The Circuit Paul Ricard is a French motorsport race track built in 1969 at Le Castellet, Var, near Marseille, with finance from pastis magnate Paul Ricard. Ricard wanted to experience the challenge of building a racetrack. The circuit has hosted the FIA Formula One French Grand Prix intermittently from 1971 to 2022.

Var is a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. It is bordered on the east by the Alpes-Maritimes department; to the west by Bouches-du-Rhône; to the north of the river Verdon by the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department; and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea. It had a population of 1,076,711 in 2019.