For the second consecutive year, the 24 Hours of Spa will start from 21st place on the grid for Valentino Rossi, who, together with Maxime Martin and Raffaele Marciello, missed out on access to the Superpole on Friday afternoon.
In Qualifying which took place on Thursday evening, the average time of the trio at the wheel of the #46 BMW was a whisker worse than the last available place in the Top20, thus finding themselves without the possibility of advancing further in the field.
While Marciello was very fast, Martin was unable to imitate the Swiss due to traffic, as was Rossi, who first got the red flag and aborted his attempt halfway through the session, and then made a couple of mistakes that had a specific weight in the overall time count.
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Valentino Rossi
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
“Considering that we are running a 24-hour race, it is not a disaster, but it certainly hurts to find ourselves in 21st place for the second year in a row, therefore first of the eliminated”, admitted the ‘Doctor’ in the meeting held at the hospitality of the WRT Team with the journalists present in Spa, including Motorsport.com.
“Lello did a great lap, while Maxime found traffic at the last chicane, losing time, despite being on the same level. When it was my turn, I can honestly say that I didn’t do a great lap because I made two mistakes, losing a few tenths “.
“The potential to stay in the Top20 was there and it would have been really interesting to play for it in the Shootout for the Superpole with Lello or Maxime. In any case, everything will depend on our pace, we are there to play for it and we will try.”
![#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Raffaele Marciello, Maxime Martin, Valentino Rossi](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/63vzl77Y/s1000/46-team-wrt-bmw-m4-gt3-raffael.jpg)
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Raffaele Marciello, Maxime Martin, Valentino Rossi
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
For the WRT M4 GT3 team, the hope is to be able to bring out the best in the race, which usually happens thanks to a car that is squeezed to the max when needed.
However, the ‘hide and seek’ game was adopted by a lot of teams throughout the weekend, so any predictions in view of the race which will start at 4.30pm on Saturday are currently in vain.
“Last year we finished in 6th place and in the race we were able to fight for the top, even if honestly we lacked a bit of speed. Now I think the car has improved and with the new asphalt there is it’s more grip to push.”
“But it’s difficult to make predictions here, we’ve already seen that things can change from one day to the next and we’ll have to see how the race pace will be compared to the others. The goal remains to fight for the podium.”
![#63 Iron Lynx, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2: Andrea Caldarelli, Matteo Cairoli, Mirko Bortolotti](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/0ZRLygV0/s1000/63-iron-lynx-lamborghini-hurac.jpg)
#63 Iron Lynx, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2: Andrea Caldarelli, Matteo Cairoli, Mirko Bortolotti
Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo
Penalties for six cars after Superpole
At the end of the session that awarded the Superpole, six cars were penalised for not respecting the reference time for exiting the pits, which for the 24 Hours of Spa is obviously calculated taking into account that the entire lane is used to then take the track from the climb that leads to the ‘Raidillon’.
“Each car will be assigned a pit exit time starting from the twentieth position in the combined Qualifying standings, at one minute intervals”, we read in the regulation in Article 41.6h.
“Each car must cross the pit exit timing ring within a 10” window of this time, from 5” before to 5” after its target time.”
“Cars that cross the pit exit line before or after this time will be penalized by the Stewards in an amount equivalent to the time by which the car did not respect the window.”
Caught out were the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, the #23 Phantom Global Racing and #22 Schumacher-CLRT Porsches, and the #28 Haas RT Audi, which were relegated to the bottom of the top 20.
The #92 SSR-Herberth Porsche was instead punished with two places less on the grid, dropping from 8th to 10th, as was the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin, which finds itself from 11th to 13th.
Finally, during the race, the BMW #991 of Century and the Porsche #91 of Herberth Motorsport will be forced to serve a 5′ Stop&Go for having replaced the engine on Thursday evening. The moment of the stop will be communicated by the Race Director.
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