Mirko Bortolotti in the #16 Grasser Lamborghini led much of the opening two hours of the 2016 Spa 24 Hours, before an incident at pit exit between two cars led to a long safety-car period for barrier repairs.
At the start, the entire field had swept through Eau Rouge without incident on the first lap, with Rene Rast easily holding the lead in the pole-sitting #28 Audi ahead of fellow front-row starter Bortolotti.
Several cars, including the #7 Bentley, started from the pitlane, while the #00, #84, #86 and #88 Mercedes (above) came in for their five-minute stop-and-hold penalties at the end of lap one. An off for Marco Seefried at Les Combes in the #333 Rinaldi Ferrari (above) brought out a full-course-yellow before the lap was over, however, but the Mercedes weren’t held any longer than the five minutes specified for a penalty taking place under green-flag conditions.
Of the other two penalised Mercedes, the #56 Black Falcon and #85 HTP cars, the latter came in once the track had gone back to green, but only remained stationary for about two minutes for what later turned out to be a puncture. At the restart, Rast appeared to be caught napping and dropped from first to third on the run to Eau Rouge, with Bortolotti assuming the lead and Pier Guidi taking the #50 AF Corse Ferrari (above) into second, however Audi later accepted responsibility for not informing him that the restart was imminent.
After seven laps, Soulet in the #8 Bentley (above) was fourth, ahead of Frijns in the #2 WRT Audi, (below) Werner in the #98 ROWE BMW, MacLeod in the #24 Parker Bentley (leading Pro-Am), Stippler in the #6 Phoenix Audi, Keen in the #666 Barwell Lamborghini and Bell in the #58 Garage 59 McLaren completing the top 10. Early leader in the Am class was Liam Talbot in the #888 Kessel Ferrari, running 34th overall.
Track-limits warnings soon became a regular feature of the bottom of the timing screens, and Kevin Estre in the #77 Attempto Porsche was the first to exceeded to permitted number of warnings and cop a drive-through penalty (the #29 Konrad Lamborghini was another offender). The #56 and #85 Mercedes also both made their required five-minute stop-go visits.
Pier Guidi stayed within a second of Bortolotti at the front of the field as the first hour drew to a close, while Frijns got ahead of Soulet for fourth. Bell lost two places on lap 21, with Perera in the #74 ISR Audi and Haase in the #26 Sainteloc Aud the benefactors. Perera immediately set about harrying Keen for ninth overall and second in Pro-Am.
A puncture for the #57 Black Falcon Mercedes (above, which had started from the back of the grid) fortunately occurred at just the right time for the car to take its first scheduled pit stop at around the one-hour mark when much of the rest of the field also started to come in.
Pier Guidi’s Ferrari was the major loser in the stops, which saw Bortolotti retain the lead in the #16 Lamborghini, Frijns move from the fourth to second in the #2 Audi and Vanthoor get aboard the #28 Audi, emerging third ahead of Pier Guidi’s co-driver Lathouras.
Lathouras was soon overtaken by Soulet’s Bentley, while up front, Frijns pushed Bortolotti hard for the lead, followed very closely by Vanthoor. Further back, Perera had moved into the Pro-Am lead during the first round of stops, while the Am lead has passed to Alex Moiseev in the Kaspersky Ferrari. Nick Catsburg had taken over the #98 ROWE BMW from Werner and also found a way past Lathouras to move into the top five with around 90 minutes of the race elapsed.
Shortly after that, Estre (who’d been given a second drive-through for track limits) made contact with the #53 Ferrari (above, being driven by Motoaki Ishikawa) while exiting the pits at the top of Eau Rouge. Both cars spun and impacted the barrier, prompting the second full-course yellow period of the race. WRT took the opportunity to pit Vanthoor in the #28, during which the FCY became a full safety-car period to facilitate Armco repairs, prompting further stops.
