Total Energies 24h of Spa 2022 Report

In this little report, you can read about what makes Spa so special for me, how I experienced the event and I give you a few tips for surviving a 24h race.

To check out the Event-gallery, you can click here.

«Spa… The longest, wildest racetrack on the F1 calendar.»

The year is 2015, 15 year old me is sitting in front of the TV watching Jeremy Clarkson wrestle a Mclaren P1 around Eau Rouge in the most beautiful car film ever made. Stunning images, one of the most beautiful cars ever, and a mesmerizing soundtrack. I still get goosebumps to this day watching the final two minutes of the video.

Since then, I completely fell in love with this circuit. The high speed, the danger, the history… and of course, the greatest scenery as far as you can see with your eyes. And so, it got on my bucket list to one day walk around this beautiful piece of tarmac in Belgium.

So in May, I and my girlfriend decided to go on holiday at the end of July. We’d first go and visit a few cities: Brügges, Gent, and of course Bruxelles. By the way, should you ever be in Belgium, definitely take a day to stroll around Brügges, it is absolutely worth it.

After a week of traveling around the country, we set off towards the German border to the Ardennes. With its beautiful hiking possibilities, national parks and forests, it is definitely worth a visit. And gives the most scenic background for the biggest GT race in the world: the Total Energies 24h of Spa.

Day 0

We arrived on the evening of the day prior to the start of the event. So immediately, we went and tried to get as close to the track as we could. So we walked through what used to be a forest, but then, last winter, changes were made to the track and a large portion of the forest beside the circuit has been removed. So we climbed over sticks and tree trunks and as we got on top of the hill we could see it: the pit building, the infamous turn one and the following descend into my favorite piece of asphalt on earth: Eau Rouge-Raidillion. It was stunning to see this historic place with my own eyes. And as far as your eyes could see, nothing but forest with a few gaps through which you could see different sections of the track shimmering.

I knew beforehand that the track is huge, but standing on that hill, I couldn’t even make out the right-hander leading into the straight towards Rascasse, it was so far away.

I immediately started to ramble about different sections of the track, their history, why they were so special and so on. Luckily for me, my girlfriend endured it and got a break when we realized, that the parade was still about to pass where we were. So we went a bit up the road, bought a pizza at a local restaurant and went outside to wait for the cars to come.

The parade is a tradition where they take all the cars taking part in the event to the town of Spa and then drive them on the public roads back to the track.

And then they came. I have attended a few GT3 events by now, but each time I am surprised by how loud and brutal these cars sound. And given the very unusual setting of a small town and public road allowed me to get within inches of the cars passing by, it was even more special. The light would’ve been perfect as the cars arrived pretty much at golden hour.

Only sad that my dumbass formatted the SD Card that night before I exported the files…

Day 1

Day 1 was basically just an overload of Eau Rouge and the new grandstand they built there. It gives you a perfect view over the whole section plus the exit of the GT pitlane.

The support series were the following: Lamborghini Super Trofeo, GT4, Formula Alpine, French F4 and finally a historic class filled with absolute jewels of machinery ranging from old Maseratis, Astons to Ferraris and Porsches and more.

The main category, the Fanatec GT3, was having a few practice sessions throughout the day. In total, 66 cars were on the grid so no wonder the first few sessions were riddled with yellow flags and cautions.

The special treat was the end of the day: the GT3 class was having a night practice session which went on until midnight. To see with how much speed and how close the cars were going through the corners was mind-boggling and very impressive. Especially because Spa has very little ton o lighting on the track apart from the finish straight towards Raidillion.

Also this :

My favorite shot of the Event: HANDHELD 3.6s Long Exposure shot of Eau Rouge! Yes, I am proud of that, let me be a bit cocky.

It was very interesting to see how the different cars were set up, especially because the class being GT, the same models and brands were running for different teams. So it was fascinating to see a Mercedes GT3 sparking its way through Eau Rouge while the Audis and Lambos were running a higher ride and therefore didn’t bottom out that hard when being compressed on the bottom of the section. This also meant that they took the kerbs a bit better and as a matter of fact, later on in the race it was actually very well visible which car can push the limits of a corner a bit more than another (the Mclaren from Jota Sport, for example, bounced like crazy while the WRT Audi more or less glided over the kerb).

Day 2

Day 2 was quali-day. So the GT3 cars ran only late in the evening for those sessions and the day was filled with the support series. This gave us enough time to explore the area around the track a bit more and I was very surprised with the many and very good opportunities, angles and how close I could get with a regular spectator ticket. Spa really is very unique for this and especially during a 24h race, you will have more than enough time to make your way around the track. But be prepared, you have to walk ALOT. It took us three hours of pure walking to go once around the track and back to the pit building. The track has an elevation change of over 100 metres, so while this made the walking even harder, it also meant that the views were very unique: we could watch the action from almost bird’s eye view in the left-hander before the double-gauche. So, apart from pitstops and eye-level shots over the planks at some sections, not having a media pass was not that bad. Especially with my 600mm lens, I could get away from almost all positions without thinking: «Mhh sad that I could not be closer because I can’t see them hitting the kerb» or something like that.

The race action was fun, especially the GT4 class in the evening right at sunset allowed for some very beautiful shots in Eau Rouge and a very well-worth it panning session through some bushes after la source.

After the qualifying, a childhood dream came true: the track and pitlane became open to the public. This meant I could watch the teams up close practicing pitstops and driver changes. I decided to go as close as I could without getting in their way and film as much as I can in order to get the shots in I won’t be able to during the race simply because I simply would not be allowed in the pit by then anymore. And with the right amount of editing, a non-race-attender would have a bit of a hard time figuring out it wasn’t a hot pitstop I was filming. So after that was done, I and my girlfriend decided to have a small walk of 7km at midnight. And I know I have been talking about Eau Rouge a lot already but you just don’t get how insanely steep the descent into the corner and the turn itself is unless you stand in front of, let alone in it.

So walking down the Kemmel straight, over the kerbs at la source, seeing the massive double gauche from a driver’s view in person rather than just through a screen in my simulator at home.

Day 3 and 4 (race day)

Saturday… Raceday! So since I was determined to stay up for the whole race, it would have made sense to sleep in. Well at 9 I made my way to the shop just outside the track, bought three sandwiches and three large cokes to get me through the night and off we went. The race was to start at quarter to five in the afternoon, so plenty of time left to decide where we’d want to be for the start and the support series until the race began.

I’m not gonna go into the support series because I don’t remember much of them for this day anymore, to be honest.

So for the start, we decided to place ourselves at the end of the Kemmel straight. The race would have a rolling start into Eau Rouge and while that would look cool as hell, no one in their right mind would risk anything in the first lap with 65 cars around them. And turns out, it was the right decision: the first few cars were already turning through la source while the cars at the back were still coming onto the straight. And let me not even mention the wall of noise that fell upon us… It was the most astonishing combination of impressive, emotional and pure enjoyment of the moment.

As the race went on for the first few hours, the sunset was coming very quickly which meant everyone with their cameras was posting up on their own piece of fence. So we decided to go away from the mob and walk thirty minutes further. We ended up in the S-combination after double-gauche and it was perfect. The cars were running over the kerbs kicking up dust while being glazed in golden sunlight so no wonder I took at least 400 pictures, some with very high shutter speed to catch every form of moving rubber or kicked up dirt and some with lower to very low shutter speed to only get the subject in frame while being surrounded by «ghost-cars».

After golden hour, we wasted over 70 minutes in front of the most unorganized food truck in the world. Afterward, we spent some time at different places around the track as the cars turned on their lights and the night fell on the track.

The race kept going on and there were way fewer cautions or yellow flags than I expected. But once I got home and rewatched the highlight réel, I realized, my bad luck was at its best once again: I did not see one of the many crashes, spins and contacts, only the moves before heading into the breaking zones, but the crashes or anything else… no chance. But hey, nothing new ☹.

As the night got on, my girlfriend went for some sleep in order to be able to drive back home once the race was over, while I stayed at the track and kept me awake by editing a few clips for social media.

It was around half past two in the morning and I was just walking towards the double-gauche. And it was at that point I realized that even though I spent over 3.5k on my camera gear, I can’t keep up with the darkness. All I got was lens flares, which was really cool for filming, but for pictures… meh. So I decided to do some long exposures (remind you, I didn’t have a tripod or monopod with me). I worked around that problem by balancing my camera on the ring of a garbage bin. The results turned out pretty good. But since after like 10 long exposures with different shutter speeds, I got bored and decided to make the half-hour long walk towards the pits. Because I bought a paddock pass, I was allowed to stroll around between the trucks and tents in front of the pits where the mechanics prepare the tires.

That brings me to another point on why GT racing has F1 beat in EVERYTHING except cornering speeds: I and my GF spent 130 Euros per person. In that price included were: 5 nights on the camping place, 4 days at the track, a track walk and access to the pitlane on Friday evening, a whole 24h race and access to the paddock. With 130 Euros, you can’t even park at an F1 race. And if we did not buy a paddock pass we would have saved an additional 25 Euros, so you could potentially attend the event for as little as 105 Euros which just cannot be beaten.

Anyways, back to my nightly paddock stint. I saw a lot of mechanics and drivers trying to get some rest in between the action, tires being checked and traded between the teams and Pirelli at the ginormous mobile tire centre brought by Pirelli. Apparently Pirelli brought more than 17’000 pieces of rubber to the event which is just mental.

My main goal behind the idea of going into the paddock was to stay creative, but as I saw how busy it got and actually how awesome and moody the lights made the paddock look, I tried to get the feelings into the lens that I was experiencing. So I tried a lot of moody shots of mechanics cleaning steaming hot tires, looked for spilled oil and fluids shimmering on the floor and shooting from the floor. I even got a glimpse at a pitstop. I also filmed a lot in order to get a section in the aftermovie for the opening and a general pit/paddock part. And yes, i am fairly proud of my work, especially because a lot of mechanics and drivers were very good sports about being pointed at with a lens and some shots turned out very important for my aftermovie (like the driver slowly putting on his suit and helmet) and also gave me finally an opportunity to go and capture what keeps the sport going behind the scenes.

So after like 2 hours, I felt like I was done. I sat on some uncomfortable metal stairs and started editing some pictures in order to stay awake because I felt I was really starting to struggle to stay awake. Also, a group of young Belgiums came asking me what I did and I showed them some of my work. They were very interested and with a mix of broken French and English we exchanged some words and they gave me some really positive feedback which made my night. Especially because I was going to see them again later in one of the tunnels that brings you around the track and they were waving and yelling in my direction as soon as they saw me in the distance.

After that, I went up into the pit building where I could look down onto the pitlane. By then it was around 6ish in the morning and the sun was starting to brighten up the horizon. My timing could not have been better. I found myself right above the box of the Iron Dames team as they rushed out into the pitlane and made a tire change. Also, while brushing my teeth and flushing my mouth with some of the coke I bought 22 hours before, a green Lambo pulled into the pits and I got to film and experience a driver change from above. Together with the footage from the practice pitstops on Friday evening, I just knew that I pulled the maximum from my possibilities regarding footage, angles and content for the aftermovie and pictures. And since I spent the evening before and night first half of the night of the race with taking pictures, I could now focus on filming, and it was less of a hassle. So the footage immediately got smoother and the compositions better because I knew, wherever I’d go, I already had some pictures from that section.

But as stated… The race was not even halfway done. And it was around half past 7 in the morning! So still over 9 hours to go! Insanity.

So I decided to take my gear and take on another walk of about 60 minutes, all the way up to la source but I then went through the tunnel and tried to find a path through the forest in order to get some shots of the cars from the front in la source. This turned out to be a good idea because the angles offered a new variety in my aftermovie and my pictures. So I could again focus on some high shutter speed closeups or some panning shots with the subject being surrounded by ghost cars. For filming, I got many awesome slow-mo shots over the tire wall in and could really capture the cars riding and sliding over the kerbs.

I stayed there for quite a while and at around noon, I started to walk back toward the double-gauche and then towards Rascasse and the pit building… you know overall a gentle stroll of about 2 hours.

Fast forward, the last hour of the race began and with it the decision of what I want as a finisher in my aftermovie. The podium was going to be on the stage they built at the bottom of Eau Rouge. So I decided, I risk missing it because I was desperate for some shots with cars passing the flags and the celebrating teams. And at exactly 16:45, the flag dropped. Exactly 24h after the start, we were done.

I’ve been awake for 34 hours and stayed awake for another 5 hours, so almost 40 hours.

After the field crossed the line, I packed up quickly and ran towards the podium to capture a very underwhelming podium ceremony. But hey, better than nothing.

We were tired, impressed and very happy we made it through. But it was such an indescribable experience, I will for sure make this a yearly ritual… And who knows, maybe one day, I actually get hired by someone and get a media pass. Even though you really don’t need it at Spa.

So we packed up and headed back home where 124GB of video footage and 15’079 pictures waited for me to be looked at.

However, the event was awesome. I’ll definitely return next year, with the goal to have a place in the media center by then.

I learned a lot, made some good progress and adjustments, in my opinion, considering compositions, moods, settings and am overall satisfied.

And even if I don’t get a media pass, you pretty much cannot get any better for that price.

Thank you, Spa!

So to sum things up, here are my few tips and tricks to survive a 24h race, and especially survive Spa :

• Walk as much as you can in order to stay awake and get as many different angles possible
• Don’t be afraid of taking pictures and videos in the paddock.
• Avoid caffeine at all cost! At least concentrated dosages like energy drinks or coffee. You will only crash once the effect wears off and be more tired than before. You’re better off by drinking around 5litres of coke zero…
• Bring your laptop and edit/export and post on the go. It will keep you awake, allow you to take a break and once you are done your mind/creativity had a bit of rest and you feel refreshed.
• Bring some food that fills you up but doesnt take too much space. Because you don’t want to waste any money on the overpriced foodstands. So I got through easily on three subway sandwiches and a big pack of crackers. All oft hat plus three big bottles of coke fitted eaily in my backpack
• Don’t overthink things: yes you will walk A LOT, but you do not need to bring heavy mountain shoes because 80% oft he time you will be walking on tarmac.
• Don’t bring too many lenses. I brought three: a 18-55 for the paddock (did notuse it in the end and did it with the 70-300 because of its lower aperture), obviously, the 70-300 which I only used in the paddock, and the the lens i had on ALL THE TIME when trackside: my beloved 150-600.
• If you get tired, and don’t feel like editing, brush your teeth. The toothpaste will wake you up and the people around you will only think you look like shit rather than smell that way as well.

So I hope you may have learned a few things.

I cannot wait for next year. And am very excited to go to Hockenheim with the Fanatec GT World Challenge.

Meanwhile, watch my aftermovie of the event down below or click here:

Next up: Misano with Valentinos Trackdays… Bikes :/