A return to the Ardennes, Spa-Francorchamps 2025

Many years ago (the late 1980s!) I'd visited Spa-Francorchamps for a couple of rounds of the WSC, following the exciting Group C series and, especially, my beloved TWR Jaguar team.

I'd returned in the mid 1990s once to watch a BPR race featuring the Marcos LM600 GT2 racers, but many years had passed since I'd made the trip to the Ardennes forest to watch a race in person.

Spurred on by my new found enthusiasm for the Hypercars in the WEC, two great trips in the previous years to see them in Italy and the promise of seeing and hearing the Aston Martin Valkyries in action, I started looking at options for 2025.

I had almost opted to return to Imola, mainly on financial grounds when my wife said she'd come along if we went to Spa!

For two of us, the economics of driving made a lot more sense than for one, so an appartment in Stoumont was booked (after an initial one elsewhere was withdrawn a month or two after booking), race tickets were purchased and good old Tesco Clubcard points covered the cost of travelling over on the Eurotunnel.

We booked a 9:54 crossing on the day before the race (unusually this race is held on a Saturday) and arrived in plenty of time at Eurotunnel's terminal at Folkstone, checked in and expected to spend a few leisurely minutes waiting for our call, but as we reached the terminal car park, it was pandemoneum.

Boards displayed long delays and we circled the car park for an hour before finally seizing a place and headed over to the terminal.

Apparently a train had broken down in the tunnel severely restricting throughput and, at one point, they were predicting a 5 hour delay, which would have posed a serious problem getting to our appartment by 6PM which was the deadline for collecting our keys!

Fortunately, it turned out to be somewhat less than that, but it was still a fairly major 2.5 hour delay, we were going to be cutting it fine and, of course, we were now going to catch a lot of Friday afternoon rush hour traffic in Belgium!

The actual crossing was fine and we were quickly out onto the Autoroute and across the border into Belgium.

I struggle to recall when I last took my car to Europe, the last time I drove there being 2017, when Lauren and I had rented a car in Germany to ski in Garmisch, but despite a slight trepidation, I quickly adapted back to driving on the wrong side of the road and dealing with European drivers, on the multi-lane roads at least.

We did hit a lot of traffic in places, partly due to the expected rush-hour around Brussels and partly due to a lot of very slow road works sections, but we managed to get to our apartment in Stoumont with 15 minutes to spare!

It turned out the owners lived in the same building, so I'm not sure why there was such a strict arrival time specified.

The apartment was clean and comfortable for a couple of nights stay. Mandy, who is a notoriously poor sleeper who usually needs 3 or 4 nights somewhere new before she'll sleep at all, slept well both nights, which must say something positive about the accommodation or maybe just the ambience of the Ardennes.

The view from our apartment

We were also rewarded with a beautiful view across the Ambeleve valley to dense forest and meadows beyond.

We set off down the road to a restaurant I'd found online called Le Vert De Pommier (which appears to translate as 'Apple Green') in the nearby village of La Gleize which also houses a 1944 museum, which I'm sure would have been interesting if we had been here longer.

As it was we ate a lovely meal (I had the Trout with Almonds, Mandy local recipe meatballs) and a couple of beers brewed in the same village!

Local beer slipped down easily

Before returning the couple of miles to Stoumont, we walked around to the museum to take a look at their King Tiger that sits outside as a memorial to the last major German offensive here around Christmas 1944.

King Tiger tank acts as a memorial to the fighting here in late WW2

The next morning we ate a light breakfast and headed out, stopping at a small shop in La Gleize to purchase baguettes for lunch later, before following Waze's directions to the circuit, which I assumed would take into account any diversions and closed roads; it didn't.

Shortly after leaving La Gleize we were confronted by a sign which told us there was no access to the circuit Spa-Francorchamps that way.

Unhelpfully, there was no diversion to tell us how we could reach the circuit, but some pre-trip investigation indicated that if we got to Spa itself, we could get to the circuit, albeit with nearly everyone else!

We managed that and joined the expectedly slow traffic heading down to Francorchamps, passing plenty of private car parking charging the same as the official parking.

One of the sides of the road in the village was dug up, increasing the congestion and slowness of the queue and then we were diverted down a single track, dirt road (unhelpfully being used for two way traffic!) alongside a perfectly good tarmaced road, that led us to the field that was the yellow car park we had booked (more on this later!).

We parked up and followed the stream of people downhill, able to hear the sound of race cars in one of the support races as we did, but it took a good 20 minutes to reach a sign for public entrance.

Again, unhelpfully, this led us along a narrow dirt path to join a bigger queue coming from another road and with only one person to check tickets for everyone following the stupidly signed route.

Eventually, we were in and found ourselves in the 'Fan Zone' directly below the iconic Eau Rouge/Radillion combination.

The view up Eau Rouge

There were still some hours to go before the unusually late 2PM start, so we walked up to the stand on Eau Rouge to confirm the entry wasn't chargeable (as with most WEC rounds, in my experience, it wasn't) and then, pausing to buy an ice cream we walked on up the steep rise known as the Kemmel Straight to Les Combes.

Circuit Map

I decided I'd watch the start of the race at Eau Rouge, but Mandy didn't want to sit for an hour and a half waiting for the race to start, so we agreed to meet later and she went off in search of butterflies, while I walked back down to the stand and found myself a good seat, with a great view of the old pit straight, Eau Rouge and Radillion.

The view from my seat in the stand

In the clear blue sky, the Goodyear 'blimp' cast a huge shark-like shadow from time to time and we 'enjoyed' a rendition of the Belgian national anthem (yet another terrible idea imported from the USA) before a group of small aerobatic planes trailed black, yellow and red smoke and then a large pyrotechnic display on the start-finish line (in front of the 'new' pits) produced a cloud of smoke in the Belgian colours.

The Goodyear airship hovered over the race throughout

The cars were led around for two parade laps behind the safety car and then the race started.

Hypercars behind the pace car

GT3s on a pace lap

In qualifying, the 3 Ferrari hypercars dominated and many imagined this race would be a total walk-over for them.

A little phone footage from the event - Wait to the end to hear the Valkyries!

Many fans of other marques were already moaning about the FIA 'fixing' the Balance Of Performance (BOP) to 'guarantee' Ferrari a win.

And at the start, the red cars and the 'privateer' yellow one, did indeed steal a bit of a march on the rest of the field.

Ferrari 51 leads the 83 privateer Ferrari, number 50 has already gone.

However, the performances of the various Hypercars is kept close through the BOP and soon the Ferraris were being closed in on by Alpines, Peugeots and BMWs.

Strangely, long time front runners Porsche and Toyota seemed curiously off the pace, while the much fancied Cadillac challenge, boosted by good qualifying performances, while always there or thereabouts, never really resolved into a serious challenge for top honours.

Porsche never seemed on the pace at Spa

Toyota didn't show a lot of pace in practice, but their racecraft pushed them up the field as the race progressed.

Cadillac looked good in practice, but not so strong in the race.

In the GT3 class, Lexus took pole, but the Ford Mustangs were faster in the early stages of the race and were soon challenging and taking the lead, while Ferrari and Aston Martin had contenders, too, in the early laps.

Lexus had pole and looked strong early in the race, but faded

The Ford Mustangs ran strongly throughout

A couple of Aston Martins challenged for the lead at times, but ultimately dropped off the pace

GT3 Ferraris ultimately took two places on the podium

The fighting was close in both classes, but incidents were thankfully few.

One of the Alpines took second place after around half an hour and started to close on the leader.

Alpine had a strong race, looking as if they might have the pace to beat Ferrari, but just losing out in the end

Toyota steadily made up places throughout the race, their years of experience paying off come race day.

Toyota's experience paid off as the race progressed

The Peugeots, too, looked very strong at one point, but one of the few safety car periods (mostly caused by McLaren GT3s being punted off!) fell badly for them as everyone else pitted under yellow just after the Peugeot had pitted under green. The second car succumbed to collision damage after a fairly mild looking bump with a BMW.

Peugeot had one of their strongest races so far, but were unlucky not to get a better result.

The Aston Valkyries sounded and looked great, but were still finding their feet in the intensely competitive series. They were closer to the pace than they'd been in previous races, even looking as if they might take a point for 10th place in the closing laps, before a splash of fuel dropped them down to 13th.

The Aston Martin Valkyries sounded sublime, but are still somewhat off the pace - It's early days, though

In GT3, the Fords and Ferraris contended for the lead as the race progressed, two more different looking cars it being hard to imagine.

In Hypercar, the number 20 BMW looked increasingly competitive with an hour and a half to go, but retired with brake problems late on.

BMW 20 was strong at times, but ultimately succumbed to brake issues

One of the Alpines took the lead, until it had to stop for fuel, allowing the Ferrari to retake the lead.

Alpine had another strong race at Spa

With half an hour to go, the order was Alpine, Ferrari, Cadillac, Ferrari, Toyota, with Porsche up next.

The number 50 Ferrari looked the likely winner for a long time.

However, different fuel strategies meant some cars had to stop for far longer than others and the Cadillac, especially, fell back as a result.

Cadillac makes a late pitstop

In GT3, the top 6 were Ferrari, Ford, Ferrari, Ford, Aston, Aston with 20 minutes to go and that was how it finished, with the best Porsche 7th and best Lexus in 8th.

Ford had a strong showing in GT3...

...but Ferrari took the honours.

In Hypercar, the final order was Ferrari (no 51), Ferrari (no 50), Alpine (36 fighting back strongly after their late stop), Toyota (no 8), followed by the two Cadillacs.

The 83 Ferrari was struck by problems

The 51 Ferrari was the ultimate victor in Hypercar

It had been an exciting, close fought race throughout and anyone looking at the grid and finishing order could be forgiven for thinking it was a cruise to the end, far from it with BMW and, especially, Alpine showing race winning pace at times and wiley Toyota playing the long game effectively.

Ferrari 51 takes the chequered flag after 6 hours

As a spectator, Spa was a mixed bag.

Cadillac scored decent points, but promised more

BMW's race rather unravelled

It's still an incredible circuit, over a 6 hour race you can walk the whole circuit and with such incredibly good weather, many people were doing just that.

Many people took advantage of the long race to walk around the circuit - Something else you can't do at a GP!

As an F1 circuit, stands and catch fencing have spoilt some of the spectating spots and the reprofiling of the old 'bus stop' chicane was a little sad for us.

Both classes were closely fought as at previous rounds.

Fortunately, they haven't started charging F1 prices for entry and those stands remain free of charge, so you get some great views that many at the Grand Prix could only dream of and, for me, sportscars are still far more interesting to watch than F1 cars.

Even Mandy had a go at taking some photos of the cars, amongst those of butterflies. She did pretty well!

On the downside, the organisation was poor, queues to get into the circuit were bad, parking was bad getting in and proved terrible getting out.

When we came to leave at the end of the race we found that all the car park staff had left, so the car park immediately gridlocked as it became a bad-tempered free-for-all to get out.

Chaos in the car park after the race

After an hour we had moved about 50 metres, but then someone opened an extra gate near us and we managed to get back to the dirt track which crawled out onto the tarmaced road.

Again, roads were blocked and policemen stood around dazzling everyone with their flashing blue lights, but offering nothing in the way of advice or diversion signs.

Eventually, we found our way back to Spa, filled up with fuel for our return journey and then got back to our apartment just before 11PM, 3 hours after the race finished.

For once, I was able to get a race programme!

I enjoyed the race itself, and we both agreed we should have stayed another couple of days if we'd known how good the weather would be and explored the lovely Ardennes a bit, but I'm not sure I'll return to Spa.

The next morning we checked out of our apartment about 9AM and headed home, after making a quick visit to snap a photograph of the nearby chateau.

The Chateau between Stoumont and La Gleize

We stopped a couple of times to eat lunch and Mandy even found an opportunity to find a rare butterfly!

We had planned to do a bit of shopping at Cite Europe, but were surprised to find it closed, except for a few eateries.

Mandy ate a crepe in a faux 'pub', while I drank an Ardennes bierre and then we drove over to the Euro Tunnel and, unlike our outbound trip, managed to catch an earlier train than we planned, enabling us to get home around 7PM.

I feel my trips to Italian rounds were less stressful and inconvenient and probably worked out cheaper, even sharing some of the costs between two of us.

Ideally, I'd like my 2026 race visit to be to a new circuit, but I don't think there are many affordable alternatives left, so time will tell.