An arena fit for a king

By Andrew Benson
Motorsport editor

This is the view most F1 drivers can expect of Schumacher at Spa

Michael Schumacher is poised to clinch his seventh world championship title in the grandest possible surroundings at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

The race is back on the calendar after a year's absence and it will be welcomed by all the drivers and teams.

The Spa-Francorchamps track that hosts the event is arguably the greatest race circuit in the world.

It presents every possible challenge to the drivers as it swoops and sweeps around Belgium's Ardennes mountains.

Spa was missing from the calendar last season as a result of a row over a ban on tobacco advertising in Belgium.

Now that ban has been overturned, Spa is back, to the relief of all F1 enthusiasts.

The famous Eau Rouge is not the challenge it once was

Along with a handful of other tracks such as Suzuka, Monza, Monaco and Silverstone, Spa stands out from the crowd of antiseptic modern autodromes that populate the Grand Prix calendar.

While most modern tracks are planned by computer on a flat piece of land set aside for the job, Spa is steeped in heritage and character.

It follows the contours of the landscape around a course made up of public roads, in the way all Grand Prix tracks used to do.

As a result, it has a flow and a balance that few modern tracks can match, and poses a challenge greater than all but a handful of circuits in the history of the sport.

Lap Spa with Jarno Trulli

It also contains the corner that, until a couple of years ago, was regarded unanimously as the toughest on any race track anywhere in the world.

Eau Rouge-Raidillon is a rollercoaster left-right-left sweep that is taken at more than 180mph as it plunges into the bottom of a valley and up the other side.

The Spa circuit, run on public roads, is steeped in heritage

It was a true test of a driver's ability and courage, and only the very bravest could take it flat out.

Sadly, some of its challenge has been neutered by the sheer capabilities of the modern Grand Prix cars - as good a reason as any to back the current drive by the sport's bosses to slow them down.

Despite that, Spa abounds in challenging corners - the double left at Pouhon stands out - and the drivers love it to a man.

The only gripe is likely to be over the remodelled Bus Stop chicane, but as this was the worst corner on the track anyway, it is hardly a great loss.

But for all its huge fanclub, no-one loves Spa more than Michael Schumacher.

The German has won at Spa six times and it is hard to imagine anyone stopping that becoming seven this weekend.

The track could have been designed to suit Ferrari's F2004 car, and if it rains - which it often does at Spa - Schumacher's advantage will be magnified.

In any weather conditions, it is difficult to imagine Schumacher not getting the win he needs to clinch this year's title.

And even if he does not win, he will be champion as long as he scores two more points than team-mate Rubens Barrichello, the only man who has even a mathematical chance of overhauling him.

Coulthard won at Sa in 1999 and often goes well there

The Ferraris are likely to be in a private race of their own.

McLaren made an error with their tyre choice at the last race in Hungary, which upset the momentum they had built up by emerging as Ferrari's closest rival.

Spa is the sort of track that has suited McLaren in the past, but David Coulthard, who won at Spa in 1999, is not expecting his team to challenge Ferrari this year.

The Scot believes Ferrari will be in a world of their own, with BAR, Williams and McLaren battling for supremacy behind them.

"Renault might not be so quick there," he adds, "because they don't have so much top-end engine power, although they do have a good little car."