Inside the archive that keeps motorsport’s most closely-guarded secrets

A short grey-haired man wearing glasses and a jacket over a crimson jumper grabs a notebook with a hard, cracked cover from a rack. “Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus – Procès-Verbaux des Assemblées Générales – 1904-1923” says the hand-written note pasted on top.

This is a collection of (also hand-written) reports from the very first general meetings of the International Association of Recognised Automobile Clubs, which is now known as Federation Internationale de l’Automobile – or, simply,
the FIA. There’s a note on the first page, dated 20 June
1904, with a list of its founding members – a dozen clubs
from various European countries. Over the past 120 years
the members’ list has grown by a couple of hundred clubs
and national federations.

The aforementioned notebook is one of the documents preserved in the FIA archive, now located in Valleiry in one of the Federation’s four headquarters. The historical documents are now kept in two rooms of the two-storey building (the least ostentatious of those head offices) in a small French town next to the Swiss border. Primarily, the building is used for homologation procedures for cars of various classes – but since 2015 it’s also served as the archive’s new home.

“Many documents from the beginning of the last century were damaged during the last World War,” Jean-Francois Ruchaud tells GP Racing as he guides us through the
archive. The Frenchman has been looking after it for
more than a decade now.

“Part of the archive was under the swimming pool of the Automobile Club de France during that time,” he sighs, “and there was a flood, so a lot of things were destroyed. I saw
piles of documents that were like bricks – you know, you
just couldn’t separate the papers.

“Then it was moved to the warehouse in Clichy, where a lot of archive documents were burned in a fire in September 1982 – virtually everything that was there.”

Researchers are spoiled for choice when visiting the FIA's archive at Valleiry

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths / Motorsport Images

It’s that fire that is primarily responsible for the FIA’s Valleiry archive having virtually none of the documents from Formula 1 rounds held before 1981. Those that remain intact occupy a few shelves at most, and not all of them are even available to be viewed.

Jean-Francois, after all, is not only here to show us around, but also to make sure we don’t go rifling through the wrong bits. In the corner of the room are a handful of folders we aren’t permitted to peruse, much less photograph. Also inaccessible are the documents relating to Formula 1 races from the year 2000 to now – Ruchaud is only allowed to share them by special dispensation.

“I started taking care of the archive in November 2012, when it was still in Paris,” he recalls. “They were looking for somebody who wasn’t a journalist or a writer, but who’d know a bit of history. I was a member of the French Federation of Vintage Vehicles, and I also speak English, important because most of the documents are in French or in English.

Even though only a small share of documents from the Federation’s 120-year history has been preserved, the digitisation isn’t even half done

“A lot of things like hotel bills, hire car bills and so on didn’t need to be kept – but everything that was of any interest at all we began to send over to Valleiry. And of course some of the documents are still confidential – like letters written and signed by Enzo Ferrari.”

Come on over to Valleiry

Even with all those restrictions, someone passionate about motorsport could lose hours studying what is available here. 
A folder with the documents from Formula 1’s first-ever grand prix in Las Vegas – the one in the parking lot behind Caesars Palace – is a true testament to how far the sport has come in the last half-century.

Handwritten notes from one of the practice sessions include quaint, now-unimaginable comments like “Unknown car spun and continued at Turn 3”. There are also someone’s jottings from a meeting dedicated to hashing out the 1982 F1 calendar – featuring drawings by this person, presumably bored by said meeting: for example, a reminder to fax then-FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre is underlined twice, those two lines then growing into a droll sketch of a cuttlefish of some sorts.

Also here is a smattering of documents signed by Balestre, issuing fines for missed briefings, the ones Jean-Marie himself so dearly loved to take part in.

Karpov's guided tour from Ruchaud offered a window into a motor racing world that has long since been left behind

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths / Motorsport Images

One of the heaviest – and one of the most “demanding”, according to Jean-Francois – folders includes the notes and documents from the Lotus 88 ‘twin chassis’ saga.

But there are heavier ones – many times heavier, too – from closer to the end of the century. The findings of an investigation into Michael Schumacher’s 1999 crash at Silverstone, with all the minute details about the causes and circumstances of the incident in which Michael broke his leg, take up hundreds of pages. As for the pages relating to Ferrari’s disqualification from Malaysia that same year, there are twice as many.

These documents, Ruchaud says, also attract heightened interest – although clearly in a relative sense. The number of visitors to the archive you can count on your hands. It is, at least for now, closed to the wider public, and Jean-Francois’ principal guests are journalists and history researchers, who come to Valleiry no more than once every couple of months.

Ruchaud himself continues to live in Paris and comes to the FIA’s Centre of Excellence (the official name of the Valleiry office) for a few days every month, mostly to oversee the digitisation of the archive. Jean-Francois’s colleague, however, the one who scans the remaining documents one by one, is here every day. But even though only a small share of documents from the Federation’s 120-year history has been preserved, the digitisation isn’t even half done.

At the very least, there’s no reason to fear another fire. Just outside the rooms hosting the documents are canisters with a special gas, which will displace all the oxygen in case the smoke detectors go off, thus preventing any fire from spreading.

“You’ll have to go out of the room within three minutes of hearing the alarm,” explains Jean-Francois, pointing to the canisters, “because otherwise you have no more oxygen to breathe. But it’s much better than the normal fire extinguishers or sprinklers with water – because then all the documents would be destroyed again.”

There’s no clear plan so far as to whether the FIA will make at least part of this archive open to public. But some of the papers will definitely be made available on the FIA’s official website, and will then perhaps go on display in a standalone exhibition. The secrets will remain… secret.

Many hidden treasures at the archive will remain just that due to reasons of confidentiality

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths / Motorsport Images