Enveloped by mountains and no stranger to rain lashing down on its asphalt, the circuit, more often than not, promises an extraordinary every single season.
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One of the longest, quickest and most scenic Formula One circuits on the 2022 calendar has to be the home of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Enveloped by mountains and no stranger to rain lashing down on its asphalt, the circuit, more often than not, promises an extraordinary every single season. It’s not just fans who consider this to be one of the best circuits in the world today, but drivers also absolutely love racing here.
The all-time F1 wins record at the track is currently held by Michael Schumacher with six wins while Ferrari has won a total of 18 races at the historic venue. Spa-Francorchamps was inaugurated in 1922 and has hosted events like the European Le Mans Series, World Endurance Championship, GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, FIA World Rallycross Championship and others. 2022 saw a number of renovations made to the track to make it suitable for motorbike racing.
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is a 7km long track with 19 corners. The Formula One race on this track will be a 44-lap one resulting in a total distance of just over 308 km. The lap record on this track is a 1:46.286 set by then Mercedes driver Valterri Bottas in 2018. There are two DRS detection zones in the circuit, immediately succeeding and preceding the starting line. Formula One hosted its first event at this circuit way back in 1950.
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The combination of Eau Rouge and Raidillon is the most famous element of the circuit. After passing through the La Source hairpin, drivers race down a straight until the course crosses the Eau Rouge stream for the first time, before being propelled rapidly uphill into a sweeping left-right-left series of bends with a blind crest. The Eau Rouge corner is technically merely the left-hander at the bottom. Raidillon is the name given to the following right-hander that leads sharply uphill and was introduced in 1939 to bypass the original Ancienne Douane hairpin.
The Blanchimont high-speed left-hand turn, which is present in both the old 14.100 km circuit and the current, shorter, 7.004 km track, is the course’s final sweeping bend before the chicane that leads to the pit straight. The run-off area is narrower than in other turns taken at this speed, and there is a 7-8 metre drop behind the protection barriers.
As a tribute to his career, turn 11 in the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix has been dubbed the Jacky Ickx corner. Most drivers referred to the bend as “speakers corner” since the circuit’s public address announcer could see the cars for the first time after they vanished into the forest past Raidillon.
Michael Schumacher (6 wins)
Ayrton Senna (5 wins)
Jim Clark, Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton (4 wins)
Juan Manuel Fangio, Damon Hill, Sebastian Vettel (3 wins)
