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How to conquer the Spa 24 Hours

To commemorate the 70th running of the Spa 24 Hours, we spoke to some of the event's winners and nearly-men to discover their best memories of the popular Belgian track

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Le Mans may be the go-to event when you think of sportscar races, but few can lay claim to as diverse a history as the Spa 24 Hours.

First held in 1924, the Belgian classic was for many years a fixture on the European Touring Car Championship calendar before fleetingly joining the World Endurance Championship calendar in 1981, as Tom Walkinshaw Racing pre-empted Mazda's triumph at Le Mans by 10 years with a rotary-engined Mazda RX-7, then returned to touring cars until 2001 when it transitioned to a GT race.

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Author James Newbold

James Newbold is Autosport's Plus Editor, responsible for coordinating website feature content.

In a sign of things to come, having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at the University of East Anglia in 2015, he left his graduation ceremony early to catch the last train to Brussels for the following day's Spa 24 Hours.

After a period as a freelancer, he joined the Autosport staff in 2018 and won the Motorsport UK young journalist of the year award. He initially edited Autosport magazine's Performance and Engineering supplements before joining the website team in his current role in 2020.

A keen enthusiast of anything that can be categorised unusual or niche, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

He lives with his wife and children in Plymouth, England.