Conditions: Dry and cloudy
The penultimate hour of the 2013 Spa 24 Hours was initially very much a case of ‘as you were’, with hardly any incidents or position changes in the first 30 minutes. Pro-Am continued to be main source of interest for observers: Griffin passed the #59 AF Corse Ferrari to Vilander, while Salo handed the #71 SMP machine to Maurizio Mediani.
Vilander was unsurprisingly the faster of the two after the stops, putting the ball very much in AF Corse’s court with less than 90 minutes of the race remaining. The seemingly endless parade of track limits warnings continued apace – though there were no drive-through penalties issued by Cottrell and Co in race control during this hour.
But 20 minutes before the hour mark, there was some late-race heartbreak for two top-10 runners. The #26 Vita4One BMW squad’s Z4 was spotted stranded in pit entry, before being pushed down to the appropriate garage by a combination of marshals and team mechanics.
Seconds later, long-time third-place runner Kessel Racing Ferrari came charging into the pits with smoke billowing from under the engine cover. Both cars were pushed back into their garages but in both cases the damage looked terminal, both seemingly engine related.
The net result was that as the final 60 minutes of this year’s race approached, the WRT Audi of Lotterer, Mies and Stippler found itself in a podium position behind the leading duo of HTP Mercedes and Manthey Porsche. The #6 Phoenix Audi with Christopher Haase at the controls was promoted to fifth, and the ongoing Pro-Am lead battle became a scrap for fifth overall at this point.
Class positions after 23 hours:
Pro:
1 – #84 HTP Mercedes
2 – #150 Manthey Porsche
3 – #2 WRT Audi
Pro-Am:
1 – #59 AF Corse Ferrari
2 – #71 SMP Ferrari
3 – #35 RJN Nissan
Gentlemen:
1 – #20 SOFREV Ferrari
2 – #52 Sport Garage Ferrari
3 – #111 Kessel Ferrari
Stephen Errity
