Spa Friday Notebook

***Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco made it back-to-back pole positions in qualifying for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, delivering the Italian marque its fourth WEC pole in the process. All four have been earned by Fuoco.

***Local hero Sarah Bovy meanwhile put Iron Dames on top of the pile in LMGT3, giving Lamborghini a first-ever WEC pole position. It also marks Bovy’s first pole on home turf, while Iron Lynx has now earned poles with three different manufacturers following previous success with Porsche and Ferrari.

***Hypercar drivers were forced to use Michelin’s soft compound tire in Hyperpole, with few teams having spent time sampling the rubber prior to qualifying. The majority of drivers opted to go for a preparation lap before pushing for a hot lap, although fourth-placed Julien Andlauer (Proton Competition Porsche) and seventh-placed Brendon Hartley (Toyota) notably opted to go directly into a push lap.

***Hartley explained: “There were some different philosophies on tire warm-up. I pushed on the first lap, but I lost a lot of performance. and the Ferrari could almost repeat the same lap [from Q1], which I couldn’t do. I think a lot was down to tire prep. It was an unknown going on to the soft tire without testing it.”

***The New Zealander added that he feels Toyota’s traditional advantage in terms of tire degradation has been eradicated. “I think the others have caught up,” he said. “And when I see Ferrari is on pole position using the soft tire, when last year they only used the hard, it definitely looks like they made some progress.”

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle also admitted surprise as to how long Ferrari was able to make its tires last at Imola, where the 499Ps triple-stinted their Michelins in the dry early part of the race. “We saw before the race that it’s probably not working for us,” he said. “How these could guys do it… well done.”

***The two Penske Porsches suffered a scare early on in the first part of qualifying as both Matt Campbell and Kevin Estre ran off-track virtually in unison at Les Combes while running one behind the other.

***Estre told Sportscar365: “I did many out laps this weekend on cold tires, but somehow we both braked and locked the rear. I locked the rear, he locked the rear. He went straight, I went straight, it was all good. I think we braked pretty much the same place and the car reacted the same way. For sure it didn’t help that he locked then, he was not taking the corner, so he was staying there and I had to [brake] even harder.”

***Andlauer meanwhile was delighted to qualify second-best of the Porsches behind Campbell. “For the first time this season, we could go through the full program in practice, and that was very helpful to prepare and have a more competitive car in qualifying,” he said. “For the race we should be pretty much in the game.”

***Cadillac matched its best qualifying performance in WEC with Alex Lynn’s third place in Hyperpole, with the Brit having qualified in the same position during last year’s season finale in Bahrain. “I’m super proud of the team,” Lynn said. “We worked very hard since Imola. It felt nice to put that right.”

***Lynn escaped punishment for blocking the Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Phil Hanson in the first part of qualifying. A stewards’ bulletin noted: “After having checked the video evidence, heard the drivers during a hearing, the Stewards determined the facts were not relevant enough to apply a penalty.”

***An engine issue curtailed Alpine’s first Hyperpole run, with Charles Milesi stopping at Raidillon aboard the No. 35 Alpine A424. The Frenchman was classified eighth, 1.085 seconds off pole.

***Alpine team principal Philippe Sinault indicated the team would likely be forced to make significant repairs to the car, noting that it would either require an oil pump replacement or a full engine swap. The Frenchman said further analysis would be needed once the car was released from parc ferme.

***Two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Timo Bernhard has taken on a new LMDh team and driver development role at Porsche as of this weekend’s Spa WEC round. His duties include “two-way communication between drivers and engineers and the consolidation of meeting landscapes,” according to the German marque.

***Bernhard will be on site for all WEC races for the rest of the season, and will also be available to Porsche’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship operation remotely.

***Ferrari’s performance and regulations manager Mauro Barbieri highlighted the marque’s desire to earn its first WEC win outside of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: “For sure we are hungry, and we are missing a victory in a ‘sprint’ race, already since the second half of last year,” he said. “The hunger is getting bigger and bigger, and we keep pushing to achieve a victory before Le Mans.”

***Raffaele Marciello says he still keeps in touch with Mercedes-AMG customer racing boss Stefan Wendl, having left the Stuttgart marque to switch to BMW after a six-year tenure as a factory driver. “He was my boss, but he’s also my friend,” Marciello told Sportscar365. “We still have contact for sure. He’s always asking how the Hypercar is, how WEC is. He’s passionate about motorsport.”

***Marciello added that he’s supportive of Wendl’s efforts to try and get the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo eligible to compete in the European Le Mans Series. “I like to compete against the best,” he said. “So I hope for them that they are there one day, also for [guys] like Luca [Stolz], Maro [Engel] or Jules [Gounon], even though he’s here in Hypercar now. The AMG drivers deserve to be in WEC.”

***The WEC’s regular team of Martin Haven, Anthony Davidson and Graham Goodwin are on commentary duty for this weekend’s race, with Bruce Jouanny reporting from pit lane. The broadcast is accessible via the series’ official app and across channels including MotorTrend and MAX in the U.S.

***Radio Le Mans is also providing coverage of the race with John Hindhaugh, Jonny Palmer and Peter Mackey in the commentary booth. The race is slated to begin on Saturday at 1 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT).

Davey Euwema contributed to this report