Belgian Grand Prix

The Belgian Grand Prix (French: Grand Prix de Belgique; Dutch: Grote Prijs van België; German: Großer Preis von Belgien) is a motor racing event that forms part of the Formula One World Championship. The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built in 1921 but until 1924 it was used only for motorcycle racing. After the 1923 success of the new 24 hours of Le Mans in France, the Spa 24 Hours, a similar 24-hour endurance race, was run at the Spa track.

Since its inception, Spa-Francorchamps has been known for its unpredictable weather. At one stage in its history it had rained at the Belgian Grand Prix for twenty years in a row. Frequently drivers confront a part of the course that is clear and bright while another stretch is rainy and slippery.

The Belgian Grand Prix was designated the European Grand Prix six times between 1925 and 1973, when this title was an honorary designation given each year to one Grand Prix race in Europe. It is one of the most popular races on the Formula One calendar, due to the scenic and historical Spa-Francorchamps circuit being a favourite of drivers and fans.

In 1925, the first Belgian Grand Prix was held at the very fast, 9-mile Spa-Francorchamps circuit located in the Ardennes region of eastern Belgium, about half an hour from Liege. This race was won by the Italian works Alfa driver Antonio Ascari, whose son Alberto would win the race in 1952 and 1953. After winning the Belgian race, Antonio Ascari was killed in his next race at the 1925 French Grand Prix. The Grand Prix did not come back until 1930, and the circuit had been modified, bypassing the Malmedy chicane. The race was won by Louis Chiron, and in 1931, the Grand Prix had become something of an endurance race, with Briton William Grover-Williams and Caberto Conelli winning. 1933 was won by Tazio Nuvolari, and 1935 was won by Rudolf Caracciola in a Mercedes, by which time the circuit had re-installed the Malmedy Chicane. The 1939 race saw the birth of the Raidillon corner; it was a bypass of the Ancienne Douane section. In contrast to popular belief, only the small kink to the left at the bottom of the drop is named Eau Rouge, which directly leads into Raidillon, a very long right uphill corner; and the tricky left blind corner at the top has no name. The conditions were dreadful, and the race was marred by the death of British driver Richard "Dick" Seaman while leading the race. Going into Clubhouse corner, Seaman was pushing hard; he skidded off the rain-soaked road, hit a tree and his Mercedes caught fire. Seaman received life-threatening burns, and he succumbed to his injuries later in hospital. The race was won by Seaman's teammate Hermann Lang. World War II broke out, and the Belgian Grand Prix did not return until June 1946, when the 2 to 4.5 litres race at the Bois de la Cambre public park in the Belgian capital of Brussels was won by Frenchman Eugène Chaboud in a Delage.

Spa was modified to make it even faster, shortening it to 8.7 miles (14.1 km). All of the slow corners were taken out – the Stavelot hairpin was bypassed and made into a fast banked corner and the Malmedy chicane was also bypassed. At this time, every corner except La Source was ultra-high speed. Spa over this time became known as one of the most extreme, challenging and fearsome circuits in motorsports history. 1950 saw the introduction of the Formula One World Championship; the race was dominated by the Alfa Romeos of Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio and Italian Nino Farina. Their closest challenger, Alberto Ascari, ran into fuel problems and fell back. The race was won by Fangio, and Farina won the next year's race in his works Alfa after Fangio dropped back with hub problems. 1953 saw Ascari dominate in his Ferrari while the Maseratis fell apart. Fangio crashed and José Froilán González had a steering failure and stopped out near the banked Stavelot corner. 1955 saw Mercedes dominate, Fangio and his British teammate Stirling Moss led the race distance. Moss followed Fangio closely for most of the race, the Argentine took victory as he had the year before in a Maserati. 1956 saw a wet race, with Moss in a Maserati lead, and Fangio, now driving for Ferrari, made a bad start and dropped to fifth at the start, although he got up to second behind Moss. The track was drying, and Moss lost a wheel at Raidillon corner. He did not hit anything and went back to take over his teammate Cesare Perdisa's car and was able to finish 3rd. The gearbox in Fangio's car broke, and his teammate Peter Collins won the race.

The 1957 race was cancelled because there was no money for the race to be held, thanks to the extreme prices of fuel in Belgium and the Netherlands caused by the Suez Crisis. 1958 saw Spa upgraded with new facilities, a resurfaced track and also the pit straight was made wider. But Spa had gained a reputation as a totally unforgiving, frightening and a very mentally challenging circuit, even in those safety-absent days, and most racing events there – particularly the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa – had smaller-than-average fields because a number of drivers feared the circuit and did not like racing there. The layout was still the same as before, and the extremely small, almost non-existent margin for error as described before had been realised very quickly. The circuit was extremely challenging, mainly because each corner on the circuit was so fast, and also because of the circuit's long length in addition to the fact that it was almost exclusively made up of fast corners and straights. The circuit was very fast, and each corner had to be taken correctly to maintain speed through the next one. Lifting off or taking the wrong racing line would result in several seconds being lost. Spa was located in a region where the weather was unpredictable; in many races there, while one part of the track was dry and had sunshine, another at the same time was soaking wet and it was raining there. There were no radios in the days of the old Spa circuit, so drivers had no idea of circuit conditions and could encounter rain without warning, where there had been none on the previous lap. The nature of the circuit meant that cars spinning off could hit telegraph poles, houses, stone walls, embankments or trees. Many drivers were killed or seriously injured at Spa during the 1950s in all disciplines of motorsport that competed there.

1958 was won by Briton Tony Brooks, driving a Vanwall, from his teammate Stirling Moss. The race was not run in 1959, but 1960 was to be one of the darkest weekends in the history of Formula One. Grand Prix racing had moved forward to a new kind of car design – new British independent teams such as Cooper and Lotus had pioneered the rear-mid-engined car, much like the Auto Union Grand Prix cars of the 1930s. These cars were considerably lighter, faster and easier to drive than their front-engined predecessors, and it became obvious that rear-mid-engined cars were the way to go in purpose-built automobile racing. But these new type of cars had not been driven at Spa before, so no one knew how they would perform there. The high-speed bends at Spa were now much faster with these new cars – and in those days the cars, or circuits for that matter, had absolutely no safety features of any kind. The cylinder-shaped bodywork was made of very thin highly flammable magnesium or fibreglass, and the tube-frame chassis of that day offered little crash resistance (as opposed to a modern-day monocoque, pioneered by Lotus only a few years later). Cars were not crash-tested and lacked roll bars (made mandatory in 1961) and fire extinguishers. Although drivers did wear helmets, they were made of weak and lightweight material and not scientifically designed or tested. Drivers in those days did not wear seatbelts – they found it preferable to be thrown from a car that might be on fire to reduce the chance of injury or death.

During practice, Stirling Moss, now driving a privately entered Lotus, had a wheel come off his car and he crashed heavily at the Burnenville right-hander. Moss, who was considered one of the best racing drivers in the world at the time, was thrown out of his car and landed unconscious in the middle of the track. The Englishman broke both legs, three vertebrae, several ribs and had many cuts and abrasions; he survived but did not race for most of that year. Briton Mike Taylor, also driving a Lotus, suffered a steering failure and crashed into trees next to the track near Stavelot. Taylor was trapped in the car for some time with serious head and neck injuries. The accident ended his racing career; he later successfully sued Lotus founder Colin Chapman in British court for sale of faulty machinery. The race itself, however, was to be even more disastrous. On lap 17, Briton Chris Bristow, driving a Cooper, was fighting for sixth with Belgian Willy Mairesse. Bristow had never driven at Spa before, and was regarded as a brash and daring driver who had a reputation for being rather wild; the relatively inexperienced 22-year-old Englishman had been in many accidents during his short career. Mairesse was also known as an aggressive driver who had a win-at-all-costs mentality and was known to be difficult to pass, particularly on his home track. Bristow and Mairesse touched wheels, and the Englishman lost control at Malmedy, overturned and crashed into an embankment on the right side of the track. The car rolled several times, Bristow was thrown from his car and was decapitated by some barbed-wire fencing next to the circuit, killing him instantly; his body partially landed on the track where it stayed for some time. Mairesse continued, but retired from the race later on with gearbox trouble. 5 laps later, 26-year-old Briton Alan Stacey, running in sixth place and driving a works Lotus, suffered a freak accident when he was hit in the face by a bird on the Masta straight not far from where Bristow had been killed. Stacey then lost control of his car at 140 mph (228 km/h) and it climbed up and flew off an embankment next to the track. After penetrating 10 feet of thick bushes, the car landed on a spot in a field some 25 feet lower than the track. On impact with the field, it then exploded and burst into flames, killing him. It was not known whether the impact broke his neck or if the fire burned him alive while unconscious. Australian Jack Brabham won the race, and British future great Jim Clark scored his first Formula One points by finishing 5th – but Clark, like a number of other drivers, developed an intense dislike for the circuit after he had to swerve at extreme speeds to avoid running over Bristow's headless body. It was the worst Formula One event in terms of fatalities until the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.