F1: Six things you need to know about the Belgian Grand Prix

With a month off since the last Grand Prix, the world’s best drivers - and Pastor Maldonado (we jest, Pastor) - have been enjoying a spot of down-time. Nico Rosberg spent his holiday playing backgammon, and blatting around Monaco in his rather lovely Pagoda Merc. His teammate Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, has been his usual publicity-shy, quietly dressed self.

But they’ll all be back in race suits this weekend, for one of the juiciest events on the motorsport calendar. Yep, it’s time for a nice relaxing Spa weekend, as the F1 circus rolls into hilly Belgium. Here’s what you need to know ahead of Formula One’s return…

One of just four current tracks - along with Monaco, Monza and Silverstone - to have featured in F1’s very first season in 1950, Spa is notorious for its changeable weather, long, sweeping bends and first–corner wipe–outs (the one in 1998 took out more than half the field, and in the one in 2012 four cars).

Spa’s 4.35-mile lap is the longest on the current calendar, with a race length of just 44 laps. However, Spa’s literally half the length it used to be: in original 1920s guise, the circuit measured 8.8 miles from start to finish.

Last year’s Belgian GP played host to maybe the season’s most controversial moment. On lap two, the two Mercs came together at Les Combes – a tap that eventually led to Hamilton’s retirement laps later. Hamilton later accused Rosberg of hitting him on purpose. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo would go on to win by just over three seconds from Nico.

Good thing there’s no prospect of such intr-team tension at Mercedes this year, eh?

Michael Schumacher has won the most Belgian GPs, with six to his name, one more than Ayrton Senna (who won four of his in a row). Of the current drivers, Kimi Raikkonen’s had the best luck – taking four wins between 2004 and 2009. Vettel’s won twice, and Hamilton, Button, Massa and Ricciardo just once each. Rosberg? Never.

Vettel holds the lap record for Spa’s current, post-2007 configuration, clocking a 1:47.263 in his Red Bull in 2009.

Back to 2015, and Raikonnen’s Belgian love affair shows no signs of dimming. Despite a less-then-ideal first half of the season, Ferrari have confirmed that the last man to win a World Championship for the Scuderia will race in red next year, despite widespread speculation he would be dropped in favour of fellow Finn Valtteri Bottas after a string of disappointing results.

Kimi was reported to be rendered ‘utterly impassive’ by the news.

As if negotiating the first few corners at Spa wasn’t tricky enough, this Sunday the drivers will have something else on their minds besides not slamming into each other off the start line. Drivers are no longer allowed to adjust their clutch bite points after leaving the garage, and cannot be given any info from the team about which clutch settings to select. Slow starts make for exciting races, so they say…

For two of the four weeks since Budapest (F1 factories must shut down completely for 14 days), the sport’s cleverest men and women have been beavering away upgrading their cars ready for the remainder of the season. Honda has been hard at work attempting to bring its power unit to some level of competitiveness, with a first tranche of upgrades arriving for Spa, and the rest over the coming races. But because McLaren has already used its entire engine allocation for this season, both Button and Alonso will start from the back of the grid.

Not much chance, then, of Fernando breaking his duck at one of the few races he hasn’t yet won…