Spa 24h red-flagged due to heavy rain
Heavy rain led to the Spa 24 Hours being red-flagged at the 13-hour mark.
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
Following a Safety Car intervention lasting almost three hours, race officials opted to red flag the race due to the consistent rain at around 5.40am local time.
The #63 Grasser Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Christian Engelhart, Mirko Bortolotti and Rolf Ineichen led by 7.4 seconds at the time of the stoppage from the #34 Walkenhorst BMW M6 GT3 driven by Nicky Catsburg, Mikkel Jensen and Christian Krognes.
The third-placed #54 Dinamic Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by Klaus Bachler, Andrea Rizzoli and Zaid Ashkanani was a further 13s behind.
The first three cars had not taken their mandatory five-minute technical pitstop that allows the cars to change brakes under controlled, non-competitive conditions.
SMP Racing's Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Mikhail Aleshin, Davide Rigon and Miguel Molina was running fourth when the red flags were shown.
The AF Corse-run car took its second haul of maximum Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup bonus at the 12-hour mark. It was leading the race when the second tranche of points were awarded, just as it was at six hours, and then made its mandatory five-minute stop.
The pole-winning #4 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Maro Engel, Yelmer Buurman and Luca Stolz was fifth having led the race by more than half a minute in the small hours of the morning.
Top Audi was the #2 WRT entry shared by DTM drivers Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Nico Muller in ninth position, the last car on the lead lap.
UPDATE: Officials have announced that the race won't resume until at least 11.30am local time as heavy rain persists, having originally planned to suspend the race for only an hour.
Team managers will meet in advance to discuss whether the conditions have suitably improved to allow the race to restart. The race is scheduled to conclude at 4.30pm local time.
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments