There are some fantastic race circuits in Formula 1, many offering their own unique challenges, but no circuit, old or new, will ever be as good as the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

Ask Jacques Villeneuve about the Eau Rouge/Raidillon combination in sector one and he could talk about it all day, the same goes for many other drivers.

Eau Rouge has been the scene of many accidents, and is still probably the most challenging part of any race track. Driving flat out in an F1 car on a flat straight road is difficult for many people to do, but try negotiating a section that starts downhill, before going into a steep uphill climb into a left-right-left combo with a blind summit at almost 200mph – that takes some doing.

Aerodynamic development of the cars means that most drivers can now take Eau Rouge flat out, but in the late 80s and early 90s only the very best could, as many drivers succumbed to the unpredictable nature of it.

Double world champion Fernando Alonso said that every lap is special at Spa because of Eau Rouge, and he’s not the only driver to note that every time you approach Raidillon you don’t always know where you’re going to end up, giving an intense thrill and excitement.

Factor in other drivers around you and you’ve got more drama than a Russell T Davies series finale of Doctor Who. It may have become easier since its redevelopment in 2002, but with reduced grip from 2009, it may once again become the beast it was.

Spa will always be one of the most memorable races on the calendar. Every race throws up something for you to remember it by, often in the form of crashes at Eau Rouge or Blanchimont – another high-speed turn taken at just under 200mph – or it will rain on one part of the circuit, sending cars flying off the road at all angles and completely destroying race strategies.

The track is dangerous, less so than it was, but still one the FIA would like to get their claws into and tone down. Luciano Burti had a very bad crash in 2001 at Blanchimont. David Coulthard caused a 13-car pile-up after La Source in 1997 in treacherous conditions, before later driving into the back of Michael Schumacher while leading the race due to rain and very poor visibility. And who can forget the weekend in 1999 when Jacques Villeneuve spectacularly lost it at Eau Rouge, subsequently dubbed the “best crash of my life”?

Spa offers the best chances of overtaking on any circuit on the calendar with two hairpins, two chicanes and two of the best straights in the world and ever-changing gradients throughout the 4.3mile circuit.

That gives the potential for more wheel-to-wheel racing, more overtaking and - if it all goes wrong - more accidents, which is what you want to see rather than cars following each other for 44 laps in a speeded-up and equally boring version of the warm-up lap. Dangerous it may be, but the drivers wouldn’t want it any other way.

One of the best overtaking moves in F1 also took place at Spa in an incident-packed race in 2000 as Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher, leading from McLaren’s Mika Hakkinen, approached BAR’s Ricardo Zonta. Hakkinen had already tried a move on Schumacher during the previous lap, and once again saw an opportunity.

Schumacher began to pass Zonta on the left, while Hakkinen, taking advantage of the surge in speed from the aerodynamic tow of Zonta's car, went right, the cars three abreast on one of F1’s fastest straights, with Hakkinen overtaking both Zonta and Schumacher in the same manoeuvre.

An F1 race at Spa is the one most fans look forward to, known for its unpredictability and endless challenges for the driver – it's fast, twisty and quite hilly in parts too as it follows the Ardennes mountains.

You can’t second-guess the weather, or what the track will do to the drivers. Each year it feels like a different circuit. There’s no testing at Spa either, which makes it even more fun come race weekend with only data from the Friday and Saturday practices and previous years to go off.

Simply put: Spa is the best modern race circuit in the world.