Porsche, ‘Bamthor’ Move into IGTC Lead With 24H Spa Win

Photo: Porsche

Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor have moved into the lead of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli drivers’ championship with their win alongside Nick Tandy in the Total 24 Hours of Spa.

The win has also put Porsche at the top of the manufacturers’ standings heading into December’s season-ending Kyalami 9 Hour.

Bamber and Vanthoor claimed maximum points on Sunday, which along with their fifth place finish in February’s season-opening Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, have put the duo on 31 points.

Fellow Porsche drivers Mathieu Jaminet, Patrick Pilet and Matt Campbell, who finished fourth in Spa in the No. 12 GPX Racing entry but scored third place points, have moved into second in the standings, one point behind the IMSA pairing.

Bentley’s Maxime Soulet, Jordan Pepper and Jules Gounon, which entered the weekend with a one-point lead in the championship, have dropped to third in the standings after their ninth place points finish on Sunday in the No. 3 K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3.

The trio, however, are only three points out of the lead and the only drivers to have scored points in all three IGTC rounds so far this season.

Porsche’s first and third place finish at Spa has given the German brand a provisional 29-point lead in the manufacturer’s’ championship over Mercedes-AMG, whose highest placed car was sixth out of the IGTC runners in the Belgian endurance classic.

Nine out of the top ten overall finishers in the race were registered to score IGTC points, with the third-placed No. 54 Dinamic Motorsport Porsche the only non-points scorer in the global GT3 championship.

Spa featured a record 39 entries, spread between eight GT3 manufacturers, that were eligible to score points.

The season is scheduled to come to a close in Kyalami on Dec. 10-12, an event SRO Motorsports Group founder and CEO Stephane Ratel has stressed will still go ahead despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and company travel restrictions from several manufacturers including Mercedes-AMG.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John