This weekend F1 returns to Spa-Francorchamps, a venue that has hosted 57 world championship Belgian Grands Prix, with this year’s set to be the 58th. It’s also the third Sprint event of the season, adding the opportunity for extra points as the battles at the front and in the midfield heat up.

It’s a mighty circuit at 7.004km in length with 19 corners, two DRS zones and over 102 metres of elevation change over the lap. While it appears that much of this happens at the infamous and iconic Eau Rouge to Raidillon sequence, the highest point on the track is actually turn 7 or Malmedy before the drivers drop down the hill to the lowest point of turn 15, or Stavelot.

As a circuit with a rich, storied history of motor racing, most of the corners are named to acknowledge this history itself and its location, nestled in the Ardennes Forest.

Eau Rouge for example, or turn 2, is named after the iron-rich stream of ‘red water’ that runs beneath the circuit at the bottom of the hill. Turn 7, or Malmedy, takes its name from the City of Malmedy around 10km away from the track, while the incredibly quick Pouhon sequence takes its name from the French for ‘the place where the water is drawn from’ or the word used to describe the spring where the iron-oxide rich water of Spa comes from.

Spa’s history and safety

Although the Formula One World Championship has taken place at Spa since 1950, and consecutively since 1985 (except for 2003 and 2006), the circuit first hosted a Belgian Grand Prix in 1925 on what was a very different circuit from what’s raced on today.

The original Spa layout was almost 15 kilometres in length, or 9.3 miles, high speed and on public roads between the towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot.

But following tragic accidents and fatalities over the next six decades and a boycott of the grand prix by the drivers as they demanded improved safety measures, the circuit was modified before F1 returned in 1983.

It was now half the length, at just under 7km, with a new pit complex on a the start-finish straight between where the bus-stop chicane is today and turn 1, La Source.

And despite a brief addition of a chicane through Eau Rouge following the death of Ayrton Senna at Imola in 1994 (that was removed for the following year), and the addition of the bus-stop chicane with a new pit entry as the last corners of the lap – much of the track itself remained unchanged. As such, its challenge and danger remained to an extent particularly through the Eau Rouge-Raidillon section.

In response to the devastating loss of Anthoine Hubert at Raidillon in a GP2 accident in 2019, among other large crashes and drivers from a number of different series calling for change, the circuit underwent a major redevelopment prior to the 2022 season. Extra run-off was added to that part of the circuit with gravel traps added at various corners including La Source, Pouhon and Stavelot. Tragically, Dutch driver Dilano van ‘t Hoff also suffered a fatal accident at the exit of Raidillon during a FRECA race in 2023, highlighting just how much danger remains, particularly in wet conditions.

To this day, aside from the widening of its run-offs, the left-right-left sequence is largely unchanged since 1939 when it was incorporated into the circuit.

Compound range

For the first time since the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, Pirelli are skipping a compound in forming their range for this weekend. The aim is to increase strategic variation and promote the use of two-stop strategies on the softer compounds.

The medium and soft compounds are unchanged from last year, with the C4 set to be the soft and the C3 as the medium, but the hard has been moved one step further away from the medium and will be the C1.

The impact of this not only on the grand prix but also on the weekend to that point is likely to be sizeable for the teams and drivers. The Sprint format already reduces their tyre allocation to 12 sets from the usual 13, but also mandates that a new medium set is used in each of the first two Sprint Qualifying sessions. This will mean that by the Sprint race on Saturday morning, those who are starting in the top 15 will have already scrubbed two medium sets of the four they are allocated. How the teams manage their tyre allocations will be critical, and intriguing in how it potentially sets up their grand prix strategies from much earlier in the weekend.

What happened last year?

Last year’s Belgian Grand Prix was dry and as a result, the hard and medium tyres were used by the majority with thirteen drivers following a two-stop race, five running the one-stop and one, Sergio Perez, stopping three times.

The vast majority of drivers opted to start on the medium, except for Ricciardo who began on the soft, and Zhou and Sainz who began on the hard tyre (although Zhou retired early on).

For many of the medium runners the first stop arrived with in the first 12 laps and the majority shifted onto the hard compound with the view of stopping again in another 12-15 laps’ time. However, with degradation being lower than had been anticipated, George Russell opted to retain his hard tyre set from lap 10 to the end of the race and became the only driver to finish in the top eight on track to successfully run the one-stop.

Unfortunately for Russell though, his race ended in a disqualification as his car was found to be under the minimum weight limit during post-race scrutineering which handed the win to his Mercedes teammate, Lewis Hamilton who had initially crossed the line in P2.

Oscar Piastri was promoted to P2, with Charles Leclerc moving up to the final podium place also.

Characteristics considerations

The Spa circuit requires something of a trade-off in terms of downforce setup, owing to its mix of characteristics over the different sectors. Sectors 1 and 3 generally require lower downforce, but optimising for this can leave you limited in the high speed corners of sector 2 and suffering in the wet. While prioritising the middle sector can help in qualifying, it can compromise you on the straights that precede the circuit’s main overtaking points on race day.

With just one practice session in this weekend’s sprint format, the teams have limited time to find their optimal setup so the risk of getting it wrong is high.

The weather

As is always the case in Spa, the weather is likely to play a crucial role in this weekend’s running. Friday is forecasted to have a 57% chance of precipitation which eases off to 25% for Saturday before increasing again to 89% on Sunday.

The intermediates or even the extreme wets are therefore likely to feature at points, but the length of the Spa circuit means it can often be wet and raining in one section yet dry in another. It makes managing a cross-over period either from dry-to-wet or wet-to-dry difficult, with making the wrong decision also being costly as the driver has to complete a further 7km around the lap before they can correct a tyre choice by pitting again.

The Belgian Grand Prix begins with Free Practice 1 at 12:30 local time on Friday July 25th. The rest of the timings for the weekend are as follows (all in local time):

• FP1: Friday 25th July, 12:30-13:00
• Sprint Qualifying: Friday 25th July, 16:30-17:15
• Sprint: Saturday 26th July, 12:00-13:00
• Qualifying: Saturday 26th July, 16:00-17:00
• Belgian Grand Prix: Sunday 27th July, 15:00