With almost every major European championships visiting the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps at some point in their season, even amongst this year’s 24 Hours of Spa rookie class there are only a few drivers who are truly new to the Ardennes venue.
One driver this applies to is Leyton Fourie, who is set to race the #991 Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 Evo in the Bronze Cup alongside Darren Leung, James Kellett and David Pittard.
The 20-year-old, who currently leads the ADAC GT Masters, hadn’t turned a lap of the 7.004-kilometre circuit until earlier this week, owing to the last-minute nature of his opportunity to join the British squad.
“I was on my way to the Lautsitzring for GT Masters, and I got a message from Raphael Hess, one of our engineers who also works closely with Darren, that Paradine needed a silver,” the young South African tells DSC.
“They’d mentioned me, and Darren took the opportunity to do a background check and make a decision on whether he wanted us to be there or not, and he called me up and said ‘we’d gladly take you up on this opportunity if you’re willing to do it’. It’s the Spa 24 hours, so I couldn’t say no!”
Fourie, who is still based in South Africa, has taken an unconventional career path before arriving on the more traditional GT4 Germany to GT Masters route, which involved committing to racing on a different continent from a young age.
“I won Polo Cup in my rookie season back in South Africa, and I did the same with Super Polo,” he says.
“My engineer at the time was Etienne van der Linde, Kelvin and Sheldon’s uncle. He has great connections with the paddock here, and the relatively new BMW M2 Cup was brought to his attention.
‘We made a debut in the finale of the 2022 season at Hockenhiem. The finale went great, I got a podium, and Project1, which was running M2 Cup at the time, asked us to join for the 2023 season. I think we did everything we needed to in South Africa, so we left for Europe.
“It’s my fourth year in Europe now, so I’ve settled into terms with getting onto a 10-hour flight every third week. It’s been great. I’ve had some support from the South Africans that are here already, like Kelvin, Sheldon and Jordan [Pepper]. They’ve been a great help.”
It’s been an intense week of learning so far for Fourie, with him having to learn a new team, circuit and series at rapid-fire pace.
“Coming to a new team is a bit like dipping your feet into cold water,” he states.
“You don’t really know what to expect, but like I mentioned earlier, they’ve just been so welcoming. The team’s great, all the engineers, all the mechanics, and just the people involved in general. Obviously, it’s a little bit easier when they’re British speaking, because then there’s no language barrier for me, so it was easy to feel well-connected with everybody. They caught me up to speed with exactly what I needed to know with the setup and how the car should feel, so when I got into the first test day on Tuesday, I knew exactly what to expect.”
Compared to Fourie’s previous all-GT3 racing experience in ADAC GT Masters, the 24 Hours of Spa has a very different field dynamic. 56 more cars feature on this weekend’s grid compared to at the Lausitzring last weekend, with a vast range of pace and experience behind the wheel, as opposed to the ‘young professional’ focus of the GT Masters field.
“In Masters, all 13 cars are pros. Whereas we come here, there’s Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum drivers, so you have to get an idea of who’s the fast ones and realise that the rest are probably going to be someone that you have to work through during traffic. “It’s GT3 [only], so everyone has the same equipment you do, and to get through traffic like that can be extremely tricky.”
Coming to a new team is a bit like dipping your feet into cold water
Although his first 24 Hours of Spa, Fourie does have some twice-around-the-clock of experience, with a pair of appearances at the ADAC Nürburgring 24 Hours under his belt.
Other than the fact that they both occur in the same region of Europe, and offer GT3 machinery the chance to challenge for outright glory, the races could not be more different, meaning there is only limited knowledge that Fourie can transfer from one to the other.
“I think the only thing I can take from the Nürburgring 24 Hours is how to manage the sleep schedule,” he admits.
“Especially if you have the early hours in the morning, because you have to sleep so early but the adrenaline is still kicking, it can be a bit tricky, so I can take that experience. Also, managing traffic is usually quite a nice credit to have when you come from the Nurburgring, especially with the different classes they have there, but this race has its own challenges as well, so I’m going to have to take it comes.”
Fourie’s first competitive session with Paradine Competition proved to be a success, with the South African the top BMW driver in Thursday’s first qualifying session. Unfortunately, the #991 BMW’s hopes of progressing to Superpole were then derailed owing to the timing of the multiple red flags which impacted Q2, meaning they’ll have to fight through from 10th on the Bronze grid.
Despite this, the 20-year-old is still confident heading into the race, as Paradine seeks to avenge its disappointing outing from 12 months ago, when the #991 BMW withdrew on Sunday morning after getting caught up in multiple incidents.
“I was really happy with my lap,” he says.
“First BMW in Q1, which for me is a big achievement, especially as I only did about 15 laps around the track before qualifying. It was very unfortunate, what happened with Darren. The red flags couldn’t have been timed worse, and he’s also been driving spectacularly the whole week, so he definitely had a good chance of bringing us into Superpole.
“We’ve set the car up to manage traffic well, and I really do think we have a good race package.”
Images courtesy of Gruppe C Photography and SRO/JEP
