Spa Friday Notebook

***Glickenhaus Racing became the sixth team to claim an overall FIA World Endurance Championship pole position, joining Audi, Toyota, Porsche, Rebellion Racing and Alpine in the club.

***It also marked the first-ever WEC pole for an American-flagged team, as well as Olivier Pla’s first pole in any WEC class since Shanghai 2018 driving a Ford GT.

***GTE-Am pole-sitter Ben Keating reckons things could get “really ugly” at La Source on lap one of the race, with the run-off area now formed of gravel after previously being tarmac. “I think you’re guaranteed having cars stuck in the gravel out there,” he told Sportscar365. “If you go back through years, Turn 1 is mayhem and you all figure it out before you get to Eau Rouge. You don’t have that option anymore.”

***Lap times in qualifying were significantly slower than last year, with Pla’s 2:02.771 benchmark coming up a shade over two seconds shy of the 2021 best set by Kamui Kobayashi in a Toyota GR010 Hybrid. This appears to have been caused by different track conditions.

***Pipo Derani explained that his off in the third practice session was the result of a fault in a brake change that was carried out on the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007 Pipo prior to the session. “We had a change of brakes and there was some air in the system,” the Brazilian told Sportscar365. “So I pressed the brakes and the fronts locked unexpectedly. Unfortunately, I went off.”

***Prema driver Lorenzo Colombo was fined €1500 ($1,580 USD) for not slowing down under the red flag during FP2 and missing the pit entry, resulting in his No. 9 Prema Oreca 07 Gibson completing an unauthorized extra lap.

***Simon Mann’s FCY-incurring incident during FP2 was the result of a ‘misunderstanding’ with an overtaking prototype into La Source, according to co-driver Toni Vilander. “Something happened in the entrance [of the corner] that a little bit took out his concentration, and I think he just overshot the braking and then he went into the gravel trap and that’s it,” Vilander told Sportscar365. “There was no damage on the car.”

***Toyota is only able to activate its hybrid system at three corners of the circuit due to its 190 km/h turn-on point, according to technical director Pascal Vasselon. He explained that the manufacturer is finding it “difficult to manage” the hybrid system battery’s state of charge. “We have the same energy level to recover, and we have very few opportunities to boost,” he said. “We have to boost at places [where] we would not normally, just to manage the state of charge.”

***Rene Rast says his future in prototype racing is yet to be clarified after the postponement of Audi’s LMDh program. “Obviously, I’m still under contract with Audi,” Rast told Sportscar365. “My situation hasn’t changed. To be honest, I haven’t talked to Audi about my program for this or next year. So we really need to see and wait until they know which direction they go. Once this is clear for them, we will sit together and make a plan.”

***Members of management from ByKolles were at Spa on Thursday to hold discussions with the ACO and FIA about several topics including the manufacturer’s entry with a Vanwall-badged LMH car next season.

***GR Racing’s 2022 season gets underway this weekend after the British squad missed Sebring due to team owner Mike Wainwright’s business obligations. “It kicks off for us at Spa, with a relatively new team,” said driver Ben Barker. “Quite a lot of the crew are new, so there is going to be a lot of relationship molding over the first round for us.”

***Porsche factory driver Kevin Estre has introduced a new WEC helmet at Spa. The Frenchman showed off the new white, black and red-trimmed design on Twitter.

***Corvette Racing’s WEC and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship crews are separate despite being from the same team, with no permanent crossover between the two camps that are running different specifications of the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. As was the case at Spa and Le Mans last year, two Larbre Competition staff members are in the garage assisting with the France-based WEC project.

***Cadillac’s top management is thinking about the possibility of sending part of its IMSA-based LMDh stable to Le Mans next year. “We’ve committed to one full-season [in WEC],” said General Motors sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser. “For Le Mans, we would maybe have two. But it’s an invitation, so it would be whatever we would be welcome to bring.”

***Track limits cameras are in use despite the implementation of gravel in former tarmac run-off areas. The cameras are positioned at Raidillon, Malmedy, Pouhon, between Camus and Stavelot, and Blanchimont. UPDATE: A Turn 9 camera was shown on the WEC’s briefing notes for Spa, but Sportscar365 has been informed this is not in place.

***Formula E race winner Maximilian Guenther was spotted in the paddock at Spa, talking to various teams. The 24-year-old driver, who raced for Nissan e.dams in the electric series’ most recent campaign, has never previously driven in sports cars.

***Fred Poordad says his participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans is not yet final, even though he is listed in the No. 88 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche crew. “It’s not 100 percent yet,” Poordad told Sportscar365. “We’ll hopefully make a decision after this weekend. My decision is going to be based on a lot of things. I want to do it when I’m ready, not just because opportunity is there. Let’s see how this weekend goes. I think that’ll have a big bearing on my decision.”

***Poordad’s co-driver Jan Heylen is going into his first race at Spa in well over a decade. The Florida-based Belgian last raced here at the 24-hour race in 2011, when he shared a ProSpeed Competition Porsche 911 GT3 R with Marc Goossens and Maxime Soulet.

***Former Bentley factory driver Soulet is racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux support series this weekend. All three of the supports are Porsche single-make championships. The French, German and Benelux regional series have descended on the Belgian venue, bringing a total of 77 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars.

***Elsewhere in the Carrera Cup fields, Dylan Pereira, who drove for TF Sport in WEC last season, is part of the Germany grid while Marvin Klein, who will join Garage 59 at Le Mans for his GTE debut, is racing in the French series.

***The TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa is due to get underway at 1 p.m. CEST (7 a.m. ET). Toyota Gazoo Racing is aiming for its sixth consecutive win at the event, while Porsche GT Team is eyeing its third straight GTE-Pro victory in Belgium.

Davey Euwema contributed to this report