The 2017 edition of the 24 Hours of
Spa was even more dramatic and unpredictable than any other
Blancpain GT Series round, which are already filled with
drama. Across multiple favorites that appeared and disappeared
through the race, The No. 25 Saintéloc Audi prevailed at the
end on the failure of the No. 90 AKKA-ASP Mercedes. Jules
Gounon and Markus Winkelhock drove superbly while
Christopher Haase brought the car to the checkered flag.
The initial moments of the race had
Giancarlo Fisichella on a hard charge in first with the No. 55
Kaspersky Ferrari while Mirko Brotolotti in the No. 63 GRT
Lamborghini was trailing him closely. Traffic was expected to be
the biggest of the problems, and although it did produced great
battles, it also brought lots of track limits abuse warnings and
penalties due to collisions.
GRT the took the lead after the first
pit stop while the 55 crew opted for a driver change as Marco Cioci
came in. It didn't take long for Cioci to get in pursuit to
Bortolotti though, but traffic proved to be a challenge when the
Ferrari 488 GT3 wasn't with clean air. Backmarkers weren't making it
easy for neither of the leaders, which pretty much let Bortolotti
fuming behind the wheel.
When all the teams were preparing for
the second pit window the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari crashed
heavily at Eau Rouge, destroying the car and launching huge pieces of
debris everywhere. Good thing is that Pasin Lathouras was OK after
the impact, leaving the car on his own power. The pit stops then were
made under yellow flag, when Bortolotti left the No. 63 in the hands
of Ezequiel Perez Companc.
It took around 25 minutes to clear the
track and the GRT-Kaspersky fight resumed, but ten minutes later the
No. 17 WRT Audi crashed and brought another yellow flag, and after
another 10 minutes the green flag was back, with the No. 63 GRT
Lamborghini leading again and having the No. 55 Kaspersky Ferrari
targeting it for quite a time, with the No. 1 WRT Audi and the
No. 84 HTP Mercedes appearing a bit behind as undesired guests
in third and fourth. It didn't take long for the 55 to show the claws
to the 63, going full aggressive in the search for a gap to overtake
before more traffic appears.
It was in the pits that the 63 gained
the lead but it was in the pits that it lost it too, the losing 2nd
and 3rd on track to the No. 2 WRT Audi and to the
No. 1 WRT Audi. As the night time was coming more cars were
eliminated, with the No. 6 WRT Audi and the No. 333 Rinaldi Ferrari
stopping on track almost at the same moment, bringing another full
course yellow, but soon the green was out again with headlights on
full power. With 18 hours and a half to go, when WRT was controlling
the top spots the No. 1 Audi took a drive-through penalty due to
track limit abuse, and while it wasn't a WRT show anymore, it was
still an Audi show as WRT was leading Saintéloc and ISR. Sad note of
the moment is the retirement of the No. 58 Strakka McLaren Art Car as
it stopped on track.
With the No. 114 Emil Frey Jaguar
stopped on track with its steamy problems, most of the Audi lead
train got spread and the No. 2 WRT Audi lost the lead for the No. 55
Kaspersky Ferrari, with the No. 63 GRT Lamborghini going back to
second and the only change in front from the earlier hours being the
No. 84 HTP Mercedes in third, although it just took time for the
order to reverse again with the No. 2. To worse things for real,
Jimmy Eriksson went too much into the Radillion kerbs and crashed the
No. 84 in the barriers just outside, retiring as damage was way
beyond repair.
As the race was closing to the midnight
the No. 90 AKKA-ASP joined the fight, with the 90, the 2, the 63 and
55 swapping positions from time to time while the No. 8 M-SPORT
Bentley was watching it closely. With 11 hours and a half of
racing rain was spotted by various sources around the track, but
another collision wasn't even caused by that as Jonathan Venter lost
control while braking the No. 3 WRT Audi at the Bus Stop chicane and
Tetsuya Kataoka in the No. 00 GSR Mercedes didn't have a way to go as
both front ends collided heavily. The 00 went quickly to the pits
while 3 stopped in the runoff, unable to continue.
While the local yellow flag was on the
rain got heavier, and with this WRT took the opportunity to change
brakes in all its cars along with wet tires while the 63 and the 55
were bolder and stayed longer, enough to see the rain stop in some
areas, eventually stopping some minutes after the halfway point. It
did rained more during the night, enough to cause trouble but then
the track dried again before dawn.
Once the sun was on again a big moment
that ended the race of the No. 55 Kaspersky Ferrari as contact with
the No. 90 AKKA-ASP Mercedes broken the suspension of the 55, making
it go straight to the barriers at Eau Rouge, bringing a full course
yellow that lasted 15 minutes and ended the 14th hour
action. The fiercest rival of the 55 also had a bitter end as the No.
63 GRT Lamborghini had an ABS failure at Fagnes with 7 hours and 45
minutes to go, diving into the barriers and never returning.
With the main contenders of the first
half out, the No. 90 became a favorite while the No. 1 WRT Audi was
the hopeful, with the No. 25 Sainteloc Audi, the No. 8 MS-SPORT
Bentley, the No. 117 Team Bernhard Porsche and the No. 98 ROWE BMW
being the dark horses. With 17 hours and a half gone, the No. 90 got
spun by the No. 991 SpeedLover Porsche Cup car while the No. 98
ROWE BMW was brought to the garage for maintenance.
The Pro-Am Cup was still in a
tight battle between the No. 16 Black Facon Mercedes and the No. 97
Oman Racing Aston Martin, but a driver stint penalty broke all the
hopes of the TF Sport-run car, sending them to a 2 Lap disadvantage
to the German team.
When in the final 3 hours of the race
the No. 90 was controlling the lead while the No. 25 was just there,
lapping quicker by a reasonable margin but not resulting in an
overtake. The situation repeated at the 22nd hour as
Christopher Haase with the 25 was still stuck behind Raffaele
Marciello in the 90, while Maxime Soulet in the No. 8 M-SPORT Bentley
was trying to reduce a 16 second gap to the leader. The final pit
stop window was a game changer as the No. 90 had to stay a bit longer
to not have driver stint limit penalty, which relegated Raffaele
Marciello to third while Soulet had to deal with a gap of 10 seconds
to Haase, but the Belgian was trying everything in his power to turn
things on his favor.
With 25 minutes to go Haase started to
open the gap, putting around 0.5s per lap on Soulet and avoiding any
chance of a turnaround, and so it stayed until the finish line.
Pro-Am honors were for the dominant performance of the No. 16
Black Falcon Mercedes aided by the mistakes of the class-second
No. 97 Oman Racing Aston Martin, and Kessel Racing puts the
No. 888 Ferrari in the top of the Am Cup podium.
The Blancpain GT
Series takes a month to stop and then returns on August 26th
and 27th at Hungaroring with the Sprint Cup, while the
Endurance Cup returns only on October 1st with the
Blancpain GT season finale at Barcelona.
PHOTO: Audi Sport
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