A POTTED HISTORY OF THE SPA 24 HOURS

“TODAY IT’S ONE OF THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS RACES FOR THE GT3 CATEGORY”

The Spa 24 Hours started out as a copycat race in 1924, one year after its inspiration – the Le Mans 24 Hours – began. It would remain the poor relation for the next 40 or so years, even alternating with the Belgian Grand Prix in the second half of the 1930s.

Spa did, however, beat its French cousin back onto the international calendar after the end of the Second World War. That was a remarkable feat given that the Ardennes was the scene of the last Nazi counter-offensive of the conflict, the so-called Battle of the Bulge.

The Spa 24 Hours resumed in 1948 – one year ahead of Le Mans – thanks to a major investment by the minister of public works, who also happened to be mayor of the nearby city of Liege. The event wasn’t a financial success, which explained its disappearance after ’49 and a one-off return in ’53 as a round of the inaugural World Sportscar Championship.

The race was revived in 1964 thanks to journalist-racer Paul Frere. He had ostensibly retired from the cockpit after winning Le Mans in ’60, but had made a comeback of sorts in the Nurburgring 12 Hours touring car event in ’62 and, together with Royal Automobile Club Belgium secretary Hubert de Harlez, saw the potential for a 24-hour tin-top race.

The event flourished in its new guise, becoming a round of the European Touring Car Championship – then known simply as the ETC – in 1966. It was a regular on the ETC schedule through into the early 1970s and again in the ’80s in what was arguably the heyday for the race in its touring car guise.

The demise of the ETC, one year after the original one-off World Touring Car Championship in 1987, sent the Spa 24 Hours into decline. There wasn’t a suitable universal touring car category to provide the core of a grid, so the RACB linked with leading sportscar promoter Stephane Ratel for 2001, the event becoming a round of the FIA GT Championship.

When FIA GTS turned into the FIA GT1 World Championship sprint series for 2010, the Spa 24 Hours morphed step-by-step into what it is today – one of the most prestigious races for the global GT3 category and a round of what is now known as the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup. It’s once again part of a global championship, the Intercontinental GT Challenge, for the first time since 1987.