Only minor circuit changes planned for Belgian GP

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The FIA have announced that they will be making only relatively minor changes to the historic 4.352-mile, 20-turn Spa-Francorchamps circuit for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

In a communication from race director Charlie Whiting, it was announced that the kerb and the artificial grass on the exit of turn 7 into Les Combes has been extended as far as the end of the gravel trap.

In addition, the artificial grass behind the kerb on the exit of turn 15 (Curve Paul Frere) has been extended back towards the corner as far as the green painted section of asphalt.

There are no plans to re-profile the kerbs at Eau Rouge and Raidillon, which have seen drivers increasingly inclined to straightline at full throttle to get the best exit onto the Kemmel Straight.

However, the FIA has pointed out that if a driver overshoots the corner at Raidillon there is a small road along the front of the tyre barrier which leads back on to the track at turn 7 that drivers must use to return to the track when necessary.

Last year the FIA introduced a parallel kerb on the inside of Raidillon to discourage the drivers from straightlining the corner, but the kerb was removed after Friday practice following complaints from the teams leaving only white raised speed bumps on the left of the kerbs.

While small, these bumps were nonetheless blamed for a high-speed crash at the Euroformula Open race at Spa earlier, which saw Nikita Zlobin launched into a dramatic backflip during the race.

There's been no confirmation yet about which corners if any race control will be monitoring for possible track limit violations this weekend.

The FIA has however given a reminder about pit lane entry and exit procedures for this weekend's event, pointing out that "drivers must keep to the right of the white line at the pit exit when leaving the pits, no part of any car leaving the pits may cross this line."

The statement added: "For safety reasons drivers must stay to the right of the white line and the bollard at the pit entry when entering the pits, no part of any car entering the pits may cross this line."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.