Vanthoor Crashes Out of Lead in Sixth Hour at Spa

Laurens Vanthoor lost the lead of the Total 24 Hours of Spa after crashing his No. 1 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi at Stavelot in the sixth hour.

Only ten minutes before the first batch of points are handed out at the six-hour mark, the Belgian seemingly lost control of the car on his own at the high speed corner on a drying track.

The No. 1 Audi of defending champions Vanthoor, René Rast and Markus Winkelhock took a commanding lead early on thanks to the two safety cars splitting the field and staying on wets during a short dry interval.

Winkelhock rejoined outside of the top-40 overall, five laps down on the leader, while the No. 2 WRT Audi is currently in ninth.

Both Phoenix factory cars are seemingly struggling and outside the top-20.

Daniel Juncadella inherited the lead in the No. 99 ROWE Racing Mercedes, scoring the full 12 points after six hours, with the No. 35 Saintéloc Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra of Edward Sandström in second, and the No. 45 Marc VDS BMW Z4 GT3 of Dirk Werner in third.

After the rain-soaked opening hours, the safety cars continued to make outings. Two separate offs by the No. 75 ISR Audi and No. 888 Triple Eight Racing BMW at Blanchimont caused two more neutralizations.

Right before Vanthoor’s incident, Andrea Picccini’s No. 11 Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 T-boned Nico Verdonck’s No. 29 Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 at La Source.

The Black Falcon Mercedes had to retire immediately, while Piccini was able to continue before parking the car next to the track.

RESULTS: Six Hours