Spa Francorchamps Comes to Project Motor Racing

August 29, 2025

Spa Francorchamps: Fear in the Ardennes

Tucked into Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, Spa Francorchamps is fast, flowing, and a forever reminder of why we love motorsport. At 7.004 km (half the size of the original layout), it’s a long lap—a sinuous ribbon where you’ll have plenty of time to understand why this circuit rewards commitment and punishes hesitation. Nineteen corners, more than 100 meters of elevation change, and straights long enough to make setup engineers sweat—this is the circuit where a driver’s nerve and a team’s judgment are tested like nowhere else.

The story begins on public roads linking the villages of Francorchamps, Malmedy, and Stavelot over a century ago. Laid out in 1921 by Jules de Thier and Henri Langlois van Ophem, Spa evolved from a 14.9 km triangle into today’s purpose built arena, which was redeveloped in 1979 and later refined into the current 7.004 km configuration.

It remains the archetype of a “driver’s track”, equal parts heritage, high speed, and frightening. Of course, back when the Masta Kink was in play, Spa was an even more terrifying proposition, the scene of the Jackie Stewart-led boycott in 1969 that signalled the start of heightened safety procedures at racing events.

But even after all the chopping and changes, Spa remains what it always was—a fast speed dance with fate.

A Lap of the Gods

The lap opens with the tight, downhill La Source hairpin—traction and patience required—before the car exhales onto the downhill slalom run to Eau Rouge and Raidillon. The left right left compression slingshots you uphill onto the Kemmel Straight, a 1.05 km drag race where low drag setups pay dividends and slipstreams turn defensive driving into an art form. Your courage through Raidillon—or lack of it!—will be there for everyone to see down the Kemmel.

Braking at Les Combes decides the sector; get greedy and you’ll compromise Malmédy and the downhill plunge toward Bruxelles.

Spa’s middle act is about momentum and guts. The double apex Pouhon demands unwavering faith in front-end bite; the car skims the kerb at high G for what feels like forever. Fagnes and Stavelot link rhythm to rhythm, unwinding into a full throttle blast through Courbe Paul Frère and Blanchimont, a bend that still commands respect even in high downforce modern machinery.

The lap tightens at the reprofiled Bus Stop chicane, a last gasp overtaking spot and a test of brake stability after a flat out charge, with an exit that exists for no other reason than to ruin all the sacrifices a driver has taken up to that point. There really is no more frustrating exit in the world of motorsports.

Spa’s vertical drama—about 102 meters from high to low—amplifies every one of these moments.

And then of course, there’s the weather.

The forest can serve up sunshine at La Source and rain at Les Combes—sometimes within the same lap—making tyre calls a tactical minefield. Forecasts here are but educated guesses; teams live with the possibility of showers materializing from nowhere and you’ll always hear teams talking about “cells” forming on portions of the track.

Safety and spectacle, meanwhile, have evolved in tandem. Major works completed for 2022 added gravel traps back at key corners—including La Source, Raidillon, Les Combes, Stavelot and Blanchimont, all of which allowed Spa to keep its essential character while sharpening the consequences for running wide, restoring that old school edge drivers crave.

Spa hosts some of the greatest endurance icons on the planet—the 24 Hours of Spa and the 6 Hours of Spa—which showcase the circuit’s ability to blend relentless speed with strategy and survival. Few venues demand such versatility from cars and drivers across categories.

How do you win here? Trim the wing without neutering the middle sector; protect the tyres through the long lateral loads; and trust the car through high-commitment corners. That’s the thing about Spa: a breath on the throttle, a moment’s lift, and you’ll be a sitting duck on the big straights, and everyone will know you bottled it.

At Spa, fortune always favours the bold because getting it wrong here has big consequences.

Spa Francorchamps comes to Project Motor Racing Nov 25, 2025

Fun facts!

• 1. You know that section everyone calls Eau Rouge? Well, that’s not actually Eau Rouge! The left‑right‑left climb is officially Le Raidillon de l’Eau Rouge (“Raidillon” literally means “steep path”). “Eau Rouge” is the kink at the bottom where the car crosses the stream; the uphill right and crest are Raidillon. That’s where the car gets light and getting your tail out here can end your day in a bad way. It’s also where this happened.
• 2. There’s a literal red river under the apex at Eau Rouge. The Eau Rouge stream passes beneath the track at the bottom of the hill; its stones can look reddish thanks to iron‑oxide deposits—hence the name “red water.” Drivers are effectively skimming a bridge over a rust‑tinted brook at 300 km/h!
• 3. Spa once melted a Grand Prix weekend. In 1985, fresh surface work failed under heat and turbo‑era loads; the asphalt broke up during practice, forcing the Belgian GP to be postponed to September—a rare mid‑season reschedule caused by the track literally coming apart.
• 4. The shortest F1 race in history happened here. The rain‑soaked 2021 Belgian GP ran only a couple of laps behind the Safety Car before being red‑flagged and classified—no green‑flag racing, half points awarded, and a record for brevity.
• 5. Bonus trivia! The very word “spa” in English traces back to the nearby town of Spa, whose mineral springs made the name generic for bathing resorts.

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