Belgian Grand Prix of the pre-war European Championship." These were the official Grand Prix names when a title sponsor was present: Belgian Grand Prix The Belgian Grand Prix (Dutch: "Grote Prijs van België"; French: "Grand Prix de Belgique"; German: "Großer Preis von Belgien") is an automobile race, part of the Formula One World Championship. The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps leads to Blanchimont. Here, the new short Grand Prix track of 1979 joins the old layout. Eighteen Formula One World Championship Grands Prix were run on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit's original configuration, which was boycotted by F1 in 1969, before the revised circuit banished it to the history books in 1979. The lap record of the old triangle-shaped track is 3 minutes and 13.4 seconds, held by the French driver Henri Pescarolo, driving a Matra at the 1973 Spa 1000 km World Sportscar Championship race at an average speed of , but the fastest ever recorded time of the old Spa