Tandy Leads After Lengthy FCY Period

Photo: Porsche

Nick Tandy leads the Total 24 Hours of Spa with a little under three hours completed as the race gets back underway following a lengthy Full Course Yellow period.

The 75-minute neutralization, which ended in safety car as is customary in the Blancpain GT Series, was caused by a heavy crash for Jean Paul Buffin at Les Combes.

Buffin, driving the 3Y Technology BMW M6 GT3 spun into the tire barrier after dropping a wheel onto the wet grass.

He will remain in hospital overnight as a precautionary measure but, along with a marshal involved in the incident, has been declared OK.

A number of cars completed their first joker pit stops on the first time entering the pits under the FCY, allowing them to jump up the order, while a number of others took their joker on the next stop, still under FCY.

It appears that some cars near the top of the order simply drove through the pit lane to reset their stint time on their most recent stops, employing a strategy used by Land Motorsport last year.

The leading three drivers – Tandy, Maxi Buhk and Michael Christensen – all had stops around 73 seconds, roughly the time for a drive-through. The standard minimum stop time for refuelling is 115 seconds.

Tandy is driving the No. 998 ROWE Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, running just ahead of GruppeM’s Buhk.

Pieter Schothorst leads the Silver Cup for Attempto Racing in eighth, while Ram Racing’s Darren Burke and Raton Racing by Target’s Antonio Forne Thomas lead Pro-Am and Am.

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.