© Getty ImagesPreviously At The Belgian Grand PrixSpa is never the same twice – and just to prove it, our five victories here at the Belgian Grand Prix have all been very, very different.
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Formula One revels in its history, more so than most sports, and the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps sits at the centre of the story. Rolling down the hilland into the circuit is a mesmeric experience: café owners in the village of Francorchamps laying out their tables, memorabilia stalls setting up is a timeless ritual, all waiting for the weekend when this otherwise quiet corner of the Ardennes suddenly explodes into the capital of the racing world. The snapshot remains unchanged: could be 2023, could be 1953.
The circuit has been hosting grand prix since long before the World Championship was formalised. It has gone through several iterations before arriving at the familiar 7km layout used today – but the essential character remains unchanged: it is a high-speed rollercoaster of a track, diving down to the Eau Rouge stream before rising up, up, up to Les Combes and Rivage and then plunging back down through Blanchimont to the pit-lane. But Spa has more to it than speed alone. The present layout represents a tantalising conundrum. Super-fast in Sectors One and Three requiring low drag; sinuous curves in Sector Two screaming for high downforce. You can’t have both – but it isn’t always a case of compromise. Some of the best races at this circuit have been between teams – or drivers – going about their business with very different ideas about how to get the best from Spa. It’s led to some fabulously complicated races – and that’s before the rainclouds rollover.
We’re five-time winners in Belgium – and every one of them has been very different experience. These are our best days at Spa.
The 2011 Belgian Grand Prix is remembered for many things. It’s remembered for sodden practice sessions and Qualifying showers picking their moments to deliver maximum drama; it’s remembered for Michael Schumacher swapping his traditional red helmet for a golden lid, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his F1 debut; it’s remembered for Mark Webber’s stunning pass on Fernando Alonso through Eau Rouge, and any number of crashes. What it isn’t particularly well remembered for is Sebastian Vettel’s victory – because Seb had the least dramatic race of anyone. He put the RB7 on pole and came home three seconds ahead of Mark to increase his Championship lead to 92 points, while another 1-2 finish moved us 131 points clear of McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship.
On the surface, the only drama Seb had all afternoon was losing the lead at the first corner to Nico Rosberg – though with a powerful DRS and a lightning-quick car through the twisty Sector Two, that disadvantage did not persist for long. What concerned the team, however, was the potential for tyre failures. The Pirellis had been blistering all weekend under the huge loads imparted through Spa’s faster corners. Some teams – ourselves included – had lobbied for more tyres, only to be turned down by the FIA. Happily, everyone’s rubber held on – though it was a nervous afternoon on the pit-wall – and the true legacy of this race is the mandatory maximum tyre cambers everyone races with today.
Mr Reliable Sebastian Vettel© Getty Images
The memory tends to play tricks when it comes to the 2013 season. Sebastian Vettel won his fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship, we won our fourth consecutive Constructors’ Championship, and the margins of victory at the end of the season were impressive – but 2013 was far from straightforward, and coming out of the summer break, Seb and the team, while on top of both tables, weren’t presumptive favourites for anything. That changed gradually and then rapidly, as Seb went on a record-breaking rampage of nine straight wins, starting at Spa.
Mercedes had excellent single-lap pace and duly extended their run of poles to eight from nine races, despite a wet and wild qualifying session – but on Sunday, Seb was able to nip past on the run up the hill to take the lead on the first lap. The prowess of the RB9 through the tight middle sector allowed him to pull out enough of a gap such that, when DRS was activated, he was already clear of the chasing pack, and able to settle into supercruise, and take another Spa victory… though while the margin was impressive, no-one at that stage expected him to annex that top step of the podium for the remainder of a season.
Leading The Pack In Belgium© Getty Images
2014–Danielpicksupthepieces
While 2014 is marked as the start of a period of sustained dominance for Mercedes, coming out of the Belgian Grand Prix there was just a hint that Daniel Ricciardo could make it a three-way title-fight in the Drivers’ Championship. He took back-to-back wins around the 2014 summer break, doubling up after Hungary with victory at Spa and, added to his debut win in Canada a couple of months earlier, he found himself just 35 points behind Lewis Hamilton and 64 behind Nico Rosberg. If the Mercs were fighting among themselves, he wasn’t entirely out of the running. He had Rosberg to thank for victory in Spa, clipping the rear-left wheel of team-mate Hamilton on lap two, setting in motion a train of events that ruined Mercedes whole day.
Daniel still had the small matter of Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and team-mate Sebastian Vettel to pass on track. He dispatched Alonso on the Kemmel straight in short order and harried Seb until the latter ran wide. This was a different sort of victory for Ricciardo: his previous wins had been last-gasp affairs, snatching a lead in the final laps. Here, he was in front before the halfway mark, with the race his to lose. He didn’t get twitchy – in fact the opposite was true. Daniel built a lead over Seb and kept his tyres fresh enough to see off an end-of-race threat from a recovering Rosberg. It was clinical.
Back-To-Back Wins For Daniel© Getty Images
Max won the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix and we have the trophy but… well, what can you say? It’s the shortest grand prix on record, lasting just the one official lap – and that behind the Safety Car after hours of delays. There were several attempts to get the race going but torrential rain and almost zero visibility made it very difficult, and officials were doubtlessly mindful of a heavy crash in similar conditions for Lando Norris that red-flagged Q3.
Max’s half-points were his reward for taking pole position once that session restarted, and it closed his gap to Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship to just three points… but beyond that, the real race on Sunday at Spa was to get everything dry enough to go into the trucks and onwards to Zandvoort.
2022–ChargeoftheMaxbrigade
If 2021 saw Max win a Belgian Grand Prix the wrong way, then his 2022 performance more than made up for it, giving his legion of fans packing the hillsides around Spa-Francorchamps plenty of drama to relive in the campsites on Sunday night. This is the era of the tactical power unit penalty; with Spa and Monza being the races where most drivers pre-empt their inevitable punishment, taking the hit on a circuit where overtaking is sufficiently straightforward to limit the damage. Max started the race P14, but obviously hadn’t read the damage-limitation script, and simply mowed his way through the competition.
Max was metronomic: catching and passing rivals at Les Combes and the Bus Stop, with the occasional move at La Source for variety. He put in a power-slide out of the final corner to take the chequered flag, which was the only time all afternoon he didn’t look like having the RB18 under complete control. He won by 18 seconds, with Checo coming home to give us a 1-2 finish, and take the point for fastest lap as well. It was as complete a performance as you are ever likely to see.
The Ultimate Weekend Performance© Getty Images
