I'm looking to book the whole race weekend for the Belgium grand prix. Going with 2 or 3 friends who havent been to a GP before.
Any advice is welcome as I've only been to the British GP before and I was quite young.
Wheres the best place to buy tickets?
Whats the best place to stand in the cheap areas?
Can you walk around in free practice to other areas?
Whats the best campsite to stay at?
Thanks in advance!
Finally got permission to post
Here's my limited wisdom on the subject.
Ticketswise I'm the same as punknhedd above - http://www.belgium-g...680-belgium-f1/
In the general admission/GA/Bronze (cheap) areas there's plenty of choice and you can walk between them easily.
Just be careful about when you do so in order to not miss anything!
The disappearance of Fanvision (handheld tv devices) makes it preferable to position yourself (at least on race day)
near a big screen (see the map on gootickets for their locations) so you can keep track of events.
It's difficult to see Eau Rouge from GA areas, but if you stand beside the F1 village behind the grandstand
you can see them exit Eau Rouge and head up through Raidillon.
The Kemmel straight has loads of room, but you'll wanna pick your spot carefully. You can see the final chicane from
some spots and obviously there's a big screen up there too. Further toward the end of the straight you will get decent
views of the braking zone into Les Combes - I didn't explore this area much.
My favoured location in 2012 (when I last went to Spa) was at Pouhon. There's a big screen on the run down to the
first apex of the double left hander, but we parked ourselves a little further down so that we could see further around
the corner. At racing speeds you could see each car for around 18 seconds from that spot as they exit turn 11 (no name)
and accelerate hard downhill towards Pouhon.
There's some food places nearby and a brick outhouse (proper toilet) on the hill.
The quickest way to Pouhon from the F1 Village is to cross underneath the track underneath Eau Rouge and then take
a left up through the forrest. The path splits in 2. The left fork brings you to the top of the cliff overlooking Bruxelles and
the run down to Pouhon and the right hand path takes you to Pouhon itself.
I didn't explore the area down near Blanchimont and the final chicane for a variety of reasons so i can't tell you about
that. I intend to explore that region extensively this August! (Maybe see you there)
As for camping, we stayed at the Francorchamps Racing Hotel Campsite. It's ok. You gotta get tokens to make the
showers work which is a bit of a pain, but it's about 5-10mins walk from the entrance at La Source. The street down to
the circuit is lined with memorabilia shops/makeshift bars/fast food places. There's even a massive Scalextric track laid
out like the circuit in a place along the street.
Spa is the best track on the calendar (IMOP tied with Suzuka) and is steeped in history. One of the coolest things about it
is it's location in a valley. The sound of the cars (with the V8s anyway) echoing around the Ardennes is haunting and thrilling.
Anyway, hope this was helpful. Enjoy the weekend.