The overcast sky continues to threaten rain at the 24h of Spa-Francorchamps, even if for the moment the protagonists of GT World Challenge Europe and Intercontinental GT Challenge have not had to deal with the wet, apart from some sporadic drops along the 7km of the Ardennes route.
In the meantime we have reached the end of the sixth hour and the race is starting to take shape, primarily with the PROs who are slowly going to occupy all the Top10 positions, while the second retirement recorded at the moment is that of the McLaren #7 of the Inception Racing that Franck Rueda tried to bring back to the pits for a long time, stopping several times along the track due to a technical problem that hasn’t been resolved.
Another fact to report is the flood of penalties that are affecting the various cars that have been caught too many times beyond the notorious Track Limits, with the race direction inflicting an additional 30″ to be served at the pit stop.
Some illustrious names suffered the consequences, starting with the Porsche #92 of Manthey EMA which had taken the lead with Julien Andlauer towards the end of the sixth hour, with a nice overtaking on the Audi #17 of Scherer Sport PHX driven by Luca Engstler , but the #40 Audi of Tresor Orange 1 – battling for the podium at the start – was also caught out.
After the fifth pinwheel of the pit stops for most of the competitors, the fight for the supremacy was on fire between the BMW #32 of Team WRT and the Audi #17, with Charles Weerts completing the work bringing the M4 ahead of Egnstler on lap 130.
The Mercedes #88 driven by Akkodis-ASP also made a comeback to applause, now third with Raffaele Marciello getting back on board after a good performance by Jules Gounon, albeit twenty seconds behind the leading duo.
The #998 BMW of Rowe Racing climbed back to fourth place, with the #92 Porsche of Manthey EMA behind, while a little further behind is the Audi #40 of Tresor Orange 1.
The Ferrari 296 #71 of AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors also recovered, especially in the stints of Antonio Fuoco, now replaced by Davide Rigon, seventh with the Mercedes #777 of AlManar Racing and the McLaren #159 of Garage 59 and the BMW # 98 by Rowe Racing which completes the all PRO Top10 with a slightly delayed stop strategy compared to the others.
In contention to enter now we have the Porsche #96 of Rutronik Racing, the BMW #46 of Team WRT slipped 13th after Valentino Rossi took a 30″ penalty for Track Limits, but also pardoned for a contact with the BMW #31 of his colleagues at the ‘Bus Stop’, who subsequently punctured the rear right.
The #85 and #58 Lamborghinis of GRT had taken the lead in the Silver Cup, but they too had to serve the 30″ Track Limits time, so now the Audi #99 of Tresor Orange 1 was in front of them.
In the Top 5 of the category there are the Audi #12 of Comtoyou Racing and the Mercedes #90 of Madpanda Motorsport.
Speaking instead of the Gold Cup, Winward Racing’s #157 Mercedes was overtaken by Boutsen VDS’s Audi #9 – which is 15th overall now with Alberto Di Folco at the wheel – and by WRT’s BMW #30. The Lamborghini #19 of Iron Lynx resists fourth with the McLaren #5 of Optimum Motorsport behind it.
A problem with the braking system slowed down the Lamborghini #78 of Barwell Motorsport (a problem that most of the cars of the Bull are experiencing), so we have the Car Collection Porsche #24 first in the PRO-AM Class with a good margin on ‘CSA Racing’s Audi #888, which overtook Riley’s #4 Mercedes, followed by those of HRT #64 and Sun Energy 1 #75, the latter starting from the pit-lane and returning to action with a new chassis after the testing incident.
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