Circuit Spa-Francorchamps

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The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit is the venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix, and of the Spa 24 Hours and 1000 km Spa endurance races.

It is also home to the all Volkswagen club event, 25 Hours of Spa, run by the Uniroyal Fun Cup. It is one of the most challenging race tracks in the world, mainly due to its fast, hilly and twisty nature. Spa is a favourite circuit of many racing drivers and fans.[1]

Despite its name, the circuit is not in Spa but lies in the vicinity of the town of Francorchamps completely within the boundaries of the municipality of Stavelot.

Spa is located in the Belgian Ardennes countryside, and the old circuit was (and still is) used as everyday public road, and there were houses, trees, electric poles, barnyards, fields and other obstacles located right next to the track. Before 1970, there were no safety modifications of any kind done to the circuit and the conditions of the circuit were, aside from a few straw bales, virtually identical to everyday civilian use. Former Formula One racing driver and team owner Jackie Oliver was quoted as saying "if you went off the road, you didn't know what you were going to hit".[4]

Spa was the fastest road circuit in Europe at the time, and it had a nasty reputation for being dangerous and very fast- it was a circuit known to be one for the brave, and most drivers were frightened of it. Entries in the F1 and sportscar races there were often smaller than usual than compared to other circuits. The old Spa circuit was unique in that speeds were consistently high with hardly any let-up at all for 3–4 minutes. This made it an extraordinarily difficult mental challenge, because most of the corners were taken at 180+ mph and were not quite flat- every corner was as important as the one before it. If a driver lifted just that little bit more, then whole seconds, not tenths- would be lost. Even the slightest error of any kind was punished very harshly in more ways than one. But this reality also worked inversely- huge advantages could be gained if a driver came out slightly faster out of a corner.

Like the Nürburgring and Le Mans circuits, Spa became notorious for fatal accidents, as there were many deaths each year at the ultra-fast track, especially at the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix where 2 drivers, Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey were both killed within 15 minutes (although Stacey's accident was caused by a bird hitting him in the face) and Stirling Moss had crashed at Burnenville during practice and was severely injured. When Armco crash barriers were added to the track in 1970, deaths became less frequent there but the track was still notorious for other factors. The Ardennes Forest had very unpredictable weather and there were parts where it was raining and the track was wet, and other parts where the sun was shining and the track was completely dry. This factor was a commonality on long circuits, but the weather at Spa was always more unpredictable than other long circuits, combined with the fact that it was an ultra-high speed track with all but 1 corner (La Source) being extremely high speed made it one of, if not the most dangerous race track in the world. Multiple fatalities during the 1973 and 1975 24 Hours of Spa touring car races more or less sealed the old circuit's fate, and by 1978, the last year Spa was in its original form, the only major races held there were the Belgian motorcycle Grand Prix and the Spa 24 Hours touring car race; the 1000 km World Sportscar Championship race no longer took place after 1975 and did not come back until 1982.