Spa Post-Race Notebook

***Hertz Team JOTA’s victory in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps was a landmark win in many regards. Will Stevens and Callum Ilott ensured a first win for a two-driver crew since Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson at Shanghai in 2014 for Toyota, as well as the first ever for a British-entered team in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

***It also marked the first win for an all-British crew in any class since Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell triumphed at Shanghai in 2017 for Ford in the GTE Pro division.

***Stevens earned his first overall win and his seventh across all classes, having previously triumphed five times in LMP2 (all with JOTA, including wins under the G-Drive Racing and Jackie Chan DC Racing banners) and once in GTE Am, in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2017 with JMW Motorsport.

***The win for Ilott and Stevens marks the first time in 35 years that a privately entered Porsche took an outright victory in a world championship event. The last occurrence was during the 1989 Coupe de Dijon, where Frank Jelinski and Bob Wollek won the second round of that year’s World Sportscar Championship in a Joest Racing Porsche 962C.

***In the post-race press conference, Ilott dedicated his maiden WEC victory to his late friend and former GP3 teammate Anthoine Hubert. The Frenchman was killed in a Formula 2 crash at Spa in 2019.

***Victory for the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R in LMGT3 marked factory Porsche man Richard Lietz’s first WEC win since Le Mans in 2022, with the Austrian’s first LMGT3 win coming at the same venue where he picked up his first class win all the way back in 2012 in GTE Pro.

***Yasser Shahin became the second Australian driver to win in the WEC in GT machinery, following Matt Campbell, while Dutchman Morris Schuring follows in the footsteps of his compatriots Jeroen Bleekemolen, Larry ten Voorde and Nicky Catsburg.

***Kevin Estre hinted that Porsche Penske Motorsport’s decision to change four tires on the No. 6 car at the final stop, which gave Hertz Team JOTA an 11-second advantage, was something of a strategic roll of the dice to try and snatch the race win. “We knew that they were probably going to do two tires,” Estre said. “So why not do four and hope that they would have more degradation than us? But they seemed to hold it well.”

***Second place for the No. 6 Porsche at Spa has allowed Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor to stretch their advantage at the head of the championship to 22 points ahead of Stevens and Ilott, who vault from fourth to second with their win.

***Porsche meanwhile heads Toyota by 23 points in the manufacturers’ standings, with Ferrari a further ten back in third.

***The No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche has retaken the lead of the FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams ahead of the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari, which finished third in the privateers’ classification at Spa behind the Proton Competition Porsche.

***The Proton Competition Porsche was shown the black-and-orange flag when the left-side door came loose during a safety car period with Neel Jani at the wheel. However, the instruction to pit was rescinded after Jani managed to close the door by himself on-track.

***Jani recalled: “It took many goes [to close the door]; somehow it wouldn’t close. I tried to slow down the car a lot because otherwise there’s a vacuum in the cockpit and you can’t close it. Finally I was able to close it, I had to push a pin free with my finger and then pull the handle and let go. Something was broken in the mechanism.”

***Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Ryo Hirakawa revealed an unplanned change of positions at the final chicane between the two GR010 Hybrids immediately before the red flag, when he was driving the No. 8 car and Nyck de Vries was in the No. 7. “They were on a different tire strategy, so he had more pace,” Hirakawa told Sportscar365. “I was stuck behind another car, and he surprisingly passed me. It was a little bit controversial, to be honest. There was a miscommunication, I didn’t expect him to dive-bomb me like that.”

***The positions between the Toyotas were effectively reversed by Kamui Kobayashi’s late five-second penalty for making contact with Michelle Gatting’s Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Hirakawa summarized: “Clearly we didn’t have the pace, passing other cars was really hard. We had an issue with the brakes during my stint, so that made it even more of a struggle, so I’m happy we came back to P6.”

***The two Toyotas picked up three penalties during the race between them, with the No. 8 getting a drive-through for using too much ERS power on the formation lap and the No. 7 getting a similar punishment for speeding during a virtual safety car period.

***Alpine’s No. 36 car was unable to take advantage of completing a pit stop immediately before the red flag, as it fell a lap behind the leading No. 51 Ferrari and was ineligible for the pass around. Matthieu Vaxiviere said: “We have to be happy with this result in a race marked by a long interruption. Unfortunately, we had a slightly different strategy, and the red flag cost us a lap, which was very difficult to regain afterwards.”

***Team principal Philippe Sinault has revealed that Ferdinand Habsburg, who has missed the last two races due to injury, will rejoin Alpine for the Signatech-run squad’s next test prior to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***Peugeot technical director Olivier Jansonnie likewise revealed post-race that the French manufacturer has two days of testing planned at an undisclosed venue between now Le Mans next month.

***In addition to its double retirement in LMGT3, BMW M Team WRT experienced a difficult home race finishing 11th and 13th overall, with BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos noting that the team “simply made too many mistakes.”

***Most notably, the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 was given a 30-second stop-and-go penalty for a pit lane infringement by Raffaele Marciello. The stewards’ decision document published by WEC states that the Swiss driver “entered the wrong garage, then used the reverse gear in the pit lane.”

***In LMGT3, Manthey PureRxcing trio Alexander Malykhin, Klaus Bachler and Joel Sturm now enjoy a commanding 35-point lead in the standings after their run to second at Spa, helped by their nearest rivals in the points, including both WRT BMW crews and the Heart of Racing Aston Martin, failing to score.

***United Autosports earned its best finish in LMGT3 of the season so far with the No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Gregoire Saucy, Nicolas Costa and James Cottingham in fourth place, gaining a position post-race following a five-second penalty for the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan EVO2 for making contact with the Manthey PureRxcing Porsche.

***The sister No. 95 McLaren, which had qualified second in the hands of Josh Caygill before being sent to the back of the grid for a weight infringement, retired due to a loss of gearbox oil.

***Proton Competition scored the Ford Mustang GT3’s best finish in WEC competition so far with the No. 88 car of Giorgio Roda, Mikkel O. Pedersen and Dennis Olsen finishing eighth. Akkodis ASP meanwhile scored its first point of the season as Arnold Robin, Ritomo Miyata and Clemens Schmid took the No. 78 Lexus RC F GT3 to 10th place.

***The 6H Spa saw 29 classified finishers, the fewest number since the 2021 8 Hours of Bahrain. On that occasion only 31 cars took the start, compared with 37 last weekend.

***WEC organizers reported a three-day fan attendance of 88,180, a new record for the series outside of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, beating the previous benchmark of 73,600 that was established in the previous race at Imola.

***However, the bumper crowd was accompanied by severe delays of up to three hours on the surrounding roads, exacerbated by road work being carried out on the main thoroughfare running to the track from the village of Francorchamps.

Davey Euwema contributed to this report