Ratel: Need to Reschedule 24H Spa Was “A Bit Shocking”

The need for SRO Motorsports Group to reschedule next year’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa was “a bit shocking” in the eyes of the event organizing body’s founder and CEO Stephane Ratel.

SRO was forced to find a new date for its headline GT3 race when it emerged that the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix would be taking place at the Ardennes circuit on the same July 29-30 weekend.

The original 24 Hours of Spa date was announced back in July, while a rescheduled weekend was confirmed a few hours after the FIA released F1’s new calendar on Sep. 20.

Next year’s event will instead take place on the first weekend of July, three weeks after the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Reacting to the Spa change and the associated GTWC Europe schedule adjustments that came with it, Ratel told Sportscar365: “It has been a huge challenge.

“It’s been really a disgrace that nobody was able to balance an event as important as the 24 Hours of Spa. It would have been protected from that [calendar clash].

“It’s a bit shocking, but OK, we have been pushed out of our traditional date. And we see how we do at the beginning of July.”

The fallout from the Spa rescheduling included changes to most of the GTWC Europe schedule, with several events being transferred to different dates.

The fourth round of the Endurance Cup season will now take place on Spa’s original late July weekend, while the official midweek Spa test days have been moved to late May.

Ratel also noted that there are underlying secondary impacts on GTWC Europe support series.

Unrelated to the Grand Prix situation, the Endurance and Sprint Cup season openers were moved back one week to avoid clashes with the FIA World Endurance Championship.

“The 24 Hours is a very successful event and brings quite a significant crowd,” Ratel said.

“It brings quite a lot of people who stay for 10 days. It doesn’t get a penny of public money, and we are being bounced around by events that are costing taxpayers’ money.

“At the end of the day, it’s always a bit frustrating, but we have to live with it, and we will see how it does. The beginning of July is not a bad date.

“It’s hard, in a way, that because of this whole non-clashing thing [for SRO], it has resulted in us trying to change many things. It is like a domino.

“We had finalized many things, like the support races. Suddenly, because Spa is earlier, we have to redo it entirely. But at the end of the day, the calendar is nice.”

It appears that the clash between the rescheduled 24 Hours of Spa and the Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS fixture at Suzuka is set to remain in place.

SRO usually makes a point of trying to form a non-conflicting 20-plus event calendar between its regional GT World Challenge series in Asia, Europe, America and Australia.

Spa forms part of the GTWC Europe season, as well as a round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli.

The Suzuka date clash will affect some SRO personnel and potentially some drivers, however only one of this year’s GTWC Asia teams — Earl Bamber Motorsport — also took part in the Belgian enduro utilizing its European regional base.

“Benjamin Franassovici [GTWC Asia championship director] is not too worried because the Asian championship is essentially Japanese at the moment,” Ratel suggested.

“We had GoodSmile one year, but they are not in our Asian series. So at the moment, it doesn’t really have an impact on the Asian series.”