Unofficial Belgium Grand Prix Thread

Has anyone been to the Belgium GP in the last few years?

I am going to this years and was wondering if anyone had any tips etc... for a smooth hassle free trip.

Also, the best viewing areas for a General Admission ticket holder.

Thanks

I might have mentioned this before but I dearly hope it's better than when I went (about 15 years ago).

One of the issues with Spa for general admission is that almost nowhere is flat and level. People took trenching tools when I went to cut their own little step in the hillside. When I went I was also very glad of my own toilet roll (hopefully things have improved on that front). And the whole place seemed to have run out of anything at all to drink by about midday.

Get into the circuit very early - the good places had filled up by about 6am.

I dearly hope it has improved as I hated it. Silverstone is magnificent in comparison.

I'm going aswell woooooo

Push the boat out and get a Grandstand seat at Eau Rouge (Gold 4)!!No worries about arrival times,food/drink stands right next to it as well as toilets. Although the best time to get your tickets would have been as soon as possible after this year's race. We used a ticket vendor that offered heavy discount and every 3 months reduced the amount of discount. Think we saved about 150 euros for the 3 day ticket

Yup - the only way I'd go back to Spa is with a grandstand ticket

I went in 2001 and sat in the grandstand on the start/finish straight. It was the year that Williams left Montoya's car up on jacks as they cleared the grid for the race start. Hilarious watching the Ferrari mechanics pointing & laughing! It took an insane amount of time to get out of the place after the race...4 hours and we were still in the car park! Worth it though, but gotta be grandstand otherwise you'll need to be up half an hour before you went to bed just to get in and get a decent spot.

I went in 2013. We arrived late morning and managed to find a spot on the run down towards Pouhon which is a very fast section of the track and gave a really good sense of how fast the cars are.

We were essentially perched on a steep hillside in the forest with thousands of other fanatical intoxicated fans. By the end of the race the whole place smelled like a toilet and it also took us several hours to get out. Incidentally, we had parked in a farmer's paddock alongside a section of the original spa track.

Spa is a really long track by modern F1 standards so you don't get to see the cars all that often. They also don't do a victory lap which was really disappointing.

2013 was the last year with the V8s so I'm glad I went and had a good time despite the very basic facilities. Unfortunately Vettel dominated the race and the rain came 5 minutes after the race ended...

I also managed to get a speeding ticket on my drive back to Holland afterwards!

A packed and ready to go.

See you there Coupedummy