Nielsen Keeps Ferrari in Front After 24H Spa First Hour

Nicklas Nielsen maintained the lead of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa at the wheel of the AF Corse Ferrari that started from pole following an incident-filled first hour.

Nielsen led by just over two seconds over the No. 58 Gold Cup pacesetting Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Tom Fleming that started alongside the No. 50 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo on the front row of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS blue-riband event.

While Nielsen maintained the lead at the start, Frederik Schandorff made it two Ferraris in the top three when he guided the No. 74 Selected Car Racing entry into third off the line, getting the jump on Dani Juncadella in the No. 3 Verstappen Racing 2 Seas Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

One of the best starts belonged to Maro Engel in the No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG as, despite having to veer beyond the edge of the track approaching Eau Rouge, he climbed a place from sixth to fifth and nearly passed Juncadella as well.

But the prospect of any further battling had to be put on hold when the first incident came at Pouhon further around the first lap of green flag running when Ariel Levi ran wide in the No. 66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II that won last time out in GTWC Europe at Monza and lost control.

This sent him into the path of the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Jamie Day and triggered chaos behind.

The No. 992 Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Christian Hahn and the No. 35 Walkenhorst Aston Martin of Maxime Robin joined Levi in being eliminated on the spot, while several other cars picked up damage.

Almost as soon as the race resumed, a full-course yellow was called for debris from the No. 42 Century BMW that had been caught up in the first-lap shenanigans.

This meant it was not until lap nine that a fully green lap was completed but there was another short FCY on the following tour to retrieve more debris.

After this chaotic first 30 minutes, the remainder of the first hour was far calmer as Nielsen continued to lead from Fleming and Schandorff, whose Ferrari did get close to the McLaren on a couple of occasions but was unable to challenge.

Juncadella and Engel maintained fourth and fifth while Ben Tuck kept the Bronze Cup lead in the No. 74 Kessel Ferrari in sixth overall.

However Tuck did brush with Alex Aka’s Attempto Audi at the Bus Stop chicane when he got the jump on the No. 99 car and this later led to a puncture for Aka to complete a miserable start to the race for the squad.

Marvin Kirchhoefer profited from this to rise to seventh in the second Garage 59 McLaren, while the No. 2 Boutsen VDS Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Alessio Picariello climbed to eighth.

The top ten was then completed by Cesar Gazeau’s Silver Cup leading No. 6 GetSpeed Mercedes and the lead HRT Ford Mustang GT3 EVO of Arjun Maini.

Of the notable cars to receive qualifying penalties, Maxime Martin guided the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes that had set the fastest time in first qualifying before being sanctioned up to 29th from 52nd on the grid.

Similarly, Sean Gelael had progressed from 28th to 23rd in the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari that was third-fastest in Superpole before losing its times due to a disconnected data logger.