Tempesta Leads Porsche 1-2 at 12H Spa Overnight Intervention

Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing led a Porsche 1-2 after the first five hours of the Michelin 12H Spa-Francorchamps were completed, with the debuting 911 GT3 R Evo in second place.

Jonathan Hui, Chris Froggatt and Loek Hartog held a lead of 34.543 seconds over the Herberth Motorsport-run No. 91 Porsche, which is entered into the SP4 class for developmental vehicles.

The two Porsches enjoyed a buffer of three laps over the nearest challenger, with the No. 11 Hofor Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Alexander Prinz, Chantal Prinz, Michael Kroll and Torsten Kratz in third place.

The fourth-placed No. 56 Scuderia Praha Ferrari 296 GT3 was the final GT3 entrant to be classified ahead of the 992-class leader, with a number of notable GT3 contenders encountering trouble during the first segment of the race.

Most notably, the No. 93 RedAnt Racing Mercedes-AMG, which had started from the front row, suffered a high-speed left front puncture on the Kemmel Straight.

The No. 29 Pellin Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, which became an early frontrunner with Kyle Marcelli at the wheel, lost significant amount of time thanks to a problem removing one of the wheels at the team’s first pitstop.

Issues also struck for the No. 8 Kessel Racing Ferrari as well as Era Motorsport’s No. 81 machine, with the latter requiring a gearbox change with 90 minutes remaining.

More dramatically, the No. 21 HAAS RT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II was forced to capitulate at halfway after it had briefly led after the car caught fire, although Xavier Knauf escaped unharmed.

In GT4, Venture’s No. 421 Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Neville Jones, Christopher Jones, Matthew George and Matthew Higgins led into the overnight intervention after a battle that had seen three out of four teams in class capture the lead at some stage.

The British squad eventually took control in the fourth hour and was classified two laps clear of the No. 424 SRS Team Sorg Rennsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS driven by Benito Tagle, Guy Stewart, Maximilian Hill and Harley Haughton.

Notably, the polesitting No. 419 Hamofa Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 EVO lost 15 laps in the final hour when it suffered a front-right puncture and spent time in the garage.

It rejoined the race fourth and last in class, behind the second SRS Team Sorg Rennsport Porsche in the hands of Thierry Chkondali, Michel Sallenbach and Marc Girard.

The second part of the Michelin 12H Spa-Francorchamps kicks off Sunday at 10:50 a.m. CEST (4:50 a.m. EST) with live coverage on the Creventic Motorsports TV YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Michelin 12H Spa-Francorchamps (Part 1)