CP Racing Leads 12H Spa at Halfway Point

CP Racing leads the Hankook 12H Spa-Francorchamps at the halfway intervention from the pole-sitting WTM Racing team.

The No. 85 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Charlie Putman, Charles Espenlaub and Shane Lewis holds a lead of over a minute from the No. 22 Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo.

The Ferrari, driven by Georg Weiss, Leonard Weiss, Jochen Krumbach and Daniel Keilwitz, started from pole and held the lead for the first chunk of the race.

It then dropped back due to a pitstop taken with some two hours left on the clock, which was shortly followed by a Code 60 when one of the GT4 frontrunners, the No. 416 Buggyra ZM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 sustained heavy damage after contact with a TCR contender on the exit of Les Combes.

By the end of the fourth hour, the Ferrari was in third place behind the leading Mercedes and Car Collection Motorsport’s No. 34 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II and also went a lap down on the leader.

With an hour of running on Saturday remaining, the Ferrari passed the Mercedes on the Kemmel Straight and was back up to second place with 45 minutes remaining, which briefly allowed it to cycle to the front of the field when the Mercedes came in for a fuel stop.

The No. 22 car would stop for fuel itself not much later, leaving Shane Lewis clear to take the checkered flag in the No. 85 Mercedes after the first 5.5 hours of racing.

Phoenix Racing’s No. 18 Audi of Michael Doppelmayr, Pierre Kaffer, Elia Erhart and Patryk Krupinski ended the day in third, with the Car Collection Audi of Johannes Dr. Kirchhoff Max Edelhoff and Tim Müller dropping to fourth.

Daniel Allemann, Ralf Bohn and Jürgen Häring rounded out the top five in the No. 91 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R with JUTA Racing’s No. 71 Audi sixth.

BoDa by Bas Koeten Racing started the race from second place, but the No. 6 Bentley Continental GT3 driven by Bob Herber and Mark van der Aa dropped back somewhat, not aided by a right rear puncture.

It crossed the line in ninth overall, behind the top two cars in the 992 and 991 classes respectively.

The GT4 category was led by the No. 421 TEAM ACP – Tangerine Associates BMW M4 GT4, driven by Catesby Jones, Wim Spinoy and Steven Thomas.

The BMW holds a gap of some 25 seconds over the second-placed No. 400 ALFAB Racing McLaren 570S GT4 of the Swedish duo of Erik Behrens and Daniel Ros, who started the race from pole position.

The top three in the class was made up by three different marques, as CWS Engineering’s No. 478 Ginetta G56 GT4 finished third but three laps down on the two leading cars in the class.

RESULTS: Hankook 12H Spa-Francorchamps Part I