Harper Quickest in Spa Free Practice

Photo: BMW

ROWE Racing’s Dan Harper led the way in the first on-track session for all CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa competitors on Thursday.

Harper’s 2:18.186 lap time in the No. 998 BMW M4 GT3, set early in Free Practice, held as the quickest throughout the 1 hour and 20-minute session.

It was 0.169 seconds quicker than the Silver class No. 99 Tresor Orange 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Alex Aka, with the No. 92 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R of Julien Andlauer ending up third quickest with a 2:18.590 lap.

The No. 159 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo and the Bronze Cup No. 55 Dinamic GT Huber Racing Porsche completed the top-five overall, respectively.

Boutsen VDS Racing’s No. 9 Audi was quickest of the Gold Cup competitors in tenth overall while Pro-Am was led by the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Chaz Mostert, who ended up 13th overall on the time sheets.

Two red flags brought proceedings to a halt early on, the first for the No. 30 Team WRT BMW of Niklas Krutten, who spun and stopped at Raidillon just moments after the start of the session.

It was followed by a second red, for the No. 888 CSA Racing Audi of Arthur Rougier, who went off into the gravel in Turn 19.

Next up is Pre-Qualifying, which gets underway at 6:10 p.m. CEST (12:10 p.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Free Practice

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