Audi Holds 1-2 Lead With Eight Hours Remaining

Nicki Thiim captured the lead of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, heading an Audi 1-2 by passing Dennis Marschall with exactly eight hours of racing remaining.

The No. 17 Scherer Sport PHX Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II held a slim lead over the No. 40 Audi Sport Tresor Orange 1 piloted by Marschall.

Thiim overtook the German driver out of the Bus Stop chicane to take the lead after chipping away at Marschall’s lead in the early hours of Sunday morning, which was as high as 20 seconds at its peak.

The No. 40 Audi had built up a significant advantage thanks to a strong stint from Marschall’s co-driver Mattia Drudi.

Drudi ran in third at the end of a safety car period in hour 15, which had seen the running order shaken up.

The race was neutralized when the No. 19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Michele Beretta went off at Campus thanks to a stuck throttle and needed to be recovered.

The resulting stops under caution promoted the No. 54 Dinamic GT Huber Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Christian Engelhart to the lead, ahead of the No. 777 Mercedes-AMG Team Al Manar of Luca Stolz.

Stolz then tagged Engelhart into a spin at La Source at the restart, allowing Drudi to move past both and capture the race lead.

The Italian driver then cleared off, building up a lead that Marschall retained until Thiim caught and overtook him.

Marco Wittmann ran third in the No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3, ahead of the No. 92 Manthey EMA Porsche driven by Kevin Estre.

Rutronik Racing’s Laurin Heinrich completed the top five, ahead of Akkodis ASP driver Jules Gounon.

The No. 88 car remained the only Mercedes-AMG running in the top ten on Sunday morning.

Two of the German manufacturer’s entries fell away, with the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Team car retiring with a water leak after spinning at the most recent safety car restart.

The No. 999 GruppeM Racing entry, meanwhile, has spent over ten minutes in the pits with a wheel bearing failure.

The top ten was completed by the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, No. 6 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini, No. 11 Audi and the Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720s GT3 Evo.