Spa Post-Race Notebook

***Thomas Preining, Ricardo Feller and Bastian Buus’ success for the Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo squad in this year’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa marked the manufacturer’s ninth win in the Belgian endurance classic, but it is still some way adrift of BMW’s record of 25 triumphs.

***The victory was Preining’s second success in the Intercontentinal GT Challenge, while it was a maiden win for his teammates. The triumph has elevated Buus to fourth in the IGTC table, 19 points behind Spa runner-up Maro Engel. However, the Mercedes-AMG driver is set to prioritize his DTM commitments over contesting the final two IGTC events at Suzuka and Indianapolis.

***Porsche has now taken the lead in the series’ manufacturers’ standings, having overturned a nine-point deficit to top the table by the same margin. Alongside the Lionspeed Porsche’s win, it also picked up the points for finishing fourth with the Schumacher CLRT example.

***The Spa contest was also the third round of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS with points awarded to the leaders after six hours and at halfway in addition to the final classification. It was the No. 28 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II that scooped the maximum score for being in front at one-quarter’s distance by virtue of having yet to pit at that point, while the leading contenders had, but this car crashed out overnight. The No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo that finished as runner-up was the top scorer at the 12-hour point.

***That result mean the No. 48 crew of Engel, Lucas Auer and Luca Stolz head the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup standings with over double the points of the No. 7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo that sits in second after winning the Paul Ricard opener. The Aston was on course for a strong result at Spa until Nicki Thiim crashed at Raidillon in the 15th hour.

***Thiim said: “I’m absolutely destroyed. I feel so sorry for everyone. I tried to push as much as we could and was stuck behind the [No. 50] Ferrari for a long time but that’s no excuse for a mistake like this. I’m so angry with myself.”

***The winning Porsche completed 541 laps, which is the fourth-greatest total from the past ten editions. Leading the way was the 2021 contest when 556 laps were completed.

***However, eight cars finishing on the lead lap is a 24H Spa record. A joint record! Remarkably that’s the number of entries that has completed the winning distance five times in the past seven years. Eight cars also finished on the lead lap in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024 prior to this year.

***There were 47 classified finishers in this year’s race, the third-highest tally of the past decade. Heading that leaderboard are the 2025 and 2019 contests that both had 51 cars reach the checkered flag.

***Prior to Preining establishing the Porsche at the head of this year’s order, it had looked like the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari was on course to take victory. Ferrari suspects that the sudden tire deflation that hit the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo as Nicklas Nielsen exited the Bus Stop in hour five was caused by a valve failure. Further investigation will be required, said the Italian manufacturer’s head of sports car racing, Antonello Coletta, to confirm the reason for a problem that dropped the car that eventually finished third off the lead lap.

***Coletta praised Tommaso Mosca after his first 24H Spa as a factory Ferrari driver, despite the clash with the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG that caused the third tire deflation on the No. 51 car. “For Tommaso, it was his first time in a Pro car at Spa and he drove very well, was very consistent and made a lot overtakes,” Colleta told Sportscar365. “I am very happy about the value of all our drivers, as well as the team. Obviously we would have liked to win, but that’s racing.”

***The result represented Ferrari’s third consecutive 24H Spa podium with Alessio Rovera among the driver roster on each of those occasions.

***One of the expected frontrunners that failed to feature at the front was the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG. It had set the quickest time during first qualifying before losing its place in the Superpole shoot-out and being relegated to 52nd on the grid after the team was found to have been working on the rear brake without permission during the session.

***It had been making steady progress into the top half of the field when Maxi Goetz collided with the No. 177 Grupo Prom Racing Mercedes-AMG at the pit lane entrance, which put both cars out. It was therefore a miserable 20th appearance in the 24H for two-time winner Maxime Martin. The local driver said: “This isn’t how I imagined my 20th 24 Hours of Spa would go, but that’s motorsport sometimes. We’ll come back.”

***The DNF has also been a blow to Martin’s IGTC title hopes after he had won both of the opening two events alongside Engel. He now sits third in the table.

***The No. 46 WRT BMW M4 EVO GT3 did move into the Spa lead following repeated cautions during the night but Head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos was left frustrated that the German marque lacked the performance to mount a challenge for victory as the No. 46 machine slipped to sixth by the end.

***Roos said: “We travelled to the 24-hour race with the ambition of having a say in the fight for overall victory. As record winners, that is our expectation. Therefore, it is very disappointing that we were unable to achieve that in the overall ranking with these strong drivers and teams.”

***The No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Mathys Jaubert, Ben Tuck, Dennis Marschall and Dustin Blattner led the Bronze Cup order for much of the race to score a second successive class success for the squad and finish in tenth place overall. Its only major drama was when the left door became detached following repeated contact and had to be swapped during a pit stop.

***Second in the Bronze rankings, a lap adrift after a late puncture, was the No. 991 Paradine Competition BMW. This was compromised by fuel rig woes that caused the team to underfuel and left the crew on the back foot during a full-course yellow. Nevertheless, team owner Darren Leung described finishing 13th overall as a “fantastic” result.

***Track-limits penalties were a recurring theme during the race, especially for the No. 914 Pro-Am Cup Razoon – more than racing Porsche of Ed McDermott, Kenzie Beecroft, Bryce Fullwood and Carl Bennett. The quartet were only confirmed as taking part in the days before the event and accumulated a gargantuan total of 27 minutes of sanctions between them for the offences, which contributed to the Porsche finishing 42nd, 81 laps down on the winning Lionspeed example.

***This year’s race attracted a record attendance of 132,000 people. This compared to the 128,000 that was reported last year.

***As well as making conditions extremely tough for teams and drivers, the hot temperatures at Spa also meant the traditional Saturday night firework display was cancelled.

Gary Watkins contributed to this report