Spa Post-Race Notebook

***ROWE Racing racked up BMW’s 25th overall victory at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, extending the German manufacturer’s record over second-placed Porsche which has eight wins.

***The ROWE team, which is run by Motorsport Competence Group and backed by ROWE Motor Oil, equaled Vitaphone Racing as the joint-most successful team in the event’s GT racing era with three wins.

***Nick Yelloly and Marco Wittmann became first-time Spa winners, while Philipp Eng added to his victories in 2016 and 2018. The Austrian driver has now won the race with three different models of BMW GT3 car: the Z4, the M6 and the M4.

***Eng also became only the eighth driver to score three outright 24H Spa victories, joining the likes of Hans Heyer, Roberto Ravaglia and Michael Bartels.

***Eng, Yelloly and Wittmann maintained their lead in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup. Their 76-point total is eight more than the Akkodis ASP crew of Jules Gounon, Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy.

***Although BMW won the race, Audi Sport clinched the Coupe du Roi, which is awarded to the manufacturer with the best overall performance factoring in the five different classes. Audi teams scored podiums in every category except for Bronze Cup.

***Audi Sport head of customer racing Chris Reinke said: “Thanks to our customers for this first-class team result. It was only due to the good individual results in the classes at different scoring times that we won this valuable award for the fourth time after 2014, 2015 and 2016.”

***BMW M Motorsport, Team WRT and ROWE Racing have stated that further investigation will take place into Charles Weerts and Neil Verhagen’s accident on the Kemmel Straight during the 12th hour.

***The crash was caused by ROWE driver Verhagen slamming into the back of Weerts’ No. 32 WRT BMW, which had started slowing to prepare for a Full Course Yellow period. A statement from the ROWE team said that Verhagen received “different information about the exact start time of the yellow period.”

***WRT team principal Vincent Vosse said that the No. 32 car, which had been a key contender, was “put out of the race by an incident provoked by confusing instructions coming from the race direction.” He added: “It’s difficult to accept at this level of competition and it’s something that will have to be analyzed.”

***Runner-up Jules Gounon hit out at a “lack of respect” from some drivers that the Frenchman said were not penalized by race control for contact at various stages in the race.

***Gounon told Sportscar365: “I saw some stuff at the end of the race, we were fighting for an overall podium, cars that were five laps down, in a different class, that were closing doors and had contact with. I didn’t know what they were expecting. I don’t understand why the race director was not more severe with this kind of [conduct] because it was useless and it made you lose positions for nothing.”

***The No. 87 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG retired with eight and a half hours to go after a clash with the No. 30 Team WRT BMW. Maximilian Goetz recovered from the spin, but the contact had inflicted radiator damage. ASP also saw its Bronze Cup entry fall by the wayside due to an engine failure.

***Nicki Thiim “had a lot of fun” en route to a third-place finish with Scherer Sport PHX’s independent Audi entry. “It’s nice to come here and smash all of the Audi guys, to be honest,” said Thiim. “It’s actually good fun with no preparation. Last time I drove this car here was almost ten years ago [with Phoenix]. I finished P3 as well.”

***Attempto Racing’s Audi Sport Tresor Orange 1 entry incurred a 30-second penalty for track limits late in the race. It ended up 93 seconds behind the winner in seventh.

***Attempto Audi driver Ricardo Feller told Sportscar365: “We tried to go all-in and push maximum, so we went a bit over track limits and risked the penalty. We were a bit off the pace in the last four hours.”

***Ferrari fell short of claiming a triple crown of the major European 24-hour races as the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 finished one lap down in 11th and the sister No. 51 car retired after its crew battled with a fuel pump issue.

**AF Corse team manager Bernardo Serra reflected: “The qualifying performance was quite good, but it’s clear that we didn’t have super race pace.”

***Tim Heinemann recorded the CrowdStrike fastest lap of the race in the Bronze Cup class-winning No. 20 Huber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R with a time of 2:17.087. It marked a new GT3 race lap record for the event.

***The No. 159 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo encountered a “brake-related issue” that led to a suspension failure, according to team principal Andrew Kirkaldy. “We don’t know exactly the reason why,” he said. “But it was a lot of damage and not recoverable.”

***Garage 59 led the opening hours of the Bronze Cup race with its No. 188 McLaren but the car only managed 10th in class at the end after contact with another vehicle resulted in a bent track rod that needed to be changed. It then encountered further strife at a late-race pit stop when the starter motor failed.

***Henrique Chaves impressed early in the race as he brought the No. 188 McLaren through the top half of the field. “TThe team did an amazing job setting up the car,” he told Sportscar365. “In the race, the pace was there. I really enjoyed it. It was mega fun going from P28 to P4 in one hour and a half.”

***Optimum Motorsport won Gold Cup after recovering from two episodes where it lost ground. The first was a pit stop shortly before a Full Course Yellow period, when the field was running at full speed, and the second was a 30-second penalty for track limits.

***Charlie Fagg, who won Gold Cup alongside Tom Gamble, Dean MacDonald and Sam De Haan, told Sportscar365 that Optimum “just grafted through the night to try and churn back onto the lead lap.” The British driver added: “The pace was great and strategy-wise we nailed it, so it was spot-on.”

***Inception Racing’s McLaren was the second retirement of the race after four hours. “We had an electrical problem, the car was switching on and off without us touching anything,” team manager Bas Leinders told SRO TV pit lane reporter Amanda Busick. “We don’t know what it is yet. Unfortunately, we were not able to come back to the pits.”

***The Madpanda Motorsport Mercedes-AMG lost around 30 minutes after a gravel trap stone punctured the car’s radiator and caused a fluid leak, according to team principal Ezequiel Companc.

***Grasser Racing Team earned its first 24H Spa class victory with Clemens Schmid, Benjamin Hites and Glenn van Berlo, and Lamborghini’s first 24-hour success since 2020.

***Despite Grasser’s achievement, it was a torrid day for Lamborghini’s hopes of a first overall Spa win, as both Iron Lynx and K-PAX Racing encountered issues. Iron Lynx retired after six hours, having struggled with a brake caliper issue according to team principal Andrea Piccini.

***Lamborghini teams switched brake suppliers after multiple cars failed to get through the six-hour Paul Ricard 1000km without changing pads and disks. K-PAX team principal Darren Law reported that brake wear was much improved at Spa. “We may have been able to make it [without changing],” he said. “There was a ton of brake left and resolved that issue.”

***Despite a tough weekend for Iron Lynx, which saw all three of its cars retire for different reasons, Piccini praised the Balance of Performance. “The BoP was really well done this time,” he told Sportscar365. “All the cars were there and I have to say to SRO and Claude [Surmont, SRO technical director] that they did a good job because the race has been fantastic to the end.”

***Spa marked the first GTWC Europe Endurance Cup round this season that did not include a BoP adjustment between qualifying and the race.

***After three rounds of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli, BMW leads the manufacturers’ standings on 100 points with defending champion Mercedes-AMG second on 91 and Porsche third on 57.

***Antares Au picked up maximum points in the IGTC Independent Cup with his Bronze Cup class win in the No. 20 Huber Racing Porsche, with Jonathan Hui scoring second-place points in the No. 93 Sky Tempesta Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

***Martin Konrad, who was nominated to score Independent points due to Kenny Habul not driving, picked up third-place points in the Pro-Am class-winning SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which finished 22nd overall compared to Au’s 13th-place result outright.

***Hui heads into next month’s Indianapolis 8 Hour with a 16-point lead over Stephen Grove, with Habul a further two points back in third.

***Habul paid tribute to the people from SunEnergy1 and Haupt Racing Team who delivered the Pro-Am victory in his absence due to injury. “I will not lie, I have been in terrible pain here and pretty restricted, and while I was not there to drink the champagne with the guys, I am sure we will make up for it soon,” he said.

***The IGTC surpassed its 10,000th racing lap when the counter ticked past lap 152 just before 11 p.m. The series started at Bathurst in 2016 and has now held 29 races.

***SRO reported a four-day attendance figure of 83,677 spectators. It marked an increase over the 73,000 reported attendance from last year’s race, which was held in its traditional late July date.

***A minute’s silence was held before the race start after the death of Dilano van ’t Hoff in an accident during Saturday’s Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine race. All start-line festivities were canceled following the news.

***A statement from SRO Motorsports Group read: “Everyone associated with the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa is devastated by the news that Formula Regional EU by Alpine driver Dilano van ‘t Hoff lost his life in an accident during this morning’s race. We express our deepest condolences to his family, friends and MP Motorsport.”

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report