Wittmann Leads With Three Hours to Go

Photo: Kevin Pecks/SRO

Marco Wittmann led the way with three hours to go in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.

The No. 98 ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 held a 40-second advantage over the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Augusto Farfus and the No. 11 Comtoyou Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase, all three cars which are due pit stops.

A Full Course Yellow at the end of the 20th hour for the No. 35 Walkenhorst BMW that stopped on track put the leading contenders back on sequence, although a fuel-only stop for Kelvin van der Linde in the No. 17 Scherer Sport PHX Audi saw the South African emerge in second.

Van der Linde, however, was unable to match the pace of Wittmann on the restart, with the German having stretched into an initial eight-second lead, which was further expanded through the remainder of the stint.

A series of pit stops at the end of the 21st hour shook up the running order as teams worked to back-time to the finish of the race.

The No. 88 Akkodis-ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Raffaele Marciello first pitted with 3 hours and 7 minutes to go after getting caught up behind the pair of Audis in the battle for second.

It promoted the No. 96 Rutronik Porsche 911 GT3 R of Dennis Olsen to fourth at the time, which also came down pit lane, as well as the No. 92 Manthey EMA Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor.

Trouble struck the only race-contending Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, with Marco Mapelli pitting his K-PAX Racing entry with an alternator issue.

It remained in the garage for nearly 20 minutes and dropped outside the top-30 in the highly competitive field.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John