Spa-Francorchamps by motorcycle: the fastest and most beautiful of road circuits

Racing & circuitsSpa-FrancorchampsMotorcycle Grands Prix

Laid out from 1921 on the public roads of the Francorchamps-Malmedy-Stavelot triangle, Spa long strung together 14,100 km of rolling Ardennes country. In 1977, on his Suzuki RG500, Barry Sheene set the fastest race in the history of motorcycle Grands Prix there: 217,370 km/h average, a record never beaten since. The 1979 shortening brought the circuit back to 6,947 km without taking away the Raidillon de l'Eau Rouge and its blind climb at more than 18 % gradient. Wayne Rainey won the last Belgian motorcycle Grand Prix there in 1990; endurance racing, for its part, came back in 2022.

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A triangle of Ardennes roads

It all starts in 1921. Jules de Thier, head of the Liège daily La Meuse, and the racer Henri Langlois van Ophem are looking for a playground to get competition going again after the Great War. They find it in the Belgian Ardennes : the triangle of public roads linking Francorchamps, Malmedy and Stavelot will do the job. Almost fifteen kilometres of rolling back roads, village corners and long tree-lined straights.

A tasty detail for a motorcycle blog: the very first race held on the layout, on 12 August 1921, was not a car event. The planned car Grand Prix was cancelled for lack of entries — a single driver signed up — and the Belgian motorcycling federation stepped straight into the gap. So it was 23 motorcycles that opened the circuit, with Britain's Hubert Hassall winning the 500 class on a Norton at some 90 km/h average. Spa was born of two wheels before it belonged to four: the first car race would have to wait until 1922.

In 1939, a decisive change is made: the slow Ancienne Douane hairpin, at the bottom of the Eau Rouge valley, is replaced by a direct, fast climb named the Raidillon. The circuit then goes from 14,982 to 14,100 km and gets faster still. It is that layout, the one behind every record, that will be used until 1978 and that made Spa the equal of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the Tourist Trophy and the Assen TT : a road circuit, not a track drawn on a blank sheet of paper.

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The Raidillon de l'Eau Rouge and the legendary corners

The Raidillon de l'Eau Rouge is probably the most famous sequence of corners on the racing planet. A descent that dives towards a bridge, a sharp left at the bottom, then a blind climb in a right-left whose exit you never see until you are in it. The elevation change of the site reaches 102,2 metres between the high point and the low point, and the gradient locally exceeds 18 %. On a motorcycle, the compression at the bottom and the unloading at the crest follow one another in less than three seconds: the machine squats, then empties itself of its weight at the very moment you would want grip.

On the old layout, though, the Raidillon was only a prologue. Next came Burnenville, a huge right sweeping through the village at more than 200 km/h without the slightest run-off, then the Masta Kink, a left-right flick taken flat out in the middle of the Masta straight, which Jackie Stewart rated the hardest corner in the world. Then there were still Stavelot, then the endless left at Blanchimont and the hairpin at La Source. Between the guardrails, the houses and the ditches, the margin for error was zero — a setting you barely find anywhere today except the Guia Circuit in Macau. To understand what those curves really demand of a rider, our guide to cornering lines is still a good warm-up.

🏍️ The Raidillon de l'Eau Rouge is one of those corners you hang on the wall: find it among our motorcycle posters and prints.

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The fastest motorcycle Grand Prix in history

The Belgian Grand Prix has been on the road racing world championship calendar since 1949, the year the series was created, and stayed there until 1990. Spa hosted every edition but one. The record holder for the event is Giacomo Agostini, with eight wins in 500, the first in 1966, the year of his first title in the premier class.

But the figure that sums Spa up comes down to three decimal places. On 3 July 1977, Barry Sheene won the 500 race at 217,370 km/h average (135,067 mph), with a best lap at 220,721 km/h. It is still, to this day, the fastest race in the history of motorcycle Grands Prix, across all eras and all classes. His Suzuki RG500 , a four-cylinder two-stroke and the direct ancestor of the RG500 Gamma sold in dealerships , made barely 120 horsepower, but it was geared for nearly 300 km/h and spent most of the lap in the tallest ratios. Steve Baker (Yamaha) finished second at 11,3 s, Pat Hennen third.

The following year, on 2 July 1978, the Dutchman Wil Hartog won the 500 race on a Suzuki ahead of Kenny Roberts and Sheene. It was the last motorcycle Grand Prix run over the historic 14,100 km layout.

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1979: the circuit shrinks, the riders revolt

Safety got the better of the giant. With ever faster machines, making fourteen kilometres of open roads safe was becoming impossible, the stretch between Les Combes and Blanchimont posing the biggest problems. In 1979, Spa lost more than half its length: the new permanent circuit measured 6,947 km. It kept the essentials — Eau Rouge, the Raidillon, the Kemmel climb, Blanchimont, La Source — and gave up the long loop through Malmedy and Stavelot.

The christening turned into a fiasco. The new surface, finished two days before the first practice, was oozing oil and diesel: crashes piled up from qualifying onwards. After the Saturday session, Kenny Roberts, Barry Sheene, Virginio Ferrari, Wil Hartog and all the factory riders refused to race. The night that followed saw furious spectators tip over and burn cars and straw bales. The race was held anyway, without the factories: the New Zealander Dennis Ireland took his only Grand Prix win there.

The FIM suspended the ringleaders — Roberts and Ferrari — before commuting the penalties into suspended sentences with fines. That confrontation pushed Roberts to launch the World Series, a breakaway championship that was stillborn but foundational: it laid the groundwork for the modern balance of power between riders, promoters and federation, the thread that runs through the whole MotoGP story. In 1980, the Belgian Grand Prix fell back on Zolder, before returning to Spa as early as 1981.

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1990: the last motorcycle Grand Prix at Spa

What followed was a long falling-out. In 1987, the FIM simply cancelled the event: the safety work demanded had not been carried out. The Grand Prix came back in 1988, then 1989, then one last time on 7 July 1990.

That day, Kevin Schwantz took pole in 2'23"264, but it was Wayne Rainey who won the 500 race in the rain — the fastest race lap, set by the winner, was 2'45"784, twenty-two seconds slower than pole, which says everything about the state of the track. The Frenchman Jean-Philippe Ruggia took a second place that stayed in the memory, 4,5 s behind, ahead of Eddie Lawson.

Contrary to a widespread idea, it was not a single tragedy that drove motorcycles away from Spa, but a bundle of causes. As early as 1989, promoter Bernie Ecclestone had doubled ticket prices compared with the Assen TT held the week before, much to the annoyance of the Belgian public; in 1990, the race was also moved to Saturday to avoid clashing with a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and the weather joined in. The result: around 10 000 spectators for an event that usually drew close to 100 000. The FIM then demanded a complete new resurfacing that could not be done in time, and the organisers threw in the towel for 1991. The Belgian Grand Prix never came back to the calendar — a disappearance in the same vein as the great road circuits set aside for safety reasons, as told in our feature on the most legendary circuits of the championship and the one devoted to the crashes that made safety evolve.

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The Spa 24 Hours, the other legend

While outright speed was moving away,endurance was settling in. The 24 Hours of Spa Motos were born on 28 and 29 August 1971, at Zolder, then moved to Francorchamps from 1973 — where they would run until 2003 under the name 24 Hours of Liège. On the old 14 km layout, the record distance was set in 1976 by Christian Léon and Jean-Claude Chemarin: 315 laps, that is nearly 4 448 km swallowed in a day and a night. For a sense of scale, compare it with the Bol d'Or and the Le Mans 24 Hours Motos.

The event died out after the 2003 edition, before a much-awaited return in June 2022, after some twenty years of absence and a circuit modernisation plan costed at 80 million euros. A dedicated motorcycle layout of 6,985 km and 20 corners — the longest in the championship — was laid out for the occasion, with widened run-offs, repositioned barriers and a realignment of turn 9 reserved for motorcycles. Yamaha, with YART, won in 2023 and 2024; in 2025 it was the F.C.C. TSR Honda France of Alan Techer and Corentin Perolari that took the win. Since 2024, the race has been run in the 8 Hoursformat, like the Suzuka 8 Hours.

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The weather, the one corner nobody masters

There is one last corner at Spa, and it is on no map: the Ardennes sky. The circuit stretches over seven kilometres and a hundred metres of elevation change, in a landscape where air masses get trapped. A consequence well known to everyone who has been there: it can rain at Les Combes while the sun is blazing at the Raidillon, and the other way round ten minutes later. No other European circuit plays so hard with the nerves of the teams when it is time to choose tyres.

That may be what makes Spa unique. The layout lost half its length in 1979 and Grand Prix motorcycles since 1990, but it has lost nothing of its character: speed, elevation change, corners you take with confidence or not at all, and weather that deals the cards. Between the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca and Eau Rouge, a rider does not have to choose: they are two ways of telling the same passion.

🏁 The spirit of the road circuits of old, in objects and decor: discover our selection of Vintage & Retro motorcycle.

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Summary table

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FAQ — Frequently asked questions

• What was the exact length of the old Spa-Francorchamps circuit?
  The original 1921 layout measured 14,982 km. From 1939, the creation of the Raidillon in place of the Ancienne Douane hairpin brought it down to 14,100 km. That is the configuration that was used until 1978.
• Why was the circuit shortened in 1979?
  For safety reasons. Making fourteen kilometres of public roads safe against ever faster machines had become impossible, the stretch between Les Combes and Blanchimont posing the biggest problems. The new permanent circuit opened in 1979 measured 6,947 km.
• What is the average-speed record for a motorcycle Grand Prix?
  It belongs to Barry Sheene, winner of the 500 race at Spa on 3 July 1977 on a Suzuki, at 217,370 km/h average (135,067 mph), with a best lap at 220,721 km/h. No Grand Prix has been run faster since.
• Why did the Belgian motorcycle Grand Prix disappear?
  The last edition was held on 7 July 1990. Ticket prices doubled from 1989, the race moved to Saturday and bad weather dropped the attendance to around 10 000 spectators, against close to 100 000 usually. The FIM then demanded a complete resurfacing that could not be done in time, and there was no 1991 edition.
• Can you still see motorcycles racing at Spa today?
  Yes, in endurance. After some twenty years of absence, the world endurance championship round came back to Spa in June 2022 on a dedicated motorcycle layout of 6,985 km and 20 corners, and has been run in the 8 Hours format since 2024.

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