I might be biased, but I think the racing we have is better! Who can forget the final moments of the season in 2024. We all bid farewell to the Gen 2 Supercar, more importantly to the Holden brand. 

What about the circuit, what makes it unique? Fast and flowing, up until 2 weeks ago the longest GP circuit on the iRacing service; that's now been claimed by The Bend Motorsports Park’s GT Layout.

Spa is dominated by medium to high speed corners. It’s all about having a car with good flow and rotation. The biggest difference we will see compared to last year is going to be the lap speed. There are two primary reasons for that, track length but also the major difference is this track requires downforce which we’re lacking in the Gen3 Chassis. It's actually got me intrigued to see how big the margin is going to be.

This track has featured on the calendar every year of the Logitech V8 Pro Invitational so far, so the style of racing to this point has been a known quantity. Big packs, Big Draft Trains, Bulk Fuel saving. There is definitely an element of those traits still here, but the draft isn’t as strong as the Gen2, the fuel saving isn’t as easy and the pack racing isn’t a certainty to return as a result.

Spa has been utterly dominated by Jarrad Filsell, where he has crossed the line first every year. Post race penalties in 2023 are all that separates him from the perfect race record.

Worthwhile noting last year’s pole lap was a dead heat to the thousandth of a second with James Scott. They were only broken by 4 ten-thousandths of a second which set the stage for the race really well.

Racing from Spa has trended to the tight, but controversial over the last few years. With the packs of cars running together we’ve ended up with late battles that come down to the wire and see drivers sent to the stewards office. Jarrad Filsell in 2023 was the most controversial, but the hard fight between Filsell, Ethan Grigg-Gault and James Scott went to the final corners last year where Scott and Grigg-Gault would make contact. Scott would be handed a 5s post race penalty, dropping him off the podium after a brilliant battle.

Fuel and strategy wise this is an interesting prospect of a race. Fuel saving is always going to happen with the length of the lap. The undercut has been super powerful, and is likely going to be the trigger for the break in the pack. 

Fuel wise this is going to be an interesting race. There’s been a massive fuel restriction applied to change things up this race. The cars will be restricted to a maximum of 53.2L of fuel which isn’t quite enough for 10 laps. It's going to mean we have ourselves a three stop race. Fuel amounts at the stop are going to vary a little bit. A full burn fuel drop of 123.7L is going to be required. If you can save 2 litres of fuel you can get the 10th lap out of the tank, which puts us incredibly close to chopping out a stop of fuel. If you can save an additional 5.5L you get the lap to get yourself home.

So this is going to be an interesting race. If you can save somewhere in the realm of 800-900mL of fuel per lap you chop a stop out of the race. Some will commit, some won’t and a Safety car decides this race!

So far in 2025 the fuel save races have been classics. Could Spa be another one? Find out Wednesday night from 7.45pm AEST.