Formula One: Round 13, Who Will Reign Supreme at Spa?

It will be a great weekend, but let's look at the circuit itself and its history.

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The return of Spa—Francorchamps was one of the most eagerly awaited aspects of the 2007 calendar.

The original track was a challenging, but hugely dangerous, eight-mile blast through forests and villages, and was never going to last long in the safety-conscious modern era.

Sure enough, it was removed from the schedule in 1971 and the Belgian Grand Prix moved to the safer, but comparatively insipid, locations of Nivelles and Zolder.

But in 1983, Spa was back. Although the new circuit was shorter and safer, it remained faithful to the spirit of its previous incarnation.

Legendary sections, such as the spine—tingling plunge through Eau Rouge and the Blanchimont sweep—were retained, and even the new link segment contained plenty to test the drivers—above all the fast double left-hander of Pouhon.

Unsurprisingly, both versions of Spa have been dominated by the truly great racers, with Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, and Jim Clark taking multiple wins on the old track, and Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher doing likewise in the modern era.

Spa was the scene of many of Schumacher’s most memorable moments, including his Formula One debut in 1991, his first win a year later, a famous charge from 16th to victory in 1995, a crushing, wet-weather win in 1997, and his last title clincher in 2004 (even though he finished second in that race to Kimi Raikkonen).

Political issues saw the race temporarily dropped in 2003, while the need to comprehensively revamp the tired paddock led to Spa being scratched from the calendar again three years later.

Its return was universally welcomed, for although the current generation of cars make Spa less of a challenge (flat-out runs through Eau Rouge now being disappointingly routine), it remains a sublime location for grand prix racing.

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Now lets move onto my article.

After the awful race at Valenica last week, we now move onto the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, a circuit which was recently voted the greatest ever in a poll on B/R.

Felipe Massa secured a very dominant victory on the wide-open streets of Valencia and will be confident to make it two in a row. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen suffered an engine failure and will be desperate to get back to winning ways on the track that he adores.

Lewis Hamilton took the sensible option last time out and settled for second place, realizing that eight points was better than nothing. His teammate Heikki Kovalainen showed great pace yet again, and he is now starting to show why McLaren have so much faith in him.

BMW Sauber are back, that is for sure, but Nick Heidfeld must improve on his terrible day in Valencia, which he described as "my worst performance ever."

A bit harsh really, but Robert Kubica was on the podium yet again, and whilst many are writing him off in the title race, it only takes one crazy race and he is back in the fight.

The mid-table battle is reaching its climax, and it is now certain that the fight is down to Toyota and Renault.

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