The Spa 24 Hours: A Full Day Round the Ardennes

About the 24 Hours of Spa

The 24 Hours of Spa has been run at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps at Stavelot, in the Belgian Ardennes, since 1924. It is now the centrepiece of the GT World Challenge Europe and a round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, contested by production-based GT cars from the major manufacturers.

Spa is the oldest of the great endurance venues still in use for its original purpose, and the circuit — laid out between the villages of Francorchamps, Malmedy, and Stavelot — retains the character of a road course. It is seven kilometres long, with a hundred metres of elevation change and a layout fast enough that Formula One drivers name it as their favourite in the world.

Eau Rouge, and Why the Weather Decides It

The corner everyone comes for is Eau Rouge and the Raidillon above it — a left-right-left taken at the bottom of a valley and up a steep hill, blind at the exit, at very close to full speed. Watching GT cars take it in the dark, with the hill lit only by their own lights, is the single image the event is known for.

The other defining feature is the Ardennes weather. The circuit is long enough to be wet at one end and dry at the other, which happens regularly and turns strategy into guesswork. More runnings of the 24 Hours of Spa have been settled by a tyre call in a rain shower than by outright pace, and the teams know it.

What the Weekend Is Actually Like

The race starts in the late afternoon on Saturday and finishes at the same hour on Sunday. Because the circuit sits in a forest with no town attached, most spectators camp inside it, which gives the event a particular character — closer to a festival in the woods than to a Grand Prix.

For anyone not camping, the useful positions are hospitality above the pit straight, which has the timing screens and the pit lane, or a position at Eau Rouge, which has the spectacle. The two are a fifteen-minute walk apart, and doing both across twenty-four hours is the correct answer.

Where to Start

• Plan for the night, not the start — the middle hours are the race, and the crowd thins exactly when it gets good
• Take hospitality and a walk — the pit straight for information, Eau Rouge for the view, both across the day
• Bring for four seasons — the Ardennes in July will deliver sun, fog, and a downpour inside one afternoon
• Base yourself in Spa or Liège — the circuit has no town, and Liège is forty-five minutes with proper hotels

The Circuit Beyond the Race

Spa-Francorchamps hosts the Belgian Grand Prix, a round of the World Endurance Championship, and a full calendar of club and historic meetings, which means the circuit is usable most weekends of the year. For anyone who wants to drive it rather than watch it, track days are run regularly and the layout is public road for parts of the year.

The region is also worth more than a race weekend. Spa itself is a nineteenth-century spa town that gave the word to the language, the Ardennes have proper walking and driving country, and the Hautes Fagnes plateau above the circuit is a national reserve. A weekend built as two days of racing and two of the Ardennes works considerably better than four days at a circuit.

And unlike Le Mans, the whole circuit is walkable in an afternoon, so a single ticket gives access to genuinely different views of the same race.

How We Help

• Hospitality above the pit lane and paddock access across the twenty-four hours
• A base in Spa, Liège, or the Ardennes countryside rather than a tent in the forest
• Tables in Liège and across eastern Belgium, via our Fine Dining & Nightlife service
• Transport into and out of a circuit with one approach road and sixty thousand people leaving together
• The rest of the endurance calendar arranged alongside — ask your Business Concierge

Spa pairs naturally with Le Mans in June and Le Mans Classic in July for anyone following endurance racing properly, and Brussels is ninety minutes away if the weekend needs a city at either end of it.