Sturm Tops 24H Spa Warmup in Car Collection Porsche

Joel Sturm set the warmup pace for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa at the wheel of the Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo.

The 30-minute session was the final chance for teams to get out on track before the start of Saturday’s race and 62 of the 69 squads set a representative lap time.

Sturm was the quickest thanks to a 2:18.445 right at the very start of the session to end up two tenths faster than the opposition in the Pro-Am Cup entry.

Second quickest was the Gold Cup No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Alex Aka, who clocked a 2:18.640 that was nearly three tenths faster than the best of the Pro Cup cars, the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Fabian Schiller that is starting down towards the rear of the grid after having some of its qualifying times deleted when mechanics worked on its brakes.

Another Mercedes-AMG, the No. 48 Winward machine of Maro Engel, was fourth fastest on a 2:18.927 while the top five was rounded out by JMR Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R pilot Ben Green with a 2:19.119.

The Bronze Cup was topped by the No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Ben Tuck with a 2:19.171 that was good enough for sixth overall.

Tuck was fractionally quicker than the No. 89 Lionspeed GP Porsche of Alex Fontana that was second in class.

The top-ten was then completed by a trio of Mercedes-AMG machines, the No. 12 Bronze GetSpeed crew heading the sister Silver Cup-pacesetting No. 6 entry and the No. 87 Bronze Winward car.

There were no late improvements as the first droplets of rain of the Spa event arrived at the final corners in the closing minutes of a largely uneventful session.

Attention now turns fully to the 79th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa, which is due to begin at 4:30 p.m. CEST (10:30 a.m. EST) on Saturday.

RESULTS: Warmup