Eau Rouge, Raidillon | F1 1987 - F1 2020 Belgian Grand Prix Onboard
Location: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium

The evolution of Eau Rouge.

Watch the F1 Onbaords from this legendary section of track with the evolution in cars, drivers, track and other things since 1987 (Satoru Nakajima, Lotus 99T) - 2020 (Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 W11). Look out for legendary drivers such as: Jean Alesi, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen (King of Spa), Lewis Hamilton, Sebastain Vettel and more.

The Eau Rouge has lent its name to the Eau Rouge corner, one of the best-known corners in Formula One race tracks in the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps motor racing circuit, at the point where the track crosses it for the first time. It's now flat in a Formula 1 car, but Spa-Francorchamps' iconic corner, Eau Rouge, is still a challenge not to be underestimated

The most famous part of the circuit is the Eau Rouge and Raidillon combination. Having negotiated the La Source hairpin, drivers race down a straight to the point where the track crosses the Eau Rouge stream for the first time, before being launched steeply uphill into a sweeping left-right-left series of corners with a blind summit. Properly speaking, the Eau Rouge corner is only the left-hander at the bottom. The following right-hander that leads steeply uphill, which was introduced in 1939 to shortcut the original Ancienne Douane hairpin, is called Raidillon. The corner requires an amount of skill from the driver to negotiate it well and the long Kemmel straight ahead produces good overtaking opportunities for drivers at the following "Les Combes" corner. The corner was tighter and narrower before 1970, allowing drivers to take the corner faster.

"It's good, but the myth is bigger than the corner," said Jenson Button in 2002. "You don't come to it thinking, 'It's Eau Rouge'; it's just a normal corner."

Martin Brundle argued that the downhill Pouhon left-hander had usurped Eau Rouge - the colloquial name for the left-right-left series of corners that comprise Raidillon at the top of the hill - as "the ultimate challenge at Spa".

This followed the completion of renovation works designed to improve safety, with the barriers moved back, gravel traps paved over and the track resurfaced.

"The sting has been removed completely from Eau Rouge," Brundle wrote. "It used to be that you built up to Eau Rouge throughout the weekend until your final qualifying lap."It is now simply a great risk without being a great challenge because it is absolutely flat out from the word go."

2005 and 2006 F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso explained:

— "You come into the corner downhill, have a sudden change [of direction] at the bottom and then go very steep uphill. From the cockpit, you cannot see the exit and as you come over the crest, you don't know where you will land. It is a crucial corner for the timed lap, and also in the race, because you have a long uphill straight afterwards where you can lose a lot of time if you make a mistake. But it is also an important corner for the driver's feeling. It makes a special impression every lap, because you also have a compression in your body as you go through the bottom of the corner. It is very strange – but good fun as well."

A challenge for drivers has always been to take Eau Rouge/Raidillon flat out. Touring cars can take the corner at 160–180 km/h, and Formula One cars at over 300 km/h due to high downforce. World Champion Jacques Villeneuve once spoke of the effects of downforce, saying that to get through the corner the drivers have to drive faster, because downforce increases the faster a race car goes. Without lifting the throttle through Eau Rouge, a car would be flat out from La Source, along the Kemmel straight to Les Combes, a total distance of 2.015 km.

A loss of control through this section can often lead to a very heavy shunt, as usually the rear end of the car is lost and the resulting impact is often lateral. Several famous racing drivers have crashed while driving through Eau Rouge/Radillon, including Stefan Bellof in a Porsche sportscar, Guy Renard during the 1990 24h of Spa-Francorchamps in a Toyota Corolla GT, and Alex Zanardi in a season-ending crash during a practice session of the 1993 Belgian Grand Prix in a Lotus. Jacques Villeneuve suffered a spectacular crash at the top of Radillon in qualifying during the 1999 Belgian Grand Prix which he described as "My best-ever crash". His teammate Ricardo Zonta followed Villeneuve by having a similar accident later in practice, leading cartoonist Jim Bamber to show BAR boss Craig Pollock telling Zonta: "Jacques is the quickest through Eau Rouge, so go out there and do exactly what Jacques does…" It was revealed later that Villeneuve and Zonta had a personal bet to see if either could take the corner flat out.

#F1 #Formula1 #BelgianGP