Spa Thursday Notebook

***Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Kevin Estre set the fastest time of the day across two practice sessions on Thursday, registering a best time of 2:04.162 aboard the championship-leading No. 6 car in the afternoon’s second session. The benchmark time in LMGT3, a 2:20.885 came courtesy of TF Sport’s Daniel Juncadella in the first session.

***Lap times on Thursday at Spa were much slower than those seen during last year’s opening day of track action at the Belgian circuit, when Ferrari’s Antonio Giovinazzi registered a best lap of 2:01.871.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi believes that bumps, possibly related to recent work at Spa, are partly to blame for the slow pace. “We are a bit surprised that it changed so much,” said the Japanese driver. “The bumps are much worse, especially Turn 15 [Stavelot], the last chicane, Turn 1 [La Source], but a bit everywhere to be honest.”

***LMGT3 pacesetter Juncadella also remarked on the slow lap times on Thursday. “When we were here [testing], we were doing 2:18s, and now we are barely inside the 2:20s,” said Juncadella. “I have the feeling the track is very green and very slow at the moment, and it will get faster as the weekend goes on.”

***Six cars were ordered to serve five-minute stop and hold penalties during Free Practice 2 for speeding under Full Course Yellow during the opening session. Affected cars included both Hertz Team JOTA Porsches, both of the Iron Lynx Lamborghini LMGT3 entries as well The Heart of Racing and D’station Racing Aston Martins.

***The No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8, meanwhile, was given a more severe ten-minute stop and hold as a punishment for Sheldon van der Linde not following the race director’s instructions. The stewards found that the South African “exited the track at Turn 5 and did not rejoin Turn 7 by the escape road, rejoining the track unsafely.”

***Ferrari’s performance and regulations manager Mauro Barbieri told reporters that the manufacturer held a “post-mortem” following the strategy errors that cost the Prancing Horse a potential win on home turf at Imola amid changing conditions.

***Barbieri said: “There has been what good managers call a post-mortem, with no filters and exchanging ideas in full transparency, and that has led to some steps in terms of the tools and software we have to support our decisions, and also the procedures we should follow to make sure that such a situation will not present itself again.”

***Barbieri added that Ferrari can’t use its relative inexperience in the WEC’s top class as an “excuse” for such oversights. “No matter how many races we have under our belt, learning is continuous, and somehow failures have to be welcomed and accepted because it gives you an opportunity to properly learn something and change your approach in order to improve,” he said.

***Michelin has opted to bring its white-walled soft compound slick tire to Spa for the first time this season along with the medium. The yellow-marked medium and the red-marked hard were in use for both of the opening two rounds at Qatar and Imola.

***Ferrari’s Barbieri suggested the decision was made for “safety” after the incidents seen on the hard tire seen at Spa last year, including the one involving the 499P of Antonio Fuoco exiting the pits. “This could explain the tire choice here, but in the same for everyone,” he said. “It’s an external factor you have no control over and you have to do the best with what you’re given.”

***Hertz Team JOTA driver Callum Ilott told Sportscar365 he is “100 percent committed” to contesting the three remaining rounds of the WEC that clash with IndyCar races, following David Malukas’ dismissal from Arrow Team McLaren late last month. Ilott filled in for an injured Malukas at St. Petersburg and The Thermal Club, and has been strongly tipped to fill the now-vacant No. 6 ride in this month’s Indianapolis 500.

***Ilott opened up on on sharing the No. 12 Porsche 963 with only Will Stevens this weekend, with Norman Nato away on Formula E duty. “It’s a shame because you want to continue and work together as normal, but the positive is you get more time in the car,” he said. “Sometimes as a driver you can get a bit lost in the conditions you have when you are in the car, whether it’s end-of-stint tires or high fuel, whereas having more time in the car lets you experience more different phases of the run.”

***Toyota Gazoo Racing technical director David Floury believes that the benefits of two drivers sharing a car at certain races are outweighed by a lack of continuity, particularly in view of the 24 Hour of Le Mans, where three drivers are required.

***Floury said: “With hot races and a ten-hour format [such as Qatar], it’s difficult with only two drivers. For six-hour races with cooler temperatures, it’s an option. But in any case, you need three drivers for certain races through the season, especially Le Mans, and it’s good to build the team and get into the rhythm together with three drivers. I don’t think it’s an option to do all races but Le Mans with only two drivers.”

***Five Belgian drivers in the field marks a record for the Spa round of the WEC. Laurens Vanthoor (Porsche Penske Motorsport), his younger brother Dries (BMW M Team WRT), Maxime Martin (Team WRT), Sarah Bovy (Iron Dames) and Tom van Rompuy (TF Sport) all are all flying the flag for their home country this weekend.

***Head of Mercedes-AMG customer racing Stefan Wendl was spotted in the Spa paddock on Thursday, conversing with former factory driver Raffaele Marciello as well as Jules Gounon, who is racing for Alpine this weekend. Wendl previously told Sportscar365 that he would be at Spa to meet with the ACO about the possibility of making its GT3 car eligible to race in the European Le Mans Series.

***Egor Orudzhev, who is racing in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo support category at Spa this weekend, still holds the circuit’s top speed record for the WEC of 328.4 km/h (204.1 mph), set back in 2018 at the wheel of the SMP Racing BR1. The best speed recorded by a Hypercar was 321.5 km/h (199.8 mph) by Ferrari’s James Calado last year.

Davey Euwema contributed to this report