Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
Montreal, Canada · On the current calendar
A low-grip island circuit built on chicanes, heavy braking and the Wall of Champions.
Circuit layout
Race historyA low-grip island circuit built on chicanes, heavy braking and the Wall of Champions.
Circuit
- Circuit
- Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
- Location
- Montreal, Canada
- Length
- 4.361 km
- Corners
- 14
- Race laps
- 70
- Race distance
- 305 km
- First GP
- 1978
- Opened
- 1978
- Grands Prix
- 45
Last winner here
Lap record
About Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
Built on the Île Notre-Dame in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a semi-permanent venue that sits unused for most of the year. That gives it a green, low-grip surface on Friday that improves dramatically across the weekend, and it rewards teams who read the evolution correctly.
The lap is a sequence of short straights joined by chicanes, which makes it one of the hardest circuits of the season on brakes and traction. Cars run low downforce for the long back straight, then have to survive kerb strikes at every chicane. Safety cars are more common here than almost anywhere else, and they routinely reshuffle a race that had settled.
The final chicane leads onto the pit straight past a concrete barrier carrying the words 'Bienvenue au Québec'. It has been christened the Wall of Champions since 1999, when Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve — three world champions — all crashed into it in the same race.
Notable facts
- Renamed in 1982 after Gilles Villeneuve, who won the first race held here in 1978.
- The Wall of Champions at the final chicane claimed three world champions in the 1999 race alone.
- The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix is the longest race in Formula 1 history at 4 hours, 4 minutes and 39 seconds, delayed by a two-hour red flag for rain.
- One of the toughest circuits of the year on brakes, with seven significant braking events in a 4.361 km lap.
Grands Prix by decade
45 races, every decade from the 1970s to the 2020s.
Most wins — drivers
Most wins — constructors
Every Formula 1 winner at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
45 World Championship Grands Prix have been held here between 1978 and 2026.
