I Look Like Kevin Costner
Grand Prix fanatic..
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Of all the tracks across the worlds that still retains a resemblance to its original form, the Spa Francochamps circuit in the rolling Ardennes mountains is loved by Drivers and fans alike. Its unpredictable weather and long track length mean that races often can be run under wet and dry condition s and the undulating nature of the course make it one of the most the most challenging race track that remained on the F1 calendar.
The original Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was formed in 1921 using a 15 km (9.3 mile) triangle-shaped course used public roads between the Belgian towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot.
In 1925, the first Belgian Grand Prix was won by Antonio Ascari whose son Alberto would win the race in 1952 and 1953. The original circuit was very similar to the old Nurbergring and had a reputation for being just as dangerous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2awF_llf7q4&feature=related
In 1939, the race claimed the life of British driver Richard "Dick" Seaman while leading the race. In 1960, Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey lost their lives in separate incidents, the latter when he was hit in the head by a bird. Jackie Stewart also had a big smash here in the mid sixties. Graham Hill stopped to help him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXW2Qhjp0bw&feature=related
In 1972 Spa was considered too dangerous, so the Belgian authorities transferred the race to alternat between the Zolder curcuit and a characterless circuit at Nivelles-Baulers near Brussels. Nivellies held the 72 and 74 editions, but it wasn’t particulary liked and was dispensed with soon afterwards.
In 75 the race was exclusively awarded to Zolder. The Belgian Grand Prix would be held there a further nine times. Niki Lauda scored back-to-back victories at the track in 1975 and 1976 for Ferrari, and in 1977 Gunnar Nilsson scored his only F1 victory (in the Lotus 78). Unfortunately Gunnar was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the end of the year and died shortly afterwards. 78 saw Mario Andretti win in the “Black Beauty” JPS Lotus 79 ground effect car followed in the next year by Jody Scheckter in his championship winning Ferrari and Didier Pironi’s first win in the 1980 Ligier. The 1981 event was won by Carlos Reutemann’s William FW07c.
However Zolder will always be remembered, for the horriofic accident that claimed the legend that was Gilles Villeneuve, when he clipped Jochen Mass’s March and led the sickening images of his separtaion from his disinteraging Ferrari. Nobody really remembers the “burn from the stern” win of John Watson won the race for McLaren from the back of the grid.
The Spa circuit returned in use for GP racing in 1983. Athe circuit was still public roads, however it had been shortened by the introduction of a specially built race track section from the Les coombes corner joining up to the old path at new Stavelot corner for racing and the Belgian Grand Prix returned there. Other circuit changes included the famous Bus stop chicane at the end of the Blancemont curves. The race had one more edition at Zolder before Spa became the only home for the race in 85.
This year saw 2 grand Prix meetings at Spa! The first in the June was cancelled on the Friday when the unseasonally warm temperatures cause the newly laid track to break up! The rerun meeting in the September saw Ayrton Senna win his second GP in front of a British driver having his best result of his career up to that date (Nigel went one better at at next!)
1986 was a Mansell win that started his world championship challenge. 1987 saw Mansell and Senna come to blows on and off the track, when their Honda lotus and Williams collided as Mansell was trying to overtake Senna for the lead. They were rejoined later that afternoon with Mansell trying to throttle Ayrton in the Lotus Pit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K9q_ELkKM&feature=related
1988 to 91 was totally Ayrton in the Mclaren Honda. He was lucky in 91 when Mansells Williams suffered a failure of a 10p voltage regulator that ended a race winning lead and the hounding Andrea De Cesaris Jordan blew up when Senna had major gearbox problems. The other Jordan had failed with clutch failure after the start. The debutant driver had been drafted in to replace the jailed Belgian Driver Bertrand Gachot and had qualified the car in 7th place! Thus the world was introduced to one M. Schumacher of Kerpen!
92 saw the young upstart win the event, punching his fist with delight to the Bus Stop crew including a young ILLKC and MAINJAFAD (my banner is on this vid, on the subway tunnel as Schumi crosses the line.. honest!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUFYK45D-g&feature=related
93 saw Damon get his second win (and one of his best) and Damon won again the next year (off the road) with Schumi’s disqualification for rubbing his plank! However Michael would dominate mostly in the rest of the nineties, 99 he missed with his broken leg and..
The race in 98 is remembered for these…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxr0MOflpYs
The race in 2000 is remembered for this…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVQ-omQEoIw&feature=related
The Red Schumi domination would resume in 2001 and 2002, but since then, the “Ice Man has always cometh”, with two wins in the Mclaren Merc and his victory in the Ferrari last year. There have been gaps when Bernie has dropped the race, mainly due to tobacco and financial arguments.
The course is now a permanent road circuit (that spoils the old nature of the semi permanent public road track). The circuit has so many famous corners. The first corner is the “La Source” Hairpin that always ends up as a traffic jam on lap One, running down passed the old pits complex into the most awesome corner complex of “Eau Rogue / Radillion”. This corner is taken flat out and the steep rise (1 in 4, I kid you not) induces fighter style positive “G” loads of up to 4 G downwards. The cars continue to climb up the “Le Kemmel” straight. Overtaking (as already seen) is very possible in to the “Les Coombes” hairpin at the top of the hill. The circuit transfers to the interlink with the curves of “Malmedy”, “Bruxelles”, “Double gauche” and “Stavelot” joining back up to the “Blanchimont “ complex and the now sadly truncated “Bus Stop” back to the pit straight. The course is now 7.003 Km long.
Now for the 2008 event. The fast sweeping nature of the circuit is expected to suit the Ferrari’s again (it was a 1 & 2 for them, last time here) and nobody is really thinking that if it stays dry, the red machine will not copy last year’s example. However reliability of the Italian cars has not been up to past standards as we are all aware. Kimi is awesome here, as mentioned previously, but will he turn up in qualifying? Spa does however give him the room to do something if he does not turn up on Saturday, but the long lap should allow Kimi to sort out his tyre temperatures! However Massa is proving to be the form man at the moment and can he keep the momentum against a fired up Kimi? Mclaren?? They were thrashed last year, but a year is a long time and Spa is unpredictable if the weather is as bad as it has been most of this summer. If it rains, Lewis will be in with a shout, there is not betting against it. The BMW’s seem to have given up in trying to keep up with the top two in development, but Robert will be in the mix on this driver’s track. The constructor’s championship is also brewing up nicely. It was this time last year that it was canned!
Spa is a great place to watch GP cars (especially Eau Rogue!) and is a big favourite with the travelling Brit GP fans, as it is just a hop across the channel and a 2 hour drive. We took a tent in 92 and just plonked it on a road side field 200 metres from the circuit entrance at La Source. Death by Stella and shouting abuse at all the Germans.."Harold!"
So ends the novel!
Roll on Spa!!
The original Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was formed in 1921 using a 15 km (9.3 mile) triangle-shaped course used public roads between the Belgian towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot.
In 1925, the first Belgian Grand Prix was won by Antonio Ascari whose son Alberto would win the race in 1952 and 1953. The original circuit was very similar to the old Nurbergring and had a reputation for being just as dangerous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2awF_llf7q4&feature=related
In 1939, the race claimed the life of British driver Richard "Dick" Seaman while leading the race. In 1960, Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey lost their lives in separate incidents, the latter when he was hit in the head by a bird. Jackie Stewart also had a big smash here in the mid sixties. Graham Hill stopped to help him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXW2Qhjp0bw&feature=related
In 1972 Spa was considered too dangerous, so the Belgian authorities transferred the race to alternat between the Zolder curcuit and a characterless circuit at Nivelles-Baulers near Brussels. Nivellies held the 72 and 74 editions, but it wasn’t particulary liked and was dispensed with soon afterwards.
In 75 the race was exclusively awarded to Zolder. The Belgian Grand Prix would be held there a further nine times. Niki Lauda scored back-to-back victories at the track in 1975 and 1976 for Ferrari, and in 1977 Gunnar Nilsson scored his only F1 victory (in the Lotus 78). Unfortunately Gunnar was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the end of the year and died shortly afterwards. 78 saw Mario Andretti win in the “Black Beauty” JPS Lotus 79 ground effect car followed in the next year by Jody Scheckter in his championship winning Ferrari and Didier Pironi’s first win in the 1980 Ligier. The 1981 event was won by Carlos Reutemann’s William FW07c.
However Zolder will always be remembered, for the horriofic accident that claimed the legend that was Gilles Villeneuve, when he clipped Jochen Mass’s March and led the sickening images of his separtaion from his disinteraging Ferrari. Nobody really remembers the “burn from the stern” win of John Watson won the race for McLaren from the back of the grid.
The Spa circuit returned in use for GP racing in 1983. Athe circuit was still public roads, however it had been shortened by the introduction of a specially built race track section from the Les coombes corner joining up to the old path at new Stavelot corner for racing and the Belgian Grand Prix returned there. Other circuit changes included the famous Bus stop chicane at the end of the Blancemont curves. The race had one more edition at Zolder before Spa became the only home for the race in 85.
This year saw 2 grand Prix meetings at Spa! The first in the June was cancelled on the Friday when the unseasonally warm temperatures cause the newly laid track to break up! The rerun meeting in the September saw Ayrton Senna win his second GP in front of a British driver having his best result of his career up to that date (Nigel went one better at at next!)
1986 was a Mansell win that started his world championship challenge. 1987 saw Mansell and Senna come to blows on and off the track, when their Honda lotus and Williams collided as Mansell was trying to overtake Senna for the lead. They were rejoined later that afternoon with Mansell trying to throttle Ayrton in the Lotus Pit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7K9q_ELkKM&feature=related
1988 to 91 was totally Ayrton in the Mclaren Honda. He was lucky in 91 when Mansells Williams suffered a failure of a 10p voltage regulator that ended a race winning lead and the hounding Andrea De Cesaris Jordan blew up when Senna had major gearbox problems. The other Jordan had failed with clutch failure after the start. The debutant driver had been drafted in to replace the jailed Belgian Driver Bertrand Gachot and had qualified the car in 7th place! Thus the world was introduced to one M. Schumacher of Kerpen!
92 saw the young upstart win the event, punching his fist with delight to the Bus Stop crew including a young ILLKC and MAINJAFAD (my banner is on this vid, on the subway tunnel as Schumi crosses the line.. honest!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUFYK45D-g&feature=related
93 saw Damon get his second win (and one of his best) and Damon won again the next year (off the road) with Schumi’s disqualification for rubbing his plank! However Michael would dominate mostly in the rest of the nineties, 99 he missed with his broken leg and..
The race in 98 is remembered for these…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxr0MOflpYs
The race in 2000 is remembered for this…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVQ-omQEoIw&feature=related
The Red Schumi domination would resume in 2001 and 2002, but since then, the “Ice Man has always cometh”, with two wins in the Mclaren Merc and his victory in the Ferrari last year. There have been gaps when Bernie has dropped the race, mainly due to tobacco and financial arguments.
The course is now a permanent road circuit (that spoils the old nature of the semi permanent public road track). The circuit has so many famous corners. The first corner is the “La Source” Hairpin that always ends up as a traffic jam on lap One, running down passed the old pits complex into the most awesome corner complex of “Eau Rogue / Radillion”. This corner is taken flat out and the steep rise (1 in 4, I kid you not) induces fighter style positive “G” loads of up to 4 G downwards. The cars continue to climb up the “Le Kemmel” straight. Overtaking (as already seen) is very possible in to the “Les Coombes” hairpin at the top of the hill. The circuit transfers to the interlink with the curves of “Malmedy”, “Bruxelles”, “Double gauche” and “Stavelot” joining back up to the “Blanchimont “ complex and the now sadly truncated “Bus Stop” back to the pit straight. The course is now 7.003 Km long.
Now for the 2008 event. The fast sweeping nature of the circuit is expected to suit the Ferrari’s again (it was a 1 & 2 for them, last time here) and nobody is really thinking that if it stays dry, the red machine will not copy last year’s example. However reliability of the Italian cars has not been up to past standards as we are all aware. Kimi is awesome here, as mentioned previously, but will he turn up in qualifying? Spa does however give him the room to do something if he does not turn up on Saturday, but the long lap should allow Kimi to sort out his tyre temperatures! However Massa is proving to be the form man at the moment and can he keep the momentum against a fired up Kimi? Mclaren?? They were thrashed last year, but a year is a long time and Spa is unpredictable if the weather is as bad as it has been most of this summer. If it rains, Lewis will be in with a shout, there is not betting against it. The BMW’s seem to have given up in trying to keep up with the top two in development, but Robert will be in the mix on this driver’s track. The constructor’s championship is also brewing up nicely. It was this time last year that it was canned!
Spa is a great place to watch GP cars (especially Eau Rogue!) and is a big favourite with the travelling Brit GP fans, as it is just a hop across the channel and a 2 hour drive. We took a tent in 92 and just plonked it on a road side field 200 metres from the circuit entrance at La Source. Death by Stella and shouting abuse at all the Germans.."Harold!"
So ends the novel!
Roll on Spa!!
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