13 replies to this topic

[R.W. Mackenzie]

My brother and I were discussing our favourite track and the wild fastest laps set there before it was truncated to its present length (160+ by Rodriguez in 1970, 162+ by Siffert in 1971 and 163+ by Ickx and Pescarolo, all during the 1000 Km race events). When he wondered out loud if the sports cars used the chicane at Malmedy that was put in place for the 1970 GP I said it was news to me because I couldn't remember any mention of such a chicane before.

However, I did some checking and found two references to it ("Automobile Year 1970/1971" and "Grand Prix Year" by Ted Simon). Both references describe the "chicane" as being a quick detour around a traffic island to slow the cars on the run down to Masta (and only used for the GP, not the sports car races).

But I can't find anywhere where there is a picture of it or any more precise details. For instance, was it at the Malmedy bends or further down the road? (According to "Mapquest", there is now a traffic circle on a connecting road just south of the Masta straight a bit further along which would have been somewhat more of a detour.)

Does anyone know anything more about this obscure, one-off track change (or have any pictures)?

Bob Mackenzie

[MPea3]

http://www.latphoto.co.uk

click on "archive search", then under the search options, put "belgian and 1970" in the box "race". you'll get 17 pages of photos from that race, including both aeriel shots of that corner at the top left of page 2, and ground level shots starting also on page 2, third from the left on the top row. you'll find others on subsequent pages.

[chub_pearson]

The chicane you're talking about IS the Malmedy bends in GPL. It's one of Papy's few mistakes that they used the 1970 version of Spa instead of the 1967 version.

Where you turn left (just before the flagpoles) and then right is the route round the traffic island - in 1967 after the long right hander the road went straight on at full throttle over a brow so you arrived at the left hander leading onto the Masta straight at full speed and airborne!

I keep hoping someone will bring out this 'correct' version

Chub

[R.W. Mackenzie]

MPea3

Thanks for the reply. Those pictures are great and they answer all of my questions.

Bob Mackenzie


P.S.

Chub

I'll reply on the GPL forum.

[MPea3]

Originally posted by chub_pearson
The chicane you're talking about IS the Malmedy bends in GPL. It's one of Papy's few mistakes that they used the 1970 version of Spa instead of the 1967 version.

Where you turn left (just before the flagpoles) and then right is the route round the traffic island - in 1967 after the long right hander the road went straight on at full throttle over a brow so you arrived at the left hander leading onto the Masta straight at full speed and airborne!

I keep hoping someone will bring out this 'correct' version

Chub

i don't think so. watch the movie "grand prix" and you'll see the same course through malmedy as is shown in GPL. it's one of the very good in-car shots from spa. after the left , malmedy dives to the right past the flags, whereas the 1970 course would go straight down the hill (even if for a short distance) before turning a harder right. on the latphoto site you can see the original malmedy corner from both GPL and "grand prix".

[fines]

Last time I was in the area (mid-nineties?), the chicane was still visible. I think it would have put about five or six seconds to a lap time.

[LittleChris]

I was there a couple of years ago and all that's left is an earth track. Basically when they built the motorway they built over the main road to Malmedy from the Burnenville area and left a big earth bank where the road (as oposed to the track ) used to go under the rail bridge visible in "Grand Prix".

[chub_pearson]

Well, after looking at those aerial photos I'm not so sure now myself, MPea3 :-)

I was going on the Motor Sport report of the 1970 GP, where D Jenkinson says:
"As a sop to certain Grand Prix drivers the course had been modified slightly since the recent 1,000 kilometre sports car race, and instead of taking the very fast Malmedy right-hand sweep at 150mph, it was now neccessary to brake really hard, going left of the grass island and then turning sharp right and joining the Masta straight on a left-hand sweep." This description seems to fit the GPL layout although he does say it added 7-10 seconds to the lap time which implies a sharper corner than the GPL one. But all the pre 1968 track maps I can find show no sign of these corners, just a smooth curve through Malmedy onto Masta.

Also there's a recording of Rindt's Cooper in 1966 supposedly from the entry to Burnenville all the way down to Stavelot, where there's no lift at all where those Malmedy bends would be in GPL.

Perhaps the Belgians did some road works around that time and changed the whole layout? I know that previous to road development in the 1950's, Stavelot was a hairpin not a fast sweep.

Help! I'm confused :-)

Chub

PS: I have got a copy of Grand Prix somewhere but it got lost in my video collection years ago!

[LittleChris]

I've actually got the aerial photo as a screen saver from LAT! Take the fastest line out of Burnenvile and you've got the route up until 1970. Take the slow route around the traffic island and you've got the Stewart/Beltoise chicane !!

[MPea3]

the hairpin at stavelot is apparent on maps of the area. check out mapquest.

i'm not sure when the exact date was, but the original pre-war malmedy was described as a hairpin. i believe it followed a course more similar to the 1970 chicane than the downhill blast past the flags, but i've yet to see a photo or prewar map showing it. i believe though that before the 1939 race spa had 4 hairpins, la source, eau rouge, malmedy, and stavelot. hopefully someone with better knowledge and materials can shed more light on this.

[LittleChris]

Spot on, I posted something about this on a GPLEA thread a while ago, but since time's getting late in the UK I'd better sleep rather than look for it !!!

[philipbain]

I stumbled upon this thread whilst researching to "out" the slightly dodgy version of the old Spa featured on rFactor 2 (on which some of Spa seems truncated whilst other parts have had corners added that were simply never there!). Having driven the old Spa myself earlier this year I can confirm that some evidence of the Malmedy chicane remains, though the sharp right hander and link back onto the Masta straight are no longer in evidence, the entrance to the chicane now serves as a layby and access to a rough forest track, the original road going to Malmedy at this point being a thing of the past thanks to more modern motorway works that were alluded to earlier in the thread. The Grand Prix Legends version of the old Spa is reasonably accurate, much more so than the much more modern rFactor 2 iteration and definitely includes the original non-bypassed Malmedy corner which whilst a gentle curve at the local speed limit (90kmph!) would have been terrifying by 1970 with burgeoning downforce and increased tyre grip. If you ever visit Spa I REALLY recommend driving the old circuit and stopping at Masta Kink, not only to admire how utterly awesome it would have been at racing speeds, but also because there is a cafe serving awesome frites!! Also the Stavelot bypass (where Jean-Pierre Sarte crashed in the 1966 movie Grand Prix) and original Stavelot hairpin are still drivable too, the bypass still having it's original surface as these days it's a one way road for circuit traffic and not heavily used.

 

Also MPea3 was right, the old Spa was extensively re-modelled in the late 1930s to take out the slower sections at Eau Rouge, Malmedy and Stavelot as the original course followed the public roads at these locations, Malmedy and Stavelot being road junctions, Eau Rouge originally finding an easier path up the hill to Radilion, avoiding a river that has been subsequently culverted under the post-1939 Eau Rouge. Obviously high speed thrills were of prime importance with safety rarely considered back in those days!!

[nmansellfan]

Hi Philipbain,

 

Have you driven the 'Spa '67' version of Spa Francorchamps for GPL that was released a few months ago?  Aside from being a masterpiece of track creation for the sim (which is 17 years old this year!), it is about as accurate as you can get for a track which wasn't laser scanned and was last used in real life over 35 years ago.  The section from Radillion to Les Combes is fantastic and puts the RF2 version to shame.

[john winfield]

Herman Liesemeijer's website has some interesting pictures, including the Malmedy chicane.

 

http://www.circuitso...apfrancorchamps