The most exciting first corner ever for me is La Source hairpin, where anything can happen, as we saw with Alonso and Hamilton in 2007. Cars have to be set up perfectly around Spa with no margin for error. If your car isn’t set up right, you won’t have the speed and balance that's needed.
The legendary Eau Rouge chicane sees the drivers hit 190 mph at the bottom of the hill, pulling five G in Force, four and a half G in Lateral force.
This pushes their heads down at four times their body weight, through the corner whilst still accelerating as they pop over the top of the hill into Lacombe, then onto 210 mph down the straight.
Pouhon corner is streaming downhill and is unsighted, yet the cars are still doing 180 mph. Then you have the amazing flat out Blanchimont corner, the two Stavelot corners, Malmody, and the Bus Stop chicane
F1 cars arriving at the Bus stop chicane must be perfectly balanced as they are braking from 200 Mph to just 50 Mph in seconds.
It has produced many great battles over the years, Hakkinen vs. Schumacher in 2000, Hamilton vs. Alonso vs. Raikkonen in 2007, just to name two of the best.
The fact it wasn’t intended to be a race circuit for me adds to the magic of the place. It was country roads, turned into a race track by connecting the roads that link the towns of Stavelot, Malmody and Francorchamps.
I was gutted to see it removed in 2006, and the season felt incomplete without it. Putting it back on the calendar was a wise choice, and now I wait in anticipation for the Belgian Grand Prix each time around, I just hope they hurry up and bring it out on the next Formula 1 game.
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Andrew McNair - Monte Carlo
I've watched F1 for 13 years now, but there is only one race on the F1 calendar that I really hate to miss.
That circuit is in Monte Carlo, or as you may know it, the Monaco Grand Prix.
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