La Source is the slowest corner on the entire Spa-Francorchamps lap — a tight right-hand hairpin that every car on the grid takes at barely a fraction of the speed they'll reach moments later through Eau Rouge. It's also the corner that opens every lap, sits beside the starting grid, and hosts a dense cluster of Gold grandstands — Gold 7, Gold 7 bis, Gold 7 ter, Gold 8, Gold 9, and Gold 9 bis — each offering a slightly different angle on the same fundamental view: the start of the race, and the tightest, most contested corner on the circuit.
This cluster sits around the starting straight and the hairpin itself. Gold 8 (Source-Start) covers the starting straight directly alongside La Source; Gold 9 and Gold 9 bis sit between the starting grid and the hairpin, with sightlines down the grid formation; Gold 7, 7 bis, and 7 ter wrap around the hairpin exit and the view of cars descending into the corner. Several of these stands are covered (Gold 7, 8, and 9 specifically — confirmed directly by the circuit's own FAQ), while the bis/ter variants are open-air extensions of the same complex.
Because La Source is the slowest corner on the lap, it's also the easiest place to actually watch wheel-to-wheel racing in detail — cars are moving slowly enough here that you can follow a full overtaking attempt from the braking zone through the apex to the exit, in a way that's simply not possible at a 300km/h corner elsewhere on the circuit. It's where Lap 1 chaos most often plays out: cars bunched together after the standing start, inevitably some contact or a wild defensive line as drivers fight for position into the tightest point on the track.
For a first Grand Prix, this cluster has an obvious appeal: you get the start — 20 cars launching off the grid in close formation — plus a corner slow enough to actually process in real time, rather than a blur of speed you only register on a big screen replay.
Why it's special
Every other grandstand cluster at Spa sells you on speed — Eau Rouge's climb, the Kemmel Straight's velocity, Blanchimont's sustained high-speed curve. La Source sells you on the opposite: the one moment per lap where the cars are slow enough that you can actually see a driver's hands, see the car's weight shift under braking, see exactly how close two cars come to touching as they fight for the apex.
It's also the start-line corner — the first turn every car reaches after the lights go out, meaning the grandstands here get Spa's single most chaotic, unpredictable moment of the entire weekend: 20 cars converging on one tight hairpin at the same time, barely 30 seconds into the race. First-lap incidents happen here more than almost anywhere else on the calendar, not because the corner is dangerous at speed, but because it's the first place the whole field is forced into close proximity at once.
