Why Spa-Francorchamps remains one of the world's most dangerous race tracks

• Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps continues to be one of the world's most dangerous race tracks
• Since 1922, the legendary Belgian road course has been the ultimate test for racers, having claimed the lives of almost 50 competitors.
• Sébastien Buemi, four-time winner of the 6 Hours of Spa, takes us turn by turn through the track to show us just what makes Spa so dangerous.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Sébastien Buemi: As you grow up you always dream of racing in Spa. It's a mix of old school corners, dangerous and fast sections.

Hi everyone, my name is Sébastien Buemi and I'm racing for Toyota Gazoo in the WEC Championship. And I'm here to take you turn by turn through Spa-Francorchamps.

So basically here we are, starting a lap of Spa-Francorchamps, getting into Turn 1, La Source corner. This corner is very important just because you have a long straight and Radillon following. You make more lap time by making sure you get a good exit and clip the apex and try to dive in and carry a lot of speed. So the exit is really important.

So you're going down to Eau Rouge. You feel all the power from the car coming in. Eau Rouge/Radillon remains still quite dangerous just because of the speed you get there and the runoff is not very big. It's really the most dangerous section definitely. The biggest thing is what car you are driving around Spa. If you are driving a Formula 1 car, it's like a straight line. You can basically do it flat. With the Toyota car, it's a corner. It's not easy, just because you have nearly the speed of a Formula 1 car, but you have the weight and the down force of a WEC car.

And I think what makes it special is, in general, the elevation. It's like a big wall, you arrive there with a lot of speed, and at some point you are blind. So all those small details makes it, I would say, special. If you turn a tiny bit too late, or too early, you can have a big crash. So how you position the car going into corner is very crucial, just because you cannot afford any mistakes if you want to stay flat and carry the speed. You need to touch the first apex a tiny bit, then you obviously try to be very smooth with the steering, and then you cut a little bit on the exit curb on top of Eau Rouge, just to try to straight line as much as you can.

We're going up the straight here. It's a pretty long straight. It's where we reach the highest speed in the LMP car, 315 kph. It's going uphill quite a lot. People don't really notice that on TV.

And then you basically brake at the start for this section: Turn 5, 6 and 7. What you do entering the section has a domino effect until you exit. If you, again, don't enter exactly with the right speed and the right line, you drift away all corners. Positioning is very tricky and you need to make sure you prepare the exit of Turn 7 well because then you have a long straight going into Turn 8. It's a pretty big place where you can lose time.

So basically we are approaching Turn 8. And here this Turn 8 is a pretty tricky one because you need to enter very early, and you need to make sure you keep the inside as much as you can otherwise you'll make too many meters, you drive too much, you don't have enough time to prepare the next corner. You try to accelerate straight, and then you try to position directly the car for Turn 9. Most likely you're gonna use all the exit curb out of Turn 9 just to make sure you carry the speed out of that corner.

So then we go down to Turn 10. It's one of the nicest corners of the track. It's Pouhon. You basically arrive in sixth gear and it's a very quick left-hander. You try to keep inside, and then you open a little, touch the outside curb, but not too much. If you touch it too much, you can drift completely out of the track. So it's really important there to turn at the right time, and have a lot of front end, otherwise, you don't carry the speed.

And then you basically arrive in one of the chicanes: 12, 13. Again, here positioning is very important because you wanna be very close to the inside curb, but not touch it too much. Otherwise, you upset the car, and it's not very nice. This chicane is just about trying to keep the speed and not do too many meters.

And then we arrive in one of the most important corners. Similar to La Source, this Turn 14 is very important because the exit, once you go back on power there, you stay flat out until the last chicane. So this Turn 14 you try to use all of the outside curb. You try to be very smooth on the steering. You do Turn 15 flat out, and then you stay flat. And you just try to focus on your up shift, make sure you don't up shift too early or too late.

And now we are already in Blanchimont. Blanchimont is not really a corner anymore for us. Even on the wet, it's nearly flat. You just stay flat, try to not upset the car, carry the speed, and then focus to brake into the last chicane.

Then we arrive in the final section of the track which is Turn 18 and 19. Not easy to brake. It's quite bumpy when you brake, and you try to slow down the car as much as you can. It's quite narrow and quite tight, so you have to use first gear. And, again, here the most important is to prepare quite well just to make sure you have a good exit. Because here you'll feel all the electric power plus the combustion engine. So you have 1,000 horsepower, and it's very easy to lose traction. So you try to accelerate straight, not touch too much the curb. And then that's it, we've done a lap of Spa-Francorchamps.

I think that Spa is a bit special for every driver. Today, on those new tracks, you have massive runoffs, and it doesn't feel so natural, where Spa is flowing, and it's fast, and it's dangerous, and it has all the things that you want to have to have such a great track. AJ Caldwell: Hey, I'm AJ, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed that episode of Turn by Turn, don't forget to hit the subscribe button, so yo don't miss the next installment of Turn by Turn. And let us what race track you want us to cover next in the comments below.