The most challenging corner of the post-war period.” Those were the words of Motor Sport’s Denis Jenkinson when that corner, or rather sequence thereof, appeared under threat 30 years ago. He was talking about Eau Rouge at Spa, the left at the bottom of the hill after the old pits and then the steep uphill right and the left over the brow collectively known as Raidillon.

DSJ, our long-time continental correspondent, was biased: he made no secret of his love for the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps while lamenting the emasculation of race tracks around the world. The Belgian venue was, he insisted in a piece written with me in 1994, “the only real circuit in F1”. He dismissed everything else in typically forthright manner: “The rest are rubbish – most of them don’t even come close. I wouldn’t bother looking up from my book for them.”

“Eau Rouge was incorporated into the public road network”

Our story was born of fears that arguably the most famous corner in worldwide motor sport, and certainly Spa’s trademark, would bite the dust in the dark days of 1994. For that year’s Belgian Grand Prix, a chicane was installed at Eau Rouge, though with a promise that it was only temporary.

Eau Rouge as we know it didn’t disappear. The abomination of a chicane was used only for the F1 weekend. Circuit and F1 stuck to their collective word: Eau Rouge was restored to its former glory for the 1995 Belgian GP. The sorry saga turned out to be but another twist in the long, winding and sometimes tragic story of the bends that have remained in place to this day.

ORIGINS OF EAU ROUGE

Eau Rouge has been a fixture at Spa since the very beginnings of the circuit back in 1921 and the first car racing the following year. But not in the same form as today. It may or may not explain why in the English vernacular three corners are lumped together under its name. Or perhaps it’s just that we Brits can’t cope with the pronunciation of Raidillon.

The original iteration of the Spa circuit, made up of a nine-mile triangle of public roads through the Ardennes roughly linking Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot, turned sharp left after a bridge over the stream that gave its name to the corner: the red hue of the water is explained by rich deposits of iron oxide in the vicinity.

The cars went uphill at a right angle to the current track and turned sharp right at the top before feeding back onto what were then known as the Kemmel Curves. The section was called Virage l’Ancienne Douane, the name derived from the border post at what was the Belgian-Prussian frontier prior to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

It wasn’t until 1939 that this was bypassed with the steep uphill Raidillon corners. The new Eau Rouge was incorporated into the public road network, in both directions initially. Only in 2000 did Spa become a permanent circuit.

THE CREATION OF MODERN EAU ROUGE

Spa had been banished from the F1 calendar after 1970: a circuit upgrade after a year away in ’69, which included the addition of Armco barriers around much of its length, didn’t satisfy the drivers at a time of a growing safety crusade. Grand prix cars wouldn’t return until 1983, four years after the track was reduced in length with a new permanent section that dived off what had become the Kemmel Straight at Les Combes and rejoined the public roads of the old course prior to Blanchimont. The Spa we know today measuring 4.3 or so miles had been created.

A chicane at the start of the short chute to La Source, which now incorporated a new pits complex, went in for 1981, the twin developments helping to facilitate the F1 comeback. But there was another change made in time for the return of the Belgian Grand Prix to what most regarded as its rightful home.

A remodelling of Eau Rouge appeared to have passed most by, certainly the F1 drivers and the British press pack. In the euphoria of the end of what former Motor Sport editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck described as “an exile” of the Belgian F1 fixture to Zolder and, briefly, Nivelles, everyone overlooked the change.

“It’s a bit scary in places,” Williams driver Keke Rosberg told Roebuck. “That left-right – Eau Rouge – at the bottom of the hill is not exactly the easiest section of track I have ever encountered. It’s fabulous – one of those places that reminds you of why you get paid for driving racing cars.”

Our own DSJ recounted a similar tale from that year to me in ’94. It had the reigning world champion uttering a profanity as he praised the circuit, which may or may not have been some kind of embellishment. That Rosberg was dragging on a Marlboro Red at the time almost certainly wasn’t.

Rosberg’s description of Spa’s keynote bends identifies him as a circuit rookie. He hadn’t experienced Eau Rouge up to that point in his career, but if he had, he would have known just how Raidillon had changed. That much is clear in the before and after photographs of the bend in 1982 and ’83. The positioning of the giant Texaco hoarding is the giveaway.

Raidillon was eased for the return of F1 to provide more margin for error on the outside of the right-hander, which in turn made the left at Eau Rouge in the dip less of a corner. Ditto the left over the brow. Put simply, Eau Rouge had changed significantly.

THE CHALLENGE OF EAU ROUGE

We don’t have to look much beyond DSJ’s 30-year-old explanation of why Eau Rouge is one of the great sequences in motor racing. “Eau Rouge on its own is nothing,” he told me. “Eau Rouge with Raidillon is something, but add the bump at the top and you’ve got a wonderful piece of racing circuit. The car is changing direction vertically at the same time as changing direction laterally. That’s the challenge of Eau Rouge.”

Jenkinson was well qualified to make a judgement. Before he toured the circuits of Europe for Motor Sport he was an accomplished sidecar passenger. He won the inaugural Sidecar World Championship in 1949 with Eric Oliver, one of their two wins that season coming at Spa.

It is the vertical climb that makes the segment unique and also so daunting for the drivers: the track rises 40m over a blind brow at a gradient approaching 20 degrees. “Like driving upwards through a tunnel” is how two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Timo Bernhard remembers the track on his first acquaintance in the late 1990s.

“Eau Rouge on its own is nothing, but add the bump at the top…”

That illusion has changed over the years as the barriers have been pushed back on both sides and, subsequently, asphalt run-off installed. Some say it has made it easier because if something starts to go wrong you can open the steering and run wide. Not so, argues another driver to win Le Mans twice. “You don’t approach Eau Rouge now saying that you are going to take it flat because there is more run-off,” reckons Alex Wurz, also a circuit designer in addition to a veteran of 69 F1 starts. “You know that if you do something wrong, it could still be a big one.”

What has made it less of a challenge are the flatter kerbs. “They have essentially opened up the three apexes,” he explains. “That’s why it has become easier.”

The track is smoother than in the past and the compression at Eau Rouge less severe. That’s significant, too. “You had to be more millimetre precise when the track was bumpier and the kerbs were higher,” says Wurz. “There was a lot going on with the compression and the bumps in the old days. It was quite uncomfortable to know that the car could suddenly snap on you.”

WAS HE FLAT THROUGH EAU ROUGE?

There are any number of candidates for the crown of first Formula 1 driver to take Eau Rouge flat. It was probably Michael Schumacher at the wheel of a Benetton in 1993, the same year Alex Zanardi escaped a huge accident at the section during practice in his Lotus. But what can be said with certainty, however, is that by the mid-1990s the drivers in the best machinery were keeping their right foot in all the way through on a low-fuel qualifying run. And that today in an F1 car it is routinely flat.

“The first F1 driver to take Eau Rouge flat? Probably Michael Schumacher”

“Easy flat,” is how Kevin Magnussen describes it. “When the higher-downforce cars arrived in 2017, it wasn’t really a corner any more. You could do it steering with one finger.”

It’s also flat in a GT3 car, a pertinent example given that they provide the grid for the Spa 24 Hours. The changes to the track and advances in the cars have seen to that. “The cars are not super-powerful and over the years they have gained more and more downforce,” says Maxime Martin, a winner of the race. “If your car is well balanced, you can do it flat all stint long.”

That’s not the case for the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class, which is why Magnussen’s love affair with Eau Rouge has been renewed. “It’s more of a challenge in a Hypercar in WEC than in F1,” says the Dane, who in 2025 completed his first year in the championship with BMW. “The cars are powerful, but they don’t have a lot of downforce and are heavy, so they move around a lot. It’s definitely not flat all the way through a stint. In qualifying, yes, and at the end of a stint if your tyres are still in good shape when the fuel load is low.”

THE BET THAT WASN’T 

The pieces of one BAR-Supertec 01 had just been swept up from the top of Raidillon, when the marshals had to get their brooms out for another. Team-mates Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta both crashed at more than 180mph after losing it in the right-hander in qualifying for the 1999 Belgian Grand Prix. Legend has it that their shunts were the result of a bet to take the big dipper flat.

Not so, they both claim today. There was no wager made, just an understanding that staying flat was key to a quick lap.

“We were doing well in qualifying and we knew the top cars were going through there flat,” explains Zonta. “We were just trying to improve our lap times and we knew that taking it flat would do that even if that car wasn’t easy to drive. When we tried, we lost the car, both Jacques and I. It wasn’t a joke and there was definitely no bet.”

But perhaps a sense of bravado. “I had taken Eau Rouge flat in the Williams in 1996, ’97 and ’98, so I knew I could do the corner flat,” recalls Villeneuve. “And anyway if you don’t take it flat you’re a… well, you know the word. It’s not true that I had a bet with my team-mate.”

Perhaps the word or rather phrase he’s looking for is “big girl’s blouse”. That’s what his engineer, Jock Clear, used in conversation with Villeneuve to describe a driver failing to take it flat.

COULD EAU ROUGE BE BUILT TODAY?

The answer to that one is no. Probably. The FIA doesn’t have rules so much as guidelines for new circuit layouts. Eau Rouge would fall outside them, says circuit designer Clive Bowen.

The classic sequence at Spa wouldn’t meet the guidelines laid down for the radius of dips and crests, explains Bowen, the founder of Apex Circuit Design, whose credits include the Dubai Autodrome and the new Miami F1 track. “You have to think of an imaginary disc nestling in the sag at the bottom of the hill and another one under the track on the crest,” he says. “The minimum disc radius is defined by the square of the speed of the fastest car that will race at the venue divided by constants specified by the FIA. Eau Rouge and Raidillon would be massively outside what is prescribed today.

“There is room to negotiate. At Apex, we tend to be more relaxed about compressions than brows: I witnessed one of the Mercedes flipping over the hump on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans in 1999 and know that going outside the guidelines for crests is moving into a territory of dragons.”

Eau Rouge retains its place on the Spa layout under the FIA’s grandfathering rules, continues Bowen: “If you have a facility that has been around since time immemorial and has maintained corner geometry outside the guidelines but has been refined and enhanced over the years, it is deemed safe because it has benefited from that process of best practice.”

THE DARK SIDE OF EAU ROUGE

The chicane built for the 1994 Belgian GP to which DSJ so objected has been the most obvious change to Eau Rouge since the return of F1 in ’83. Along with the temporary corners added at Barcelona and Montreal, it was a reaction to the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger over the San Marino Grand Prix weekend. The FIA moved quickly to reduce speeds: aero was cut for the Spanish fixture less than a month after Imola and power for Canada two weeks later, before the introduction of the downforce-reducing underfloor plank for the German GP in July.

The Eau Rouge chicane was built largely within the confines of the existing track save for an extension of the asphalt into an existing gravel trap and was never meant to be more than temporary. “It was the decision of the FIA to do it for that one race, while we looked to find a solution for the next year,” says then FIA safety delegate Roland Bruynseraede.

“We learn as much from near-misses as from serious accidents”

The FIA and Spa knew the dangers of Eau Rouge. German rising star Stefan Bellof had died after hitting the barrier at the bottom of the concrete grandstand on the outside of the right at Raidillon while racing a Brun Motorsport Porsche 956 in the World Sportscar Championship’s round seven in 1985. Five years later in 1990 local driver Guy Renard was killed in the Spa 24 Hours when his Toyota Corolla was T-boned after coming to rest over the top of Raidillon. The solution for 1995 was an extended two-part gravel trap that wrapped around the concrete stand and the creation of a new one on the exit of Raidillon.

The process of upgrading safety has been ongoing ever since. The barrier on the inside of the Raidillon right-hander was moved back for ’99, the concrete stand demolished for 2000 and the gravel of the revised run-off replaced by asphalt.

Another wave of safety improvements was made in the wake of the accident in which Anthoine Hubert lost his life in the Formula 2 race on the GP bill in 2019 as part of a £70m circuit upgrade for 2022. Run-off on the inside and outside at the top of Raidillon was enhanced at the same time as the compression at the bottom was eased.

It is a process that remains in progress, says FIA safety director Nuno Costa. He won’t talk about specific corners or accidents, only that every incident is analysed to aid the process. “We learn as much from the near-misses as from serious accidents,” he explains. “We look at the data and the incidents, and try to understand what worked and what didn’t, identify improvements and work from there.”

NOT EVERYONE LOVES IT…

The view of Eau Rouge for some is clouded by the dangers the sequence presents. Jenson Button is among them and is quite dogmatic in his viewpoint. “I don’t like Eau Rouge – it’s too dangerous,” he states. “I don’t enjoy it. The rest of Spa is exceptional. But Eau Rouge… I understand why people think it is awesome, but there have been too many incidents for me. The problem is that it’s blind. They have made it as safe as they can, but it is always going to be a dangerous corner.”

“I understand why people think it’s awesome. The problem is that it’s blind”

Button isn’t alone in having doubts about Eau Rouge. Aston Martin WEC driver Harry Tincknell admits that his view is clouded by the accident that followed a tyre failure on his Ford GT in the 2017 WEC race.

“When you have a big one there, it probably changes it for you – it certainly did for me,” says the Briton. “I don’t hate it, I’m just saying I don’t like it.”

IT STILL HAS A PLACE

The deaths of Hubert and 18-year-old Dilano van ’t Hoff in a Formula Regional European Championship race in 2023, as well as the serious accident in which Jack Aitken sustained a broken vertebra and collarbone at the 2021 Spa 24 Hours, inevitably thrust safety at Eau Rouge into the spotlight. There were similarities to the three accidents: they involved a crashed car being hit by another at the top of Raidillon or, in the case of van ’t Hoff, a little along the Kemmel Straight.

Visibility has been improved at Eau Rouge over the years, but the topography means the brow remains blind. There is a two-fold answer to ensuring its future reckons locally born Vincent Vosse, a winner of the track’s 24-hour fixture and now boss of the WRT BMW squad for which Magnussen races. “Improving signalling, giving more warning, is important,” he says. “But so too is the mentality of the drivers: they need to understand that a yellow is a yellow and they have to slow down. I don’t think the corner should change, but sometimes I feel that the mentality of the drivers needs to change. They need to understand that they aren’t in a simulator.”

The changes to Eau Rouge over the years have improved safety, as well as altering its character. For the worse, according to Johnny Herbert. “It’s lost its soul,” he says. “It’s impressive that taking it flat in a modern F1 car is ridiculously easy, but I preferred it when you were hanging on for dear life. With all the run-off now, you have a get-out-of-jail card if you get it wrong.”

For many, Spa-Francorchamps without Eau Rouge is unthinkable. Kévin Estre, winner of the 24 Hours in 2019, is among them. “As a driver you want to feel alive and a sort of fear, having to be brave to be quick in a fast corner,” he says. “Even if we have lost some drivers, I wouldn’t want them to touch it for any money in the world.”

Spa-Francorchamps 

First race 1922

Fastest F1 Qualifying Lap
1 min 41.252sec, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 W11, 2020

Fastest F1 Race Lap
1 min 44.701sec, Sergio Pérez, Red Bull RB20, 2024

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