Garage 59 McLaren Heads Spa Night Practice

Tom Fleming set the pace in night practice for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa for the Garage 59 McLaren squad.

The Briton clocked a 2:18.231 in the opening stages of the 90-minute session in the Gold Cup-entered No. 58 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to finish up four tenths quicker than the Pro Cup pacesetting No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel.

Fleming’s effort was around 1.5 seconds adrift of the benchmark from qualifying set by Simon Gachet at the wheel of a CSA McLaren earlier on Thursday evening.

The majority of the top times during night practice were set within the first 20 minutes of the session but third-fastest Jules Gounon posted his 2:18.786 time in the final minutes of the session at the wheel of the No. 3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Fourth fastest was the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG of Fabian Schiller that had earlier been kicked out of Friday’s Superpole shoot-out after the team was found to have worked on the car following Q3.

Schiller registered a 2:18.788 to fractionally outpace the No. 5 Optimum Motorsport McLaren of the manufacturer’s new GT3 Junior Salman Owega that headed the Silver Cup class.

Sixth fastest was the best of the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evos, the No. 2 Boutsen VDS machine of Alessio Picariello, who posted a 2:18.827.

Seventh was another Porsche, the Pro-Am Cup pacesetting Car Collection entry of Joel Sturm on a 2:18.841, while the drivers in the 2:18s were rounded out by Arjun Maini in the No. 64 HRT Ford Mustang GT3 EVO.

Ninth was the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo on a 2:19.034 while the top ten was completed by the No. 71 Selected Car Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo — another of the few cars to improve in the latter stages.

Another Ferrari set the Bronze Cup pace with the No. 74 Kessel machine ending up 13th overall.

There were no major interruptions during the session despite it being the first time the drivers had experienced the Spa-Francorchamps circuit at night.

The next time the cars will head out on track is due to be at 3:05 p.m. CEST on Friday (9:05 a.m. EST) when the top 32 from Thursday’s qualifying will contest the Superpole shoot-out.