The team from home that climbed the whole ladder from the Fun Cup and the 25h of Spa to the FANATEC GT World Challenge Europe, the Intercontinental GT Challenge and the CROWDSTRIKE 24 Hours of Spa. This is Comtoyou Racing, which No. 7 Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT3 Evo won the punishing and rewarding adventure at the Ardennes after receiving a gift due to a freak incident with the then favorite No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, with recent Aston Martin signing Mattia Drudi having the company of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim in the first win of the race for the British manufacturer.
The No. 163 GRT Lamborghini kept the lead from the go signal and managed it until near to 30 minutes of racing, when the No. 48 Mann-Filter Mercedes went from trailing the leader to becoming the leader as Lucas Auer and Franck Perera were distancing themselves from the rest of the field, with the gap reset once the first incident happened as the No. 97 Rutronik Porsche stopped in the gravel.
The No. 48 had the lead for half of the second hour, only for a puncture to cut their progress and handle the lead to the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari, and after that, the pace of the race was significantly reduced due to the multiple Safety Car interventions, which kept the teams looking to the sky and guessing when the rain that was at the areas near Stavelot would come. A massive crash at La Source extended the Safety Car stay during the fourth hour, with the evening coming slowly while the track was slightly damp.
With yellow flag periods between pit windows, the No. 7 Comtoyou Aston Martin took the lead and the No. 46 WRT BMW was in the chase, and Raffaele Marciello didn’t wait too much to pass Mattia Drudi for the first place. More cautions, more shuffling, so the No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren was in a bizarre overall lead despite being a Bronze Cup entry, though the No. 46 went back to the top once the McLaren had its routine stop.
With a clearly dark track and different drivers inside, the No. 7 took the lead off the No. 46 while the No. 2 GetSpeed Mercedes and the No. 32 WRT BMW were pulling a bunch of other competitive cars to the fight for first. While rain levels did’t met the predictions before the race, it was wet enough to ditch the slick tires for the time being, but the order barely changed as the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes jumped to second but the No. 7 was still topping the order.
The heavy rain was expected to appear near midnight, and once more water came in, the Safety Car went for a long stay at the track, with visibility being a problem in an already dark track as Spa-Francorchamps barely has floodlights outside the pit lane and Eau Rouge. It took until hour 8 for the Safety Car to go back to the pits and the race to go green again with the No. 23 Phantom Global Porsche in the lead while the No. 998 ROWE BMW was in second and the No. 911 PURE Porsche in third, with the No. 23 losing the top spot 10 minutes later to the BMW.
With the bulk of the rain gone and the dry line forming as the green flag laps progressed, some teams took the end of the ninth hour to wear slick tires, only to get betrayed by the weather as the rain came back to the lower areas of the circuit, which meant the No. 32 WRT BMW got the lead when the other got thrown off their plan. Once the halfway mark came, WRT called the No. 32 for the technical stop for brake change, which brought in many others and drastically changed the order again, with the No. 99 Attempto Audi and the No. 52 AF Corse Ferrari leading overall before the pit cycle gives the first place back to the No. 32 at dawn when the rain came back in full force.
Bad luck can fall over anybody at Spa, and the No. 32 found its fair share of it with a 30 second stop and go due to full course yellow speed infringement, which promoted the No. 998 ROWE BMW to the top, but with the pit cycle going on the No. 163 took back the lead, only to be stripped of it near the end of the hour 14 by the No. 911 PURE Porsche.
While the Porsche was dominating the order when the pit cycles were done, it eventually fell to the back of the No. 998 due to multiple Safety Car interventions during the rainy morning, and eventually the No. 911 faced its fate as it went off at Blanchimont at pretty high speed, crashing and rolling until it stopped with few parts intact.
For three hours, the No. 998 would have the company of the No. 7 Comtoyou Aston Martin, with even some direct battles, but then the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari came from behind and claimed first place, with the two WRT BMWs lurking behind the overall top three. With Alessandro Pier Guidi getting Nicki Thiim and Dan Harper playing cat and mouse on cold tires, it wasn’t hard to open a gap.
Things went to the worse for ROWE Racing as the No. 998 lost the podium spot to the No. 96 Rutronik Porsche with two hours to go.
One thing that the final hour was revealing was that the other classes were capitalizing in the level of attrition that the race had under wet condition, as the No. 777 Al Manar Mercedes was leading the Gold Cup from seventh overall while the second in class, the No. 77 Haupt Mercedes was just outside the overall top 10. The No. 66 Attempto Audi was leading the Bronze Cup while the No. 78 Barwell Lamborghini was in second and leading a class podium battle just around the top 15.
It was all smooth sailing for the No. 51 but a freak incident where it got stuck behind a stopped No. 19 GRT Lamborghini at the pit entry cost time that Mattia Drudi didn’t lose in the No. 7 Comtoyou Aston Martin, and with Max Hesse unable to bring the No. 998 ROWE BMW closer, the Belgian squad celebrated an emotional win at home.
24 Hours of Spa - Race results
The No. 777 Al Manar Mercedes stood present in the overall top 10 for most of the race and it paid off with the Gold Cup win from seventh overall without any opposition near it, and the Bronze Cup entries did the same with quite a roller coaster as the hours passed, and the No. 66 Attempto Audi conquered the class from tenth overall while the class contenders stood inside the top 15.
The No. 3 GetSpeed Mercedes won the Silver Cup and the No. 4 Crowdstrike Mercedes left the United States to beat the No. 100 RJN McLaren in a tough fight to win the Pro-Am Cup.
Weerts and Vanthoor (No. 32) lead the overall GTWC Europe table with 64 points against 46.5 from Drudi (No. 7). In the Endurance Cup table, Drudi has Thiim and Sorensen with him with 46 points against 36 of Farfus, Hesse and Harper (No. 998).
In the IGTC standings, Matt Campbell leads with 37 points while seven drivers come in second with 25, including Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor and Ayhançan Güven.
The GTWC Europe calendar moves to Hockenheim as the Sprint Cup weekend will be held on 20 and 21 July, while the German trip will continue at the Nürburgring, with the Endurance Cup returning on 28 July. The Intercontinental GT Challenge will move to Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis 8 Hour will be held on 6 October, which closes the season and also closes the GTWC America schedule.
PHOTO: SRO
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