Round three of the FIA WEC season is the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, one of two circuits on the calendar since 2012. The other is Le Mans, for which the Ardennes event has been the dress rehearsal since 2019.
The two Prancing Horse 499P Hypercars will take on the “challenge” of a track known as the University of Formula One, where their hybrid powertrain will face fierce competition in the world’s top endurance class.
Indeed, the track immersed in the green of the Ardennes still has nearly all the technical characteristics of the original circuit (which was about 14 kilometres long), making it exciting from first to last from the technical point of view. It is full of technical aspects that can bring out differences between drivers. The fans' pulses quicken when the cars pass by the Eau Rouge or Radillon, and nerves fray when a driver goes at full tilt (or not) into this fearsome dip.
Of course, drivers don't only set their best times courtesy of the Eau Rouge and Radillon. The central part of Spa is very interesting, with its sequence of fast curves interspersed with short straights. This second stage is perhaps the most technical, with the driver needing to take a very particular approach so as not to spin out. After the mixed section, at the exit of the treacherous Stavelot, the drivers go back in time to the evocative straight in the Ardennes forest, the Blanchimont, which leads to the final turn, the Bus Stop.
However, the Belgian circuit is also famous for its very changeable weather conditions, which often produce wet and dry stretches on a track that is almost seven kilometres long!
The circuit is near Francorchamps in the Stavelot municipality bordering the town of Spa in the Ardennes region of Belgium.
The Spa-Francorchamps track was built in the early 1920s. Its layout connected the Ardennes villages of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot. It was the idea of Jules de Thier, owner of the “La Meuse” newspaper, and Henri Langlois Van Ophem, member of the Sports Commission at the RACB (Royal Automobile Club Belgium). The circuit was inaugurated in 1924 with a 24-hour race for regular production cars.
The main events include the famous 24 Hours, a one-day event that inaugurated the facility. It was reserved for touring cars but since 2001 has been extended to GTs. It has been on the Formula 1 calendar since 1950, hosting the Belgian Grand Prix. The first edition of the Grand Prix, the European one, dates back to 1925. Formula 1 single-seaters have raced at Spa-Francorchamps except for a break in the 1970s. The Grand Prix was then held at Nivelles and Zolder before returning in 1983.
The circuit’s appeal extends throughout the 7km layout, but the most famous and fascinating section is undoubtedly the Eau Rouge-Raidillon combination. Eau Rouge, so-called because it was built over a small watercourse of the same name, is the left turn before the climb, leading to the Raidillon turn on the right, where the cars reach very high speeds, with a 17% gradient and a 40-metre drop.
At the end of the 1970’s the circuit management decided to build a new semi-permanent track, and through various interventions, gradually reduced the original 14 km to 7 km. In 1980, a new double chicane called the Bus Stop was added, so-called because it was located near a bus stop between the Blanchimont turn and the La Source hairpin. The new pits were built just before La Source due to the creation of a flat starting line to allow the return of Formula 1 cars under the new regulations. The old pit straight, still in use for the other categories, didn’t meet this requirement.