Spa safe until 2012
Good news for F1 fans as the Spa circuit will host a grand prix until at least 2012. Belgium is a small country and I’m sure for purely commercial reasons Formula 1 management would love to move the grand prix to a sterile Tilke track in some rich country elsewhere in the world, but I think it’s through the efforts of fans that Spa remains on the calendar.
Jean-Claude Marcourt, Belgian Minister of Economics and Employment of the region of Wallonia, confirmed the agreement between the government and Ecclestone’s FOM. “We hope to extend our contract until 2015, but our new contract until the end of 2012 is a step in the right direction. With this contract we can safely invest in the track for a long term future.”
Investing in the track is great, but please stop destroying the elements that make Spa great. The “Bus Stop” corner for example was one of the great anachronisms of Formula 1. For a formula 1 car, the bus stop was a disaster. It was hard enough simply to drive through it, let alone race through it. It lended itself to kamikaze moves on the final lap and it was always a bit of a lottery getting through it. It’s uniqueness and individuality is what made it a famous corner, no track designer could possibly have built anything like it on a new circuit.
3 comments June 23rd, 2008
