Belgian Grand Prix

Valuable learnings in the Ardennes Valuable learnings in the Ardennes

Rain fell on Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps throughout Sunday, resulting in mixed conditions for Round 13 of the 2025 Formula One World Championship.

Read on for full coverage of the Belgian Grand Prix, and get the thoughts of Lance, Fernando and our team following the weekend's sessions.

Yesterday, our drivers qualified P19 and P20. Following this, Fernando opted to take a new power unit, resulting in a pit lane start.
Due to several drivers taking new power units, Lance began from P16.
Poor weather conditions meant a delayed start to the race. After four laps behind the Safety Car to clear water on the track, the race got underway, with our drivers on the Intermediate tyre and the track quickly drying.
Fernando made his first pitstop at the end of Lap 11. A lap later, Lance also pitted, both moving onto the Medium tyre. Once all drivers had switched to dry tyres, Fernando was up to P13.
On Lap 30, Fernando pitted again for fresh Mediums. Lance chose to continue until the end on his original Mediums.
Our drivers concluded the Belgian Grand Prix in P14 and P17.
The double-header continues on 1-3 August in Budapest with the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix.

THE LATEST FROM TRACK

Welcome to your Spa weekend

The fast, flowing Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps has captivated for decades; one of the sport's spiritual homes, fans from all corners of the globe make the annual pilgrimage to this hallowed circuit. While the track has changed over the course of more than a century, the essence of Spa-Francorchamps remains: it's a high-speed rollercoaster.

We head into the second half of the season – numerically speaking – with Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso on the hunt for more points in the Ardennes. After not having the best of luck at the start of the campaign, Fernando's on a run of four scoring races now, while we recorded our first double-points finish of the season last time out at Silverstone.

This year promises more excitement across the weekend, with the return of the Sprint, and both Formula 2 and Formula 3 on the card. Jak Crawford is coming in hot, with victory in the F2 Feature race at Silverstone and is now second in the championship, just six points off the lead, while Mari Boya celebrated his arrival at the all-new Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy with victory in the F3 feature. We'd love another weekend like the British Grand Prix…

TRACK INSIGHTS

Circuit de Spa-FrancorchampsCircuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Spa is a combination of very high-speed corners with some very long straights which makes it difficult for the setup.

Stoffel Vandoorne – Test & Reserve Driver

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Circuit length (km)
7.004
Number of corners
19
Race distance (km)
308.052

NEED TO KNOW: BELGIAN GP

The essential Spa travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

The magic of racing at Spa

Strategy insights from Spa

Ultimate Belgian Grand Prix facts

Last time out

The essential Spa travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

While the Grand Prix tends to take centre stage in the towns surrounding the track, the Ardennes is a big place, spreading into Luxembourg and France. The German Eifel and Dutch province of Limburg are a short-ish drive from the track. It's a vast playground for natural pursuits, noted for its hiking and biking routes, the quality of its food and, of course, beer.

The breweries of the Ardennes are world famous, and there is an official beer trail, taking in 20 of the region's most historic. If that's a bit much, most breweries throw open their doors individually to tourists – whether that's to learn about the histories of these former – or current – monasteries, sample the product or both. The Belgian Ardennes has the Scourmont brewery, famed for its Chimay Trappist beer, while Achouffe offers insights into the science of brewing, and Our Lady of Leffe Abbey has interactive exhibits. Head a little further south into Luxembourg and there's the National Museum of the Brewer's Art. Given the region is also known for its gastronomic excellence, and many of the breweries have an associated pub, often with rooms, well, there are worse ways to spend a July evening...

But if you're strictly about the racing, then there are other options. Spa-Francorchamps is one of the most famous racing circuits in the world… though 100km to the East, where Ardennes turns into Eifel, is another one just as famous – and that one lets you drive around in your car. At this time of year, the Nürburgring Nordschleife is open to the public in the early evening. A lap costs around €30, which, considering you get 20.8km of track, 73 corners and 300m of elevation change, is quite the ride. You don't need a high-powered car, it really is for anyone, but if the driving doesn't appeal, there's a great museum and a host of other activities, including track walks on the Grand Prix circuit. It has a genuine sense of history and is well worth a visit.

Mastering Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

The circuit name tends to be shortened to Spa, though no part of it is located within the commune of Spa – but it's more hyperbolic names are entirely apt: the Beast of the Ardennes; the Toboggan of Francorchamps and so on.

Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is the longest circuit on the F1 calendar at 7.004km and also has more elevation change than any other on the calendar, rising and falling 102.2m between its highest point, Malmedy, at 467.8m above sea-level, dropping down to 365.6m at the Curve Paul Frère. It features everything that might imply, with compressions, track warp, blind turns and odd cambers – though these tend to be secondary concerns: Spa is mostly about very long straights and very fast corners.

These two things are not particularly harmonious. The first and final sectors feature long full-throttle sections of track, favouring a low-drag car with very high top-speed, but the more twisty middle sector demands a car with high downforce, particularly for the fearsome Pouhon double-left corner. It leads to the relatively uncommon situation where cars are rarely set up for optimum lap-time, but rather prefer to shave off some downforce for a higher end-of-straight speed, allowing them to attack or defend.

In theory, the length of the full-throttle sections – particularly the Kemmel straight – makes this one of the easier circuits on which to overtake, but the number of successful moves has been steadily dropping as this generation of cars matures: 49 successful overtakes in 2022, 47 in 2023, 25 last year. People will be thinking very, very carefully about where they think they're going to start and what top speed they'll need. It isn't always the case that everybody does the same thing, which makes for some very interesting races.

Those straights also come into play during Qualifying, with this being one of the few circuits where the advantages of planning a tow outweigh the potential threat of messing it up. It's less likely to be seen in Sprint Qualifying, where the length of the lap, combined with the shorter sessions, means it's not something easily reciprocated – but watch out for it if teams have one driver facing a grid penalty.

The magic of racing at Spa

The thing about Spa is that there's a lot of it. Modern circuits tend to compress the track, giving fans a view of two or three unrelated sections of track – but at circuits like Spa, you're staking-out a claim on a specific corner. Happily, there's plenty of good ones to choose from.

Like Silverstone, the general admission ticket is really good value at Spa, and this is a circuit that rewards the more mobile, prepared to wear-out the boot leather – definitely a race for decent boots. Unlike Silverstone, however, it isn't all-encompassing, with the grandstands predominantly clustered around the pit complex and paddock at La Source and the general admission zones up in the hills and out in the woods.

For first-time visitors, the thing which has everyone staring is the sheer bulk of the climb from Eau Rouge and up through Raidillon. There's a wall of tarmac blotting out the sky. It draws the eye walking down the hill through the village of Francorchamps but standing at the bottom of it, the immensity is staggering. TV most definitely cannot do it justice. The pick of the grandstand seats are located around this section and, perhaps unsurprisingly, they're also closest to the fan village where the stage is set up and the most of the merchandising and food options are located. Several also offer a roof, which at some point over the typical Spa weekend will come in handy.

The general admission also extends down here… but there may be better views on offer elsewhere around the circuit, with the grass bank above Pouhon offering a lovely view of F1 cars doing what they do best. It is, however, at the top of the Kemmel Straight and below Blanchimont, that most of the overtaking will be in the view of these areas, as the cars brake for Les Combes and the Bus Stop chicane respectively.

It isn't a race where all the action is necessarily on track. At the top of Blanchimont, the circuit has its 17-27 grandstand, with unreserved seating for those fortunate enough to be in that particular age bracket, with DJ sets between the session. It's very much the race for that sort of thing, with the majority of fans choosing to camp, either at the official campsites dotted around the circuit entrances, or in the various fields up in the village. Wherever you pitch up, it will be loud and the party will last all night. This is not a race that favours those who need their solid eight hours. Spiritually, a weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix is a little closer to Glastonbury than it is to Monaco.

Strategy insights from Spa

Ignoring last year's final classification, and looking at the race in real time, we had a classic strategy battle with George Russell's surprise one-stop triumphing over a chasing pack of more conventional two-stops. He was subsequently disqualified for an underweight car – but the success of the strategy will be playing on many minds this year.

The conventional race was a Medium-Hard-Hard, with the three stints in the 44-lap race being nominally of similar length – albeit with very flexible pit windows. There was plenty of scope for variation, but mostly around the Hard and Medium compounds. Thus, we also saw Medium-Hard-Medium, Hard-Medium-Hard, and Medium-Medium-Hard all in play.

With Russell eliminated, the leading one-stop driver was Fernando, who, like Russell, Lance and Kevin Magnussen, ran a Medium-Hard race, pitting on lap 13 and classified P8. Leaving aside a late-race tilt for the fastest lap point, the only driver to use a Soft tyre was Daniel Ricciardo, who ran a Soft-Medium-Hard race.

This year, however, the game has changed. We have our first compound bridge of the season. Pirelli brings the C1, C3 and C4 to the Ardennes, moving the Hard tyre one step harder than 2024's C2. The intent is fairly clear: there's a rapid Medium-Soft-Medium two-stop or a slow Medium-Hard one-stop. Usually, teams would be able to figure out which is quicker during Free Practice, but with the F1 Sprint weekend format returning in Belgium and therefore only one practice session, there isn't much time to work on strategy plans.

Ultimate Belgian Grand Prix facts

1 | The Belgian Grand Prix was one of the original races on the FIA Formula One World Championship calendar in 1950. This is the 70th iteration of the race. It was missing from the calendar in 1957, 1959, 1969, 1971, 2003 and 2006.

2 | The majority of races have been held at Spa-Francorchamps. The others are Grands Prix held at Nivelles in 1972 and1974, and Zolder in 1973 and then 1975-1982, and 1984.

3 | Spa's heritage as a racing circuit goes all the way back to an earlier era of Grand Prix racing, with the 1925 Belgian Grand Prix won by Antonio Ascari (father of Alberto).

4 | At 7.004km, Spa-Francorchamps is the longest circuit on the present F1 calendar. It is, however, slightly less than half the length of the original circuit, the route of which, between Francorchamps, Malmédy and Stavelot formed a triangle of public roads, much of which can still be accessed today.

5 | The Eau Rouge stream passes under the track at its eponymous corner. This section of track, leading into Raidillon and the Kemmel Straight replaces the original Virage de l'Ancienne Douanne hairpin. That corner was well named: there genuinely was a customs post here, when the stream formed the border between Belgium and Germany.

6 | The 2021 Belgian Grand Prix holds the record as the shortest F1 race, completing a single lap, in 3m27.071s for a total distance of 6.880km. As a result, the race also has a share of the records for fewest retirements (0), fewest pitstops (0) and fewest overtakes (…you guessed it, 0).

7 | Lance has a 100% finishing record in eight previous starts at Spa-Francorchamps. Silverstone is the only circuit on which he has a longer streak (nine races).

Last time out

We've never come away from Spa-Francorchamps without something to show for it. That wasn't a huge consolation in 2021, when the race was red-flagged after two laps behind the Safety Car in torrential rain. Sebastian Vettel's fifth place in Qualifying translated to fifth in the final result, which netted five points. 2022 had Spa show its sunnier side, and Seb came home eighth, with Lance missing out on the final point by an agonising 1.178 seconds.

Both cars scored in the 2023 edition, with Fernando fifth and Lance ninth. Rain threatened all afternoon, but when it fell, it was treacherously light: not quite enough to justify a switch to Inters, but enough to make driving on slicks very difficult indeed. Both drivers looked assured in the conditions, however, and made progress up the field.

Last year, the rains came down again during the weekend, but we got a dry Sunday and a strategic race. Fernando hung it out for the one-stop strategy and originally came home P9, but was elevated to P8 when George Russell was disqualified from victory.

Session Times

FP1

Fri25Jul

11:30-12:30 BST

Fri25Jul

15:30-16:14 BST

SPR

Sat26Jul

11:00-12:00 BST

Quali

Sat26Jul

15:00-16:00 BST

Race

Sun27Jul

14:00 BST

Talking Points

Jak on getting to grips with 2026 and the F2 title fight

Jak Crawford lifts the lid on the work he's been doing as the team gears up for 2026, assesses the state of play in the F2 title battle and reflects on victory at Silverstone last time out.