Take my breath Eau-way (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Belgium)

Member Name: Modena

Product:	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Belgium
Date:	14/10/01 (1862 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The beauty, the excitement, Nice waffles, Track has few imperfections, the speed, volatile weather, Eau Rouge

Disadvantages: Doubts over some of the facilities, choice of food. Need to pay for toilets, getting there (and back), volatile weather, Eau Rouge

Spa-Francorchamps is one of the most spectacular Grand Prix circuits in the world, I’ve recently (August) returned from a trip there with an FIA GT team competing in the Spa 24 hours and spent a week at the magnificent location.

Mention Spa to the average person on the street, and 3 things I guess will pop up, the fact that it is located in the serene location of the Ardennes, Eau Rouge/Blanchimont and the fact that it is the longest course on the F1 calendar (at about 4.3 miles I think)


>>How to get there
I traveled to the Circuit by road through the channel tunnel (opinion coming soon) I guess this is the usual way of getting there along with flying to Brussels or “Eurostaring” it to Brussels, either way, you arrive at Spa in roughly the same way.

Once you have crossed the channel, head towards Dunkirk and go straight, and you will be in Belgium and just go straight along the E40 to Brussels via Gent, then you hit the Brussels ring road and head towards Liege, where you get towards Spa via the E42.

Sounds simple right? Au contraire, the Belgian roads, though smooth, are a nightmare, you receive little warning prior to important junctions, some aren’t even lit, there were 3 important splits which took us by surprise and fortunately we made the correct decision on all 3. Once past Liege, there are simply insufficient signs. It’s about one and a half hours from Brussels.

The circuit is situated high in the Ardennes in the town of Francorchamps which is about a few KM from Spa (10 minutes) so once on the E42, head for Francorchamps!

>>The circuit
Okay, lets get the interesting part of this opinion out of the way and then you can skip the rest, as you may know Spa-Francorchamps is a long and daunting course, the Playstaion etc games do it no justice, fortunately I managed to get 2 laps around this famous circuit.

Let’s rewind a little, the circuit is famed fo
r the Eau Rouge corners and the Blanchimont part. I didn’t think much of these corners at first, I knew Eau Rough was the most dangerous and Blanchimont was good viewing if taken flat out. Being part of a team, we were allowed to enter the paddock via the non-F1 pit straight (just before Eau Rouge) and imagine the shock when I saw the corner, I could believe the gradient, it was really steep, steeper than the rising part of your average flyover. What made it worse was the downhill part before the corner and the exit was blind, and what about all the weight shift because of the change in gradient and direction?

Anyway, I was taken round the circuit by a popular Belgian driver Geoffroy Horion, who was one of the drivers in our team in a BMW 3 Series for 2 slow laps around the circuit. A fast Formula One lap of this circuit is around a 1:50. The fastest lap that weekend in the GT cars was about a 2:20 and the laps we did in the BMW road car were about 5 mins mainly taken at cruising speed.

Out of the non-F1 pit lane we immediately hit Eau rouge, a slight jink to the left and then a right and then a blind left at the top of the hill, then a big bump once onto the straight into the chicane at Malmedy (where Hakkinen spectacularly took Schumacher via Zonta in 2000). Then it’s all fairly plain sailing through a series of corners that require a lot of gear changes, but because of the constant change in direction, a lot of grip is needed and a lot of forces are put on the body, it was plenty of fun, especially with the changing gradients and a few blind turns. The speed starts building after Stavelot and into Blanchimont, this is a place where the best F1 car can take a series of left handers flat out! On the F1 programme Martin Brundle would tell you to listen to the engine noise and see who is brave enough to take it flat out. A lot of speed is built up and you get to the famous bus stop chicane, this is very narrow in reality and the kerbs a
re higher than at the rest of the course. Then the speed builds up at the F1 straight and then into La Source hairpin, the slowest part of the course and then it’s downhill through the non-F1 straight and into Eau Rouge.

It’s a fantastic circuit to drive on I reckon, and it must be really difficult and demanding to keep a car on the circuit. Also this place is a nightmare in the wet, rivers build up on the track and also it is important to keep off the white line if in the wet. There are a lot of small stones on the track, I found a lot clinging onto the slick tyres of the race car and also there is a lot of debris one off line.

>>Spa for the punter
So what if you are about to see a race at Spa, is it any good? For Silverstone, I said that the punter has to walk a long way to get from the car parking and the area around the track is in need of attention (which it is getting). For Spa, the story is similar, especially if you wish to get to the Formula One paddock (which has some work being done to it on the access front it seems). To be fair, the closest car parking is much closer to the track than Silverstone, and when the paths are dry, they are not too bad to walk on, it’s a different story when it rains, the drainage outside the paddock is quite poor. Also the gradient makes walking tiring.

Getting around isn’t too difficult, you might need a scooter like at most events. There are 2 ways to get into he paddock if the track is being used, there are small tunnels, one for cars and people which leads to the centre of the non-F1 paddock and a pedestrian only tunnel leading from the car park next to Eau Rouge to the non-F1 pit exit at Eau Rouge, it’s fine, it can get crowded, but it very dirty and wet if it’s raining.

I don’t know how much it is for access to the Formula One events but assuming it’s similar, then you get the same thing as you get at Silverstone, access to the Grand
stands etc costs extra (and the grandstands are in similar condition; i.e. acceptable and can give good viewing). But for the non-Grandstand punter, Spa is better than Silverstone because it’s length allows for places so that you can get a good position to view the race; for example, for one of the practice sessions, I found a nice pace at the exit of the Bus Stop chicane and had a really good view there, also above the buildings at the non-F1 pits is a good place if you don’t mind walking too many stairs.

>Food
This is not too good. At Silverstone, there are permanent places where food is served and for the public to purchase things, but at Spa, every food place I came across was the temporary outdoor type, making eating in the rain a little bit of a nightmare. Prices and quality of the fast food is similar, about £3 for a Hamburger and chips, which is not reasonable, but hey, I was part of a racing team and got to use the hospitality of another team…. Don’t expect anything if you are vegetarian

Don’t forget to try the waffles!

>Toilets
The big complaint, it costs 15 Belgian Francs or 1 Deutschmark to enter them, that’s about 30p a go, the toilets are very old and not in the best of condition, but are slightly cleaner than at Silverstone, but 30p a go??? Fortunately I had somewhere else to go.

>Atomsphere
The atmosphere for a 24 hour race is always different to your usual event, there is a greater carnival atmosphere, for the 24 hour event, there was a dance night, a beauty contest, singing and attractive looking ladies walking around for their sponsors etc… There were even fireworks during the race night!

At the other side of the track (opposite to the non-F1 paddock), there were lots of temporary stalls selling mainly Ferrari goodies (for fairly grand sums) and lots of other “useless” stuff, you get an excellent view of Eau Rouge there too. If you want u
seful things, like a supermarket etc, then you got to travel to one of the nearby towns…

>>For the team member?
Well I was there as a team member, so was it good for me? Firstly, we stayed in a motorhome, a fairly big 6 berth one and that was easily accommodated at one of the car-parks where we had a power supply and access to water refills. The car park was a little rocky though and the power supply did die down a few times (for a few evenings) fortunately we had a generator on our motorhome.

Also the distance to the hospitality was far, we were right behind the non-F1 pits, the hospitality was next to the F1 paddock, it isn’t a far walk, but the climb!!! The non F1 pits are also very small, with just enough space for the team truck and a place to put the tyres. The pit garage itself has just enough room to repair the car, store the tools and space for a fridge at the back.

The FIA offices and media place of Spa are not too good, I have only been to the non-F1 section (the Uniroyal tower) the facilities aren’t that good and are a little worn, it’s better at Silverstone.

The atmosphere of being a team member is great, but I don’t think this has much to do with Spa, the serene location is a real incentive and bonus for any team member, seeing Eau Rouge as you look out of the pits is a real eye opener.

It’s a shame everything is in French, I had to read up on the website (it was good to see a few pictures with me in them on the website) and in Autosport to see what actually happened in the race.

>>Under the weather
I wish we had seven days in the sun, we got almost that… There was pure sunshine since arriving Monday evening and the clouds came Thursday but because of the wind and scattered sunshine, there was no need for Wet tyres, the humidity, as one would expect in the middle of the mountains was quite high. It started raining Thursday evening, just as qualifyin
g started, and unluckily, we were one of the last cars out and qualified 24th because of that. The rain stopped in the middle of the night and began again, really heavily (when it gets heavy at Spa it is really heavy) and dried for the Friday morning qualifying before lashing down Friday qualifying again.

For the race, it began bone dry with a short shower here and there, it was difficult to make tyre conditions because the wind meant that the track dried so quickly. A lot of tyre type changes were required, and for the record our car finished 15th.

>>Parc ferme
Spa is a great track, you may need to know a little French and it is slightly tricky to get there. If you are lucky enough to go there, then do go, just be prepared to walk a long way if you don’t have track access, but that’s the same for most tracks.

The problem is getting round the track itself and wishing to visit the toilets. Spa is probably one of the most frightening tracks in the world, if you ever get to have a chance to get a lap round the circuit, you will not regret it.

If I had to say Silverstone or Spa, then probably Spa wins marginally because once the punter arrives, everything is slightly easier and the comparisons are more difficult because I had so much more access at Spa.

Given the chance to go here again, I would not hesitate to; as long as I have the same access I had this time around (a pit pass and a “car pass”) and hopefully have a hotel room too. If you ever get the chance to go, bring a rain coat/umbrella, pick a good spot, have some food in case and enjoy the race, just don’t think too much about the journey back!!!

Official website http://www.spa-francorchamps.be

Summary: