Five interesting facts about the historic race at Spa-Francorchamps.

Formula One is back after a nice and well deserved break, this time it heads to Belgium, which welcomes Esteban Gutiérrez and the second half of season 2013. This is what Esteban has to say about the track in Spa-Francorchamps:

This is one of the tracks where I particularly enjoy to drive because it has many corners. You can feel the limits of the car at high speed. The lap is very long and sometimes there can be several different weather conditions at different points of the circuit. It can be raining on one sector while another is dry. This makes for a challenge and a very interesting race.

The track is located in a village called Francorchamps close to the city of Spa, one of the most famous in Belgium. Its construction began trying to use portions of the road that connected the cities. What other interesting facts are there about this historic track? Here are five important things to remember about the race that is taking place this weekend:

  1. It is a favorite track of many Formula Onedrivers because of it’s historic and scenic value
  2. Its weather is usually very unpredictable. There was a time when it rained during the race for 20 years in a row and it has been reported that sometimes drivers will have a sunny track with excellent vision range on one sector while on the other it is raining and the track is slippery on the same lap.
  3. Originally this track was 14 km long, but after the constant evolution and increasing speed and performance of the cars it became more dangerous and it was necessary to make adjustments and shorten the layout to today’s length of 7 km.
  4. Other racing events that have been held on this circuit are the 24 Hours of Francorchamps, Le Mans and the European Grand Prix.
  5. Michael Schumacher has won the Belgian Grand Prix six times while Ayrton Senna did it five times; four of them in a row from 1988 to 1991. Kimi Raikkonen and Jim Clark have four victories each.

 

Sources:

http://www.spa-francorchamps.be/en/circuit-history.php

http://www.formula1.com/races/in_detail/belgium_904/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Grand_Prix

 

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