Friday, September 05, 2008 Last chance for old favorites? By Stever Slater Special Contributor
THIS weekend and next might well be the last chance to enjoy some old favorites if the Formula One rumor mill is true. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa is held on one of the oldest tracks, but there could be big changes in store.
A week later, the similarly historic track at Monza hosts the always emotive Italian Grand Prix. And again, if rumors are true, a well-known favorite might be saying farewell.
But first, the Belgian Grand Prix. With a lap distance of over seven kilometers, Spa-Francorchamps is a throwback to an earlier, more heroic, but definitely more dangerous era of motor racing. It is the last Grand Prix circuit in the world, where cars race on closed country roads.
While Spa-Francorchamps is the longest circuit on the F1 calendar, it is today, less than half the length of the original public road course, which offered the drivers a truly daunting challenge due to the sheer speed of the corners.
Despite having only one a couple of true straights, the average lap speed was nudging 250kph by the late 1960s!
Those awesome speeds, coupled with the changeable Ardennes weather – which frequently saw cloudbursts on one side of the circuit while the other side stays dry – led to serious safety concerns. After a series of fatal accidents, Spa was replaced by the safer but bland, Zolder track in the Flemish-speaking part of the country.
The race returned to its traditional home in 1983 and, to the delight of purists, the new, shorter Spa track incorporated some of the most exciting parts of the original, including the famous La Source hairpin, Eau Rouge and the final blast through the woods at Blanchimont. The new section, linking Les Combes and Stavelot, winds down the valley in a flowing series of curves.
Everybody rightly raves about the spectacular swoop up Eau Rouge, but the amount of grip generated by the current breed of F1 cars means that it is no longer the knife-edge of heroism that it once was. Spa though, offers another truly challenging corner.
As you head down the valley from Malmédy, you hit the Pouhon left-hander at well over 250 kph and its long radius makes it the toughest part of the circuit. It really is a corner that separates the heroes and the zeros.
The tragedy is that organizers of the Belgian Grand Prix have indicated that they want to cut out the majority of that corner in the future, cutting through in a straight line back to the pits. I hope plenty of others as well as I, will remind them that if they do, it will tear the soul out of Spa.
By cutting out two kilometers of track, the shorter lap would mean that the corporate guests in the hospitality suites would watch the cars pass them about 60 times instead of the current 44. But the shorter track would turn Pouhon into a little kink, then bypass the left and right flicks of the Pif-Paf, miss out the flat out blast through Stavelot and make the current 300 kph left-hander at Blanchimont, well…..ordinary.
The word ‘emasculated’ might well be applied to the proposed track.
Hopefully our Belgian friends will think twice before committing such heresy.
According to this week’s rumor mill, another ancient icon of motor racing may well shortly disappear, too. The word is out that David Coulthard may well make the Italian Grand Prix his last, allowing the talented Sebastian Vettel to make an earlier move across to the Red Bull ‘A’ team alongside Mark Webber.
It has to be said that this is just speculation rather than hard fact at the moment, but it would make sense. It opens up a strong possibility that the ever popular Takuma Sato could be employed by Toro Rosso for the Far Eastern races and maybe Red Bull protégé, Bruno Senna, could make his Formula One debut in his home Brazilian Grand Prix?
Meanwhile back to Spa. In 2004 and 2005 the race was dominated by McLaren.
In 2006, there was no race, but last year’s race was dominated by Ferrari. All three races had one thing in common–they were won by Kimi Raikkonen.
I think that the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix might well be the acid test for Kimi.
If he wins his fourth successive race at Spa, his season might get back on track.
But if he gets blown away by either Lewis Hamilton or Felipe Massa, we might see another icon taking an early walk. Mind you, in the case of Raikkonen or Coulthard, I don’t think we’ll ever use the word emasculated!
(Steve Slater is the expert half of the popular F1 commentary duo on STAR Sports. Slater is a veritable encyclopedia of motor racing. He has been involved in the sport at many levels, including as journalist, race organizer, radio broadcaster and now commentator.)
