Nielsen & Fleming to share front row
The starting drivers have been revealed, and its Nicklas Nielsen who will have the honour of leading the field to the green flag of the 2026 24 Hours of Spa aboard the #51 AF Corse Ferrari.
Thomas Fleming will start the #58 Garage 59 McLaren he qualified second yesterday, with Daniel Juncadella and Frederik Schandorff sharing the second row aboard the #3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG and #71 Selected Car Racing Ferrari.
Ben Tuck is set to start the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari from Bronze Cup pole, with Cesar Gazeau starting the #6 GetSpeed Team Bartone Bros Mercedes-AMG from the front in Silver.
Plenty of grid penalties have shuffled the order from the end of qualifying, including a five-place penalty for the #86 High Class Racing Porsche, which has handed Pro-Am pole position to the #71 AF Corse Ferrari aboard which Custodio Toledo will take the start.
Drivers to keep an eye out for in the opening hour include home hero Maxime Martin, who will start the #17 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed entry from 52nd on the grid, and Christopher Haase, who is set to line-up 62nd in the #84 Eastalent Racing Team Audi.
BoP Updated
Seven cars have received Balance of Performance changes ahead of the race.
The Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) has lost 15 kilograms, with 10 kilograms removed from the BMW M4 GT3 Evo, McLaren GT3 Evo and Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, and five kilograms taken off the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, Ford Mustang GT3 Evo and Lamborghini Temerario GT3.
The Ford and Lamborghini have also both received a power increase, in the form of a change of restrictor and boost respectively.
The Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, Corvette Z06 GT3.R and Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo will run in an unchanged specification.
Blackthorn penalty removed
The #56 Ecurie Ecosse Blackthorn Aston Martin has had its 150-second stop-and-go penalty rescinded, after the stewards determined that the team had not, in fact, performed a post-qualifying engine change.
The British squad is set to start from 60th on the grid.
Harper: Heat set to increase the challenge of “most physical” 24-hour race
The blistering temperatures that have gripped the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps so far this week have only relaxed slightly for race day, with a heat warning remaining in place, and thunderstorms in the forecast.
This is set to increase the toll the races takes on drivers, teams and cars alike, with keeping cool likely to play a key role in the outcome.
“Spa for me is probably the most physical 24 anyway,” Team WRT’s Dan Harper, a veteran of all five major 24-hour races, told DSC.
“The likes of the Nurburgring is for me more mentally demanding, whereas here it’s very physical, so in these conditions it makes it 10 times worse. I think with the BMW we’re quite lucky that we’ve got quite a decent air con system compared to some other cars, so that will play in our favour.
“Of course, it’s still ridiculously warm, so we need to save our energy and save the car, because when the car is running 40 degrees hotter, it’s also more difficult for it to keep running the way it starts off for 24 hours. There’s a lot of things to worry about, and we just need to take the race as it comes and let it come to us.”
The prospect of rain on the horizon is cause for optimism for Harper, with BMW lacking the outright pace of some of its rivals during qualifying and Superpole, although its weight break before the race should also help in this regard.
“At the moment what we need to hope for is a bit of a chaos race weather-wise,” he said.
“This is my fifth Spa, and I think we’ve always had big rain at some point, where we maybe had a long safety car during the night. I hope it doesn’t get to that point, we want to keep racing the whole time, but some change in tyres and having to make some difficult situations I think would really help us.”
Maini: “intense” Spa 24H a “fun experience”
HRT Ford Racing’s #64 Ford Mustang GT3 Evo of Arjun Maini, Fabio Scherer and Thomas Drouet is set to line-up ninth on the grid, following a solid qualifying session from the German-American alliance.
This means that the Pro class effort is well-placed to contend for a top result, something which will require, given the nature of the race, maximum effort from the crew from the wave of the green flag.
“I find Spa intense, because it’s 69 GT3 cars,” Maini said. “At the Nürburgring, in the night it gets very intense, but you find yourself in a rhythm, and the traffic you have to pass is much slower cars and easier to navigate.
“Whereas when you come across traffic in Spa, it’s usually the same category of car, which is much harder to pass, so it can be quite intense, and like typical 24-hour races in the modern era, with the cars being so reliable, everyone is going flat out from the beginning.
“I find Spa to be a very challenging race, especially when you’re fighting in the Pro class, because you don’t have the luxury of the wave by, and if you lose that lap for whatever reason, it’s gone. You have to try your best to not lose much time, because if you have a puncture or whatever, you need that cushion to be able to do the pit stop and not lose the lap.
“So you’re always pushing flat out from the beginning, and it’s amazing. When you go into the night, it’s something very special, and just a fun experience.”
Images courtesy of Frozenspeed
