Track limits and the Masta Kink

Pedro Rodriguez (BRM P153), leads Chris Amon (March 701), at full speed during the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix, held at the old 14 km long Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The two aces will finish first and second, after an intense battle. Notice the railway tracks at the right: we are here-above, just past the very fast Masta Kink.

In use from when the circuit opened, until the new layout emerged at the end of the 1970s, the Masta Kink was approached at terminal velocity, somewhere around 300km/h. On the outside of the left-hander was a farmhouse, the ground falling away from both sides of the road at the exit of the ultra-fast sequence.

Terrifying in the dry, in the wet it became an entirely different monster as spray hung in the air, clouding visibility. The danger was always there. A Matra MS670C, passes through during the 1974 Spa 1000 km (picture below). Nostalgia of these legendary circuit portions, nowadays abolished.