Spa 24 Hours: a century of racing excellence

In the extensive calendar of world motorsport events, very few manage to integrate multiple souls and go beyond their most essential, but also more immediate, nature of challenging men and engines. Among these is certainly the now centenary Spa 24 Hours, which Pirelli has been an exclusive supplier of since 2012, and which in addition to being one of the oldest races in the world has entered the collective imagination for its ability to be concurrently a festival of people and an aristocratic party, a market and a temple, the utmost showcase for models derived from series production and a meeting opportunity.

This article addresses all this: of the many faces of the 24 hours of the Ardennes - launched in 1924 a year later and in open competition with that of Le Mans - which often have nothing in common with each other, except the essential: the prevalence of the human element over mechanics, laced with extreme passion and supported by the hope that the result can always be reversed. Because without neither one nor the other no endurance race this long would have a chance of existing. And no engine would really make sense.

A popular holiday or a concentration of the automotive industry? A summer weekend for families or an exclusive club for millionaires who like to race one another? In any other competition these questions would probably be appropriate and the differences would be significant. Not for the Spa 24 Hours. One can also legitimately answer with another question: why choose, why not enjoy it all? From the parade event, traditionally held on Wednesdays in the centre of Spa, which is the forerunner and capital of mass elitism with the very first casino and the first modern spa facilities. The parade is a simple popular celebration, made up of selfies and amazed children, but it is also a showcase of technology, power and wealth. It is the industry showing off and, like the trade fairs of the early 20th Century, it shares the pride of its technical primacy with everyone. It inspires the imagination and recalls that no one is excluded from taking part. The enthusiasm is sincere and concrete: het drivers and cars can be touched (just like in the paddock, where a pass is required), the barriers are only a protection. What other sporting event could afford this? In which sporting celebration does the technologist, the one behind the scenes, doing things and making them possible, get as much attention as the champion? The parade selfies, against the backdrop of the elegant and sober city buildings, also end up featuring the mechanics. As well as the tyre dealers. What is striking is the cheerful composure of it all, which can be found at the brewery tables or on the stands. A less vigorous participation perhaps than in another 24 Hours race, that of Nurburgring, but no less contagious and exciting.

Not unlike the atmosphere that reigns during the concert in the square of the circuit, which often animates the Friday night,  or that of the Saturday of the race, when for 24 hours the prevailing sounds will in any case be those of acceleration and braking, of screwdrivers and trolleys carrying tyres. Losing sleep is something anyone who goes to the Spa 24 Hours has to expect and it is no coincidence that late check-outs from hotels are the norm on Monday morning. As is the even deeper than usual silence in the alleys of the historic town centre.

Then, of course, the absolute stars of the show are the cars. How could they not be? Spa has always been a showcase for the best models derived from series production and a place for experimentation, an opportunity for débuts and overhauls of engines and set-ups to be carried out during the race. A vocation that has become even more evident with the current presence in the Intercontinental GT Challenge calendar and in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup before that. No major European brand of supercars and prestige cars engaged in motorsport is absent. Aston Martin, AUDI, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes, and Porsche participate with their most cutting-edge models with the addition of the American Ford, which has often entered its name in the Roll of Honour of the 24 Hours at Spa. And then there are the private cars - the love with which they are cared for is evident just by looking at them. Often you see rare ones. The older, more muscular, more impressive they are, the more attention they get. People go back to being children in no other place than in a circuit: mechanics, engineers, gentleman drivers, visitors, hostesses all play with toy cars in the end, don't they? Only bigger, on a scale of 1:1, and with the roar coming out of the engines. There is no need to imitate the sound with your mouth, even though during the long night of the race you may sometimes hear someone doing it. Coffee and adrenaline may not be enough to keep you awake if you have been working for 30 consecutive hours.

Late October 2020, Belgium in lockdown. Throughout the Ardennes region and beyond, as far as Charleroi, there was only one bubble of bright lights and noise penetrating the forest to the centre of Spa: the track of the 24 Hours. No public, of course, but respectable entry lists and teams that did not skimp on staff. Face masks, which were lowered in public only because of the continuous swabs demanded by the organisers, had become part of the uniform. People greeted one another by rubbing fists and elbows, but their eyes were smiling, feeling lucky to even be there. In the evening, they had to go to bed early, the absolute curfew was at 8 pm and off-shift technicians and mechanics bought beers from service stations (shops closed at 5 pm) to drink them in their hotel rooms, looking out of their windows. They talked to the guests in the room next door, looked out onto the street, as if they were at a café counter. It was the joy of getting together, of acting as if everything were normal, what brought together around a thousand people from all over Europe who came here to race the cars in the year of motorsport behind closed doors. The 24 Hours revealed and recovered its deepest essence: being not one of the appointments on the calendar (postponed that year, because of the pandemic, to autumn), yet another trip to go on, but rather a meeting place for enthusiasts, whether technicians or gentleman drivers, which has always been the spirit of all motor rallies. The cars, for once, were in the background. The result was an unprecedented race, like no other: it was the first and only 24 Hours raced entirely at night and the first one in which there were no shifts to sleep, including the changeover from daylight saving time to solar time. Nobody wanted to. Everyone wanted to savour every minute. The Porsche 911 won, but no one felt defeated. How will the race of 1948 have been, the first after WWII, which Aston Martin won after the domination of the Alfa Romeo throughout the Thirties? Perhaps the same, but without pretence.

Certainly with different moods, the Belgian race is a meeting place even in times free from cannons and viruses. It is for the teams that deliver maximum effort, for the drivers who inflate the entry lists (with ever growing numbers in recent years), for the public who flock to the stands. Enthusiasts, salespeople, technicians, managers of the automotive industry and of the sponsoring companies all gather here to meet up. For passion, for show, for business. As in an old Mediaeval fair (fairs were reborn more or less in this part of Europe, a thousand years ago), in the narrow paths designed in the paddock by the support and hospitality facilities, and within them, plans are made for the future, business plans are drawn up, and sales are made. Or opinions, perspectives, points of view are simply exchanged. And once again, the public is not excluded: those who walk in the paddock have access that is denied in other races.

The 24 Hours at Spa is a meeting place particularly for Pirelli, for which the race represents a kind of operational convention and master's course in the field for its best engineers, technicians, sales and logistics people (as well as HR, IT, marketing, communication...).In over one hundred and fifty, coming from all continents and from all the Pirelli research and development sites across the globe, the women (increasingly numerous) and people of the Pirelli brand come together to contribute to the maximum effort for motorsport that the company makes every year, but also to learn and teach. Everyone, in the team pits or under the dozens of tents with the yellow and red Pirelli brand that make up a huge village dedicated to tyre dealers, located right under the Eau Rouge, brings their own experience to exchange with everyone else, often with colleagues they are meeting in person for the first time and everyone goes home thinking they want to come back the next year. After all, is Spa not the University of Motorsport? Anyone who loves this sport cannot fail to attend at least one class and the 24 Hours one is perhaps the most important of all, as it combines the challenges of the Eau Rouge and other legendary bends that alternate with the fast straights, the pitfalls of the weather and the bumps of the road surface, to the most essentially human ones: overcoming tiredness and the need to sleep, being ready when needed, helping to deal with difficulties joined by a common project, having a second chance in the 1440 minutes of the race.

Which is the real show, the one that attracts the public for those long hours staying awake throughout the often cold night: the teeming of people who go to great lengths to say “I won” or simply “I was there” at that sport celebration, a metaphor for life as any healthy sport should be, namely the Spa 24 Hours.