the tarmac for an hour or more after the rain stopped. Drivers liked it much as they liked the Nurburgring.
The first race, in 1934, went to Hans Stuck's Auto Union, and Hugh Hamilton died in his Maserati after a front wheel broke. It counted towards the European Championship from 1935 to 1939, a period dominated by Germany's Silver Arrows. After the war it returned, and in 1948 it was named the European Grand Prix. That weekend was among the most tragic of the decade, with Achille Varzi killed in practice and Christian Kautz in the race, and Maurice Trintignant spending 8 days in a coma after a crash. Carlo Felice Trossi won.
The Swiss Grand Prix joined the new World Championship in 1950, when Nino Farina won, and it produced decisive moments through the first half of the decade. In 1951 Juan Manuel Fangio won after Farina chose not to stop for tyres as the track dried. In 1952 Piero Taruffi took his only Formula One victory, and Rudolf Caracciola crashed into a tree in a support race, breaking a leg and effectively ending his career. In 1953 Alberto Ascari fought back from a pit stop to win and clinch his second title, and in 1954 Fangio, now in a Mercedes, led from start to finish in the rain and took his second title.
Three European Grands Prix ended for three reasons: a law, a lack of sponsors, and a circuit nobody would repair.
Where did the Swiss Grand Prix go after 1954?
The Swiss Grand Prix was twice revived on French soil, at Dijon-Prenois, because racing was still banned in Switzerland. The races took place in 1975 as a non-championship event and in 1982 as a round of the World Championship, and the Swiss Automobile Club organised both.
Clay Regazzoni, a Swiss driver, won the 1975 race. The 1982 round gave Keke Rosberg his first Formula One victory, in a Williams, in what turned out to be his championship season. He passed several cars, lost time behind the backmarker Andrea de Cesaris before he reeled in and passed pole-sitter Alain Prost.
The legal position changed slowly. On 6 June 2007 the National Council voted 97 to 77 to lift the ban, but the Council of States did not ratify the law. In 2015 the government relaxed the rules to permit head-to-head racing for electric vehicles only, which led to the first Zurich ePrix, a Formula E round, on 10 June 2018, the first motor race in Switzerland in 64 years. The ban was lifted entirely in 2026.
What happened to the Swedish Grand Prix?
Sweden's Grand Prix counted for the Formula One World Championship from 1973 to 1978, held at the Scandinavian Raceway in Anderstorp. It has not been run since. The deaths of Ronnie Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson in 1978 contributed to its end, as Swedish interest in Formula One fell, and a 1979 race was cancelled for lack of local sponsorship.
Races called Swedish Grand Prix existed long before. The Swedish Winter Grand Prix of 1931 was an ice race on a 46 km circuit near Lake Ramen, with a lap time of about 35 minutes. The first Summer Grand Prix followed in 1933 on a 30 km public-road circuit at Norra Vram, and it began with a multi-car pile-up on the opening lap in which a riding mechanic was killed and a nearby house burned down. Antonio Brivio won in an Alfa Romeo, and major racing then stopped for years. Sports car events carried the name from 1955 at Rabelovsbanan near Kristianstad, a 6.537 km (4.062 mi) circuit, where 75,000 spectators watched Fangio win in a Mercedes 300 SLR, just ahead of Stirling Moss. A Formula Two race at Karlskoga carried the title as a one-off in 1967, and Jackie Stewart won it.
The Formula One race arrived in 1973, on the back of Peterson's success with Lotus. Anderstorp was remote, in a town of fewer than 5,000 people, and fans camped out or stayed in local homes. Peterson took pole and led until Denny Hulme, running harder tyres, passed him on the penultimate lap. No Swede came closer to winning at home. That year the Cosworth DFV won every race of the 15-round season, something never repeated.
Anderstorp's later races were memorable for their cars. In 1974 Jody Scheckter won for the first time, ahead of his Tyrrell teammate Patrick Depailler. In 1975 Niki Lauda's Ferrari 312T won for the third time in a row, on the way to his first title. In 1976 the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34 won its only race, with Scheckter first and Depailler second, even though Scheckter privately thought the concept ridiculous. In 1977 Jacques Laffite won in a Ligier-Matra, the first victory for a French car, engine, company and driver together.
The 1978 race belonged to the Brabham BT46B. Gordon Murray designed it to trump Lotus's ground effect car with a large fan that pulled air from beneath the car and added downforce. Rivals protested, but it raced. Niki Lauda qualified second, John Watson third, and when Mario Andretti's Lotus broke a valve Lauda led and won by 34.6 seconds. The fan car was ruled legal and the win stood, but Brabham withdrew it voluntarily and it never raced again.
| Race | World Championship years | Circuit | Why it ended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swiss Grand Prix | 1950 to 1954, and 1982 at Dijon | Bremgarten | Circuit racing banned in Switzerland in 1955 |
| Swedish Grand Prix | 1973 to 1978 | Scandinavian Raceway, Anderstorp | Falling interest after two deaths; 1979 race cancelled for lack of sponsorship |
| Portuguese Grand Prix | 1958 to 1960, 1984 to 1996, 2020 and 2021 | Boavista, Monsanto, Estoril, Portimao | Estoril's facilities not improved; 1997 and 1998 races cancelled |
Why did the Portuguese Grand Prix come and go?
The Portuguese Grand Prix left the calendar twice. After the championship race of 1960 it vanished until 1984. After 1996 it vanished again because the Estoril circuit's facilities were not improved, despite repeated requests from the FIA, and the planned 1997 and 1998 races were cancelled.
The opening event, a sports car race, took place on 17 June 1951 on the Boavista street course in Porto, before moving to Monsanto Park in Lisbon for 1954. Formula One came in 1958. At Boavista, a hazardous track with cobbles and tramlines, Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn were the title contenders. A protest claimed that Hawthorn had rolled some yards the wrong way after restarting and should be disqualified. Moss told the stewards that Hawthorn had been off the circuit when seen, which the rules allowed, and the protest failed. If it had succeeded, Hawthorn would have forfeited seven points. He won the championship by one point from Moss.
In 1959 the race moved to Monsanto, and Moss won again in a Cooper, while Jack Brabham ran into a telegraph pole after swerving near the twice-lapped local driver Mario Cabral and was thrown onto the track, narrowly missed by Masten Gregory. Brabham won at Boavista in 1960, after which the race lapsed until 1984.
That revival came at the Autodromo do Estoril, near Lisbon, which opened in 1972. On 21 October 1984 Alain Prost won the season finale there but lost the title to his McLaren teammate Niki Lauda, who was second, by half a point. Ayrton Senna took his first win in the rain of 1985, Prost passed Jackie Stewart's record with his 28th victory in 1987, and in 1988 Senna squeezed Prost towards the pit wall, an incident that sparked one of the sport's great rivalries.
The drama continued. In 1989 Nigel Mansell, in a Ferrari, reversed into his pit box after overshooting it, was shown the black flag, ignored it and collided with the leader Senna, which damaged Senna's title chances; Mansell and Ferrari were fined $50,000 and Mansell missed the next race. In 1991 Mansell's Williams lost a wheel after a pit stop, and mechanics lifted the car to refit it, which earned him the black flag. Riccardo Patrese won that day, and in 1992 he flew over the back of Gerhard Berger's McLaren in a crash in which nobody was hurt. Prost won his fourth title in 1993, Damon Hill won in 1994 after the circuit's Esses were turned into a three-corner sequence following the deaths of Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, and Jacques Villeneuve passed Michael Schumacher around the outside of the Parabolica to win in 1996.
The circuit produced close racing and usually good weather, though stiff breezes and storms blew in off the Atlantic. The bigger problem was the attitude of the people responsible for it. The FIA asked time and again for better facilities and nothing happened. In 1997 the governing body called Estoril's renovation proposal a bluff, and the race, planned as the season finale, was cancelled and replaced by the European Grand Prix at Jerez. Portugal's Economy Minister Augusto Mateus said the government would provide the $6 million needed, and it took a controlling stake in the firm that owned the circuit, but the work still was not done. The Portuguese Grand Prix was listed for 1998 and cancelled when the upgrade could not be completed in time.
Where the lost Grands Prix stand now
Portugal is the only one of the three scheduled to come back. The race returned in 2020 at the Algarve International Circuit in Portimao to help fill a calendar disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25 October 2020 race was the circuit's first Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton won it for his 92nd victory, breaking Michael Schumacher's record. Portimao hosted another race in 2021, and Formula One is due to return there in 2027 and 2028.
Switzerland's ban is gone, and Sweden has not hosted a Grand Prix since 1978.
