Spa is still the best F1 circuit | Thank Frankel it's Friday

There are two obvious reasons that visit stands out, neither specifically nor directly to do with the track, so I’ll deal with them quickly. First, it wasn’t actually that long ago – just 25 years back when I was already in my 30s, and had been a professional motoring journalist for many years. I’m not sure why it had taken me so long, but it doesn’t really matter. Second is that I was there for work, in my capacity of editor of MotorSport magazine; but it wasn’t a race I was going to see, but the circuit itself, for a series I invented called Track Tests where I’d go to all the tracks in Europe I’d always wanted to visit, and get paid for doing so. Perks of the job I guess.

And although the story wasn’t published until 1998, it was the back end of the year before that saw me nosing a 375PS (276kW) supercharged Jaguar XJR V8 across the channel and along that furrow I now know so well: Calais, Dunkirk, Ostend, Ghent, Brussels, Liège, Spa or, to be strictly accurate, the small town of Francorchamps.

The first thing I saw as I entered the circuit was Eau Rouge. Strange to think it was still a public road back then, but I could scarcely credit the sight of it, looming above me, so dark, grey and steep it reminded me of a tidal wave about to engulf me. They race up that? They did and still do.

It was the late Tony Brooks who had persuaded me I simply had to go. “It might seem strange to say it now,” he told me before I left, “but, you know, Spa never frightened me. To me it was just the most glorious to drive, better even than the Nürburgring.” This I had to see, and it really wasn’t much more complicated than that.

Of course the bit I really wanted to see was the vast section of track that had been abandoned by racing in the 1970s. Of the ‘new’ circuit, Tony really only had time for Eau Rouge which he called “the only decent corner left in Formula One today and even that’s a pale shadow of its former self. It was one of the most exhilarating in racing, not flat by any means but you’d still approach at 180-odd mph in the Vanwall and flick it from one drift to another.”

Beyond it however still lay – and still lies – corners as famous or infamous as any other in motor racing. Burnenville, Malmedy, Masta, Stavelot, corners so quick that despite having to negotiate the La Source hairpin, little 3.0-litre sportscars could lap at an average of over 160mph almost half a century ago.

I still go back and, without exception, still go and find the old track. You’ll not be surprised to know I am not a particularly spiritual chap, but there is a mysticism that hangs in the air here I am aware of nowhere else I go. Sit outside the chip shop at the exit of the evil old Masta kink and you can damn near hear Pedro and Jo in their Porsche 917s winding themselves up to see just how close to flat it really was – at not far short of 200mph.

I don’t understand why there has never been an attempt to make something of the old circuit in more recent times. There’s no way you could race on it, because the world is a very different place now and racing cars falling into ravines, disappearing into forests, wrapping themselves around telegraph poles and bouncing off private dwellings is rightly frowned upon these days, but you could still do demonstration laps. And even if the powers that be mandated they all had to be behind a safety car, I’d still go. I mean who wouldn’t want to see a Matra MS670 arcing its way around the Stavelot banking, and hammering back up the hill towards Blanchimont, the sound of shrieking V12 echoing around the valley? I expect someone would complain about the noise.

It says something about the place that even in its modern, abbreviated and somewhat neutered configuration Spa remains the most beautiful, challenging and plain best circuit on the modern F1 calendar, and it defies belief that removing it from the schedule is being actively considered. I hope they reconsider and allow it to stay, but whether it remains a modern Grand Prix facility or not, I will continue to return and marvel at what used to happen there for as long as I am able.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.