Toyota Gazoo Racing’s #7 GR010 HYBRID fought to victory in a rain-soaked 6H Spa which was heavily disrupted by three red flags and a smattering of safety car and full-course yellow periods.
It was a reverse of fortunes for the Toyota team after only one of its cars made the finish at Sebring in March. Today the #7 crew would bounce back after Jose Maria Lopez’s big off in the season opener, while the #8 failed to finish. This time, the sister car retired in the first half of the race due to a hybrid system failure.
This issue occurred in the second hour with Sebastien Buemi at the wheel. TV pictures were first made aware of it as the first red flag period for a hefty incident for Miro Konopoka (who thankfully walked away) in the ARC Bratislava ORECA, ended. Buemi was seen desperately trying to fire the car as the cars pulled away from the grid for the restart, it took a full power cycle from the Swiss driver to get it moving, but it wouldn’t last long as he wouldn’t make it round the full lap.
“It was a pretty serious issue,” Buemi said after climbing out the car and heading back to the pits, leaving his stranded GR010 on the exit of Campus after multiple power cycles. “They told me to jump out and not touch the car, there is a big risk of something going on when something like that happens.”
Despite the #8’s disappointing day Toyota still emerged victorious with Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, who secured a sixth straight 6H Spa win for the Japanese manufacturer.
“Great to have all the fans in today, it looked like a full house, we are looking forward to Le Mans now, this is good momentum,” Conway said after the race.
Alpine, which won at Sebring, took a strong haul of points with a second place finish, while the pole-sitting Glickenhaus took third in Hypercar but ninth overall.
Early in the race the 007 looked strong on pace and was able to keep in touch with the Toyotas that quickly took charge in the opening stint. But in the second half of the race, with all the confusion, disruption and changing conditions, made a mistake on tyre choice. Pipo Derani misheard his team on the radio and chose slicks too early instead of cut slicks, causing the car to struggle for grip, the team to box it again for cut slicks and fall down the order until they were able to switch back to slicks during a late full-course yellow in the final hour.
WRT scores 1-2 on home soil
LMP2 was WRT’s day. For a time it appeared that the No. 31 ORECA might have a chance to win the race overall, as the flurry of stops and stoppages due to heavy rain left Robin Frijns at the head of the field with over two hours to go.
“It was a bit of a surprise, the hypercars were behind me and I was pulling away, which was a great feeling,” Frijns explained. “I was the only one without spray.”
As the track dried and the racing got underway, Frijns dropped to third overall but held on for the win for the WRT team on home soil. It was a near faultless run that won the team this race, which almost ended in tears when Rene Rast had a collision with a spinning Ultimate ORECA at Bruxelles in the final minutes.
“We missed speed and struggled with technical issues last year. Now this year we finish 1-2 at our home race. It was a great show on track, all the drivers looked good, let’s see what we can do at Le Mans now,” said WRT boss Vincent Voss.
Behind, Realteam by WRT made it a 1-2 for the Belgian outfit, after a late spin from Phil Hanson at the Bus Stop cost the #22 United ORECA second in the class after a lengthy, frantic battle on track between Hanson and Ferdinand Habsburg.
Both United ORECAs in fact had a messy race. Alex Lynn put in a herculean effort to try and win the race for the #23 crew, but disaster struck in the pits when the driver door wouldn’t open, this forced the team to undergo a driver change from the passenger side, costing a huge amount of time and eventually dropping the car to sixth.
Oliver Jarvis eventually brought it home behind the #38 JOTA ORECA which completed the podium, the Penske ORECA which crossed the line fourth and the #22 that took fifth.
Calado holds off Christensen to win for AF Corse
GTE Pro was won by AF Corse and was a thriller right to the end. The first red flag looked to disrupt the race as the lack of a wave around and a set of stops from a few of the cars left the #52 AF Corse Ferrari with a full lap lead. However, this didn’t last for Anthonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina a wave around later in the race after the red flag for rain with two hours to go, meant four of the five cars in the class were back on the lead lap again and back in contention.
The battles for the podium spots raged until the end of the race, with the action reaching a crescendo in the final laps when Michael Christensen – who drove for five hours of this race – in the #92 Porsche caught James Calado in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari and pushed his 911 to its limit to steal the late win.
Remarkably, Calado, who inherited the lead with an hour to go at the final round of stops, held on. Despite Christensen piling on the pressure for multiple laps, he produced a masterclass in defensive driving on a greasy track, and survived a late lunge by the Dane at the Bus Stop on the final lap as Fuoco was closing in attempting to snatch second.
“It was really tough,” Calado exclaimed. “I knew the #92 was quicker, I was on the soft compound and risked everything. It was really fair close racing, and I enjoyed that all the way to the end.”
This result was a real turnaround for AF Corse, who struggled for pace at Sebring and looked to be behind on pace this weekend at Spa ahead of the race. However, the conditions, strong driver performances and drama at Turn 1 on the opening lap for Porsche helped them secure a double podium and their first win of the year.
It was Kevin Estre with a human error who was, unfortunately, to blame for Porsche’s bad start. The Frenchman made contact with the pole-sitting sister #91 which caused a puncture that would cost Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz a lap, a deficit which they were unable to recover from.
“I apologise to the 91 for contact at T1,” Estre said on social media. “I locked up and couldn’t go anywhere. They got a puncture from the contact and it’s fully on me”
Corvette meanwhile, finished a lowly fourth after a quiet race in which the C8.R faded in the wet conditions after a strong start.
Tincknell, Priaulx & Ried on top in Am
In GTE Am, it was a close finish too, with Harry Tincknell putting in an almighty performance to seal the win for the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche crew. In the closing laps he held off a hard-charging Marco Sorensen in the TF Sport Aston Martin, after having to save fuel to ensure the team made the finish without needing a splash.
It was a remarkably quiet run for the #77 team, which seemingly came out of nowhere in the second half of the race and finished strong. Looking back though, it was a true team effort as strong stints from team owner and driver Christian Ried and Seb Priaulx (in only his second WEC start) before Tincknell climbed aboard laid the foundations for this impressive win.
“We were lurking the whole race!” Tincknell said after the race. “We were right there at the start when Christian was in the car against Pros but we were always P5 or P6. We had a limp in the middle, then it rained and we started to come back, we were talking at the end about boxing for fuel or risking it. I said ‘let’s try it, I’ll try and save fuel, you never know what’s going to happen?’ Then the FCY came, it meant we were safe on fuel and the last stint was crazy, it was win or fence.
“I took so many risks, and by the time he (Sorensen) was coming back to me, it was too late.”
Northwest AMR took third to make it a double podium for Aston Martin customer teams.
Next up on the calendar is the Le Mans 24 Hours on 11-12 June.
Dempsey Proton podium image courtesy of Harry Tincknell
