Lionspeed Porsche Leads 24H Spa With Three Hours to Go

The No. 80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo held a narrow advantage at the head of the field with three hours of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa left to run.

Thomas Preining held an advantage of 11 seconds at the 21-hour mark of the blue riband round of GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS after the tenth safety car of the event closed up the pack at the front of the field.

The Austrian, who shares the Lionspeed entry with Bastian Buus and Ricardo Feller, led from Maro Engel aboard the Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, with Tommaso Mosca a further eight tenths back in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo.

The Porsche was three seconds up on the Merc when the race went green 25 minutes before the end of the hour, but Preining was able to partially rebuild the clear advantage Lionspeed had enjoyed before the safety car.

The caution period all but wiped out a 20-second lead that Preining and then Fuller had built up over the preceding two stints.

Preining moved to the head of the field during the pit stop cycle early in the 19th hour after taking over from Buus and getting the undercut on both the Winward Merc and the AF Ferrari.

He was then able to pull a gap of 15 seconds over fellow countryman Lucas Auer in the Mercedes-AMG before Fuller gained more time over the Winward entry once Engel took over.

Ferrari’s chances were hit early in hour 19 when Mosca had a coming together with the Winward Merc with Luca Stolz at the wheel under braking for Les Combes.

Mosca got a run on Stolz up the Kemmel Straight and was alongside the Merc when the contact was made in a clash that was ruled by the stewards to be a racing incident.

The car survived a third puncture of the event without damage, Alessio Rovera proving there was nothing wrong with the machine by setting fastest lap after taking over the controls.

The car dropped to as low as ninth, but Nicklas Nielsen was able to bundle his way up to third ahead of the Boutsen VDS Porsche driven by Dorian Boccolacci at Les Combes shortly before the safety car.

The stewards ruled that he had pushed the car off track and the AF Ferrari was handed a five-second time penalty to be taken at its next pitstop.

Morris Schuring in the Bousten Porsche was just over a second behind the third-placed Ferrari with three hours to go, while Ayhancan Guven was just five tenths behind in fifth aboard the Schumacher CLRT Porsche.

The No. 46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO ran sixth in the hands of Max Hesse, just ahead of the No. 50 AF Ferrari driven by Lilou Wadoux.

Christian Krognes held eighth in the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The last car on the lead lap as the race entered its final phase was the No. 32 WRT BMW, which appeared to be in outside contention for a podium.

Already on an alternate fuel strategy, the car pitted twice during the caution in the 21st hour.

ROWE Racing’s No. 998 BMW led the Gold Cup in 11th place just ahead of the battle for Bronze Cup honors being fought by the No. 74 Kessel Ferrari and the No. 991 Paradine Competition BMW.

The Silver Cup was headed by WRT’s No. 30 entry by less than a second from the No. 5 Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

JMR’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R was the Pro-Am leader at 21 hours.