The race was conceived by Jules de Their and Henri Langlois Van Ophem and first held in 1924 over a 15-kilometre circuit on public roads connecting the towns of Francorchamps, Malmedy, and Stavelot, under the auspices of the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium. The current 7.004-kilometre permanent circuit was inaugurated in 1979 and has undergone only slight variations since. The present race is sponsored by CrowdStrike.
The Spa 24 Hours was a fixture of international touring car competition for much of the twentieth century. It counted towards the European Touring Car Championship from 1966 to 1973, again in 1976, and from 1982 to 1988 — with the exception of 1987, when it was incorporated into the inaugural World Touring Car Championship. It also appeared on the World Sportscar Championship calendar in 1953 and the World Endurance Championship in 1981.
The breadth of cars that competed across these decades illustrates the event's open character: entries ranged from the Russian Moskvitch and NSU Prinz TT with sub-one-litre engines to the Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3, a 6,834 cc, 420 hp luxury saloon prepared by Mercedes-AMG. That latter car, nicknamed the "Red Pig," finished as high as second overall in 1971.
The contemporary Spa 24 Hours is run under the regulations of the GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS and the Intercontinental GT Challenge, which the event joined in the series' inaugural 2016 season. Cars compete under FIA GT3 and GT3 Cup classifications. The event previously featured in the FIA GT Championship, which ran GT1 and GT2 machinery.
In 2004 the race gained a notable historical distinction when Swiss driver Lilian Bryner was part of the winning team aboard a Ferrari 550 entered by BMS Scuderia Italia — the first time a female driver had been part of the winning lineup of a 24-hour endurance race for Gran Turismo cars with more than 500 hp.
The race was held behind closed doors for the first time in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023 the race was rescheduled to early July after the Belgian Grand Prix — newly restored to the Formula 1 calendar at Spa-Francorchamps — was confirmed for the last weekend of July, the traditional date of the Spa 24 Hours.
Alongside the outright race victory, the Spa 24 Hours awards the Coupe du Roi (King's Cup) to the manufacturer scoring the most points across all its entered cars, regardless of finishing position. The award underscores the manufacturer-championship dimension of the race. The Australian manufacturer Holden won the Coupe du Roi in 1986 despite its cars finishing no higher than 18th position outright, illustrating how volume and reliability can outweigh pace in the manufacturer standings.
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and the 24 Hours of Spa are central reference points in sim racing. Spa's combination of the high-speed Raidillon/Eau Rouge complex, the long Kemmel Straight, the technical Bus Stop chicane, and unpredictable Ardennes weather make it one of the most replicated and demanded circuits across racing simulation platforms. The GT3 era of the Spa 24 Hours, with its large grids of multiple-manufacturer machinery competing in mixed conditions over a full day-night cycle, represents a benchmark endurance scenario for serious sim drivers.
With a continuous history stretching back to 1924, the Spa 24 Hours predates most of its rival events. It has operated under saloon car, touring car, sports car, and GT regulations at different points, adapting each time to the prevailing competitive format. The event's longevity, the technical demands of Spa-Francorchamps, and its place within the modern Intercontinental GT Challenge calendar cement its status as one of the defining events of the GT racing calendar.