Ronny Gabriels Photography

Last weekend, the 1st and 2nd of May, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit welcomed the World Series by Renault. An entirely free weekend of motorsports organized by Renault. Although it is more or less focused on people that normally wouldn't come to a racetrack, it still has quite a bit of interesting races. You have got the F4 Eurocup 1.6 (for drivers between 15 and 20), the Formula Renault 2.0, the Mégane Eurocup and as top of the bill, the Formula Renault 3.5 which has been the step-up class to Formula 1 for many a driver. This is intertwined by demos of the Renault RS Sport team, the actual Formula 1 team (in Spa, local boy and Renault test driver Jérome D'Ambrosio drove the F1 car) and some other stunt teams. Clearly the focus was family entertainment and actually that was something that was made even clearer when you looked at the audience. A lot of families, young people and even elderly people were there. Not really people you see at the track every weekend.


Renault Formula 1 R29, driven by Jérome D'Ambrosio

I think Renault deserves a lot of praise for that, and if you know me a bit, that is very hard for me to say since I'm not a Renault fan at all. Getting people interested for racing by organizing a big event like this is something that I as a race fan can only appreciate. Sadly for most of those people, this is the only weekend they come to the track, but if only 5% of people get interested and return, it has been entirely worth it. Sure this is, first and foremost, a commercial stunt for Renault to show of their entire line-up (including Dacia and their sport cars) and tie in customers a bit more, but if this helps the racing scene in Belgium forward, who am I to argue.

Formula Renault 2.0 - B. Bosi

For me, this weekend provided me with some photographic opportunities that I otherwise would not have had. Open wheel races are not that common and having three categories in one day is just to good to pass up. Unlike other weekends, I went on Saturday and that turned out to be a pretty good gamble. Sunday was drenched in rain and although Saturday it rained in every part of Belgium, Spa remained dry (except for 5 minutes of small raindrops, but in Spa, that's not rain).

F4 Eurocup - winner Stoffel Vandoorne

I will be uploading my shots as soon as I can get through them, but I'm a bit behind with my workflow and next weekend, the Le Mans Series comes to Spa, so I will be there again. The photos in this post are some teaser photos from the World Series by Renault, but I will make another post when the final edit of shots is uploaded to the site.

Formula Renault 3.5 - D. Move (Lotus Junior Racing Team)