Measuring in at 7.004 kilometers (4.352 miles), Spa is the longest venue in Formula One, outdistancing the series’ second-longest track, the 6.003-kilometer (3.730-mile) Baku City Circuit, by 1.001 kilometers (.622 of a mile). In addition to its length, Spa is known for its reputation of being a driver’s track, thanks in large part to the addition of the signature Eau Rouge and Raidillon corners in 1939, which created a fast and sweeping uphill, left-right-left combination that drivers view with reverence and attack with gusto.
Spa has hosted Formula One since 1925, with last year’s Belgian Grand Prix serving as the venue’s milestone 51th grand prix.
The Essentials
Focus points: Straight-line speed. The cars are flat-out for large sections of the lap (22s in Sector One and 19s in Sector Three), so the main focus for the engineers revolves around how much downforce to strip off the car while continuing to give the drivers a compliant machine through the high-speed twists of Sector Two.
Unique difficulty. No other corner in F1 resembles the legendary left-right-left flick at Eau Rouge. It’s been eased over the years, making it slightly less of a challenge, but the g-forces and the incline remain unique. The drivers approach the corner at 310km/h (190mph) and they experience a 2g compression at the bottom of the hill, before being subjected to 4.6g lateral through the right-hander, while climbing 190 feet towards the exit at Raidillon.
Biggest challenge: The weather. The track is located in the Ardennes, a mountainous region of Belgium that’s infamous for its unpredictable micro-climate. Rain has become a regular feature of the race and it was at Spa-Francorchamps in 1997 that the first-ever Safety Car start took place on a water-logged track. Complicating matters further, the track is often dry in one section and wet in another, forcing the drivers and engineers to think on their feet.
Statistics for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps:
Lap distance: 7.004km. Total distance: 308.052km (44 laps)
2018 pole: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes
2018 winner: Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari
Race lap record: Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes – 1:46.286
Start time: 1310 GMT (1510 local)
Belgian Grand Prix
This year’s race will be the 52st Belgian Grand Prix at Spa and eight of the last 17 have been won from pole position.
Mercedes had won the last three Belgian GPs, before Scuderia Ferrari won in 2018 thanks to Sebastian Vettel.
Michael Schumacher won a record six times at Spa, including from 16th on the grid in a wet 1995 race.
Three Belgians have finished on the podium in their home race — Paul Frere, Olivier Gendebien and Jacky Ickx.
Spa is the longest lap of the season and one of the fastest, with an average speed of around 230 kph. Cars are flat out for about 70 percent of the time.
Four current drivers have won at Spa: Kimi Raikkonen (2004, 2005, 2007 and 2009), Hamilton (2010, 2015, 2017), Sebastian Vettel (2011, 2013, 2018) and Daniel Ricciardo (2014).
Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen are the seven drivers who’ve taken back-to-back wins at this track. Clark and Senna have the shared record for most consecutive wins at Spa. Clark took four consecutive victories between 1962 and 1965, while Senna took four in a row between 1988 and 1991.
The smallest win margin at Spa Francorchamps came in 1961, when Phil Hill won by just seven tenths of a second. The largest win margin was all the way back in 1951 when Guiseppe Farina won by 171 seconds.
The average pole margin from the last ten Belgian Grand Prix weekends is 0.251 seconds.
Key Corners
Turn 1 – a good exit from La Source can be carried all the way up Eau Rouge and along the Kemmel Straight. Conversely, poor traction here results in overtaking opportunities for following cars.
Turns 10 and 11 – this downhill double left hander, known as Pouhon, will be a critical performance differentiator between cars and drivers and should be flat-out for the front running teams.
Turns 18 and 19 – the Bus Stop chicane requires tidy, late braking, and then a strong front end to ride the kerbs, before good traction to propel the car down the pit straight.
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