Gentlemen’s Trophy winner: #20 SOFREV ASP Ferrari 458
Patrice Gouselard: “We had no issues except a puncture near the beginning. The mechanics know this car very well, so we already had a good chance on paper from the start. We’ve won the championshiop, but we go to the Nurburgring aiming to win as always.”
Fred Bouvy (his 19th Spa 24 Hours): “It’s always nice to win here, I did it twice in touring cars. My co-drivers were all perfect – we didn’t see much of each other all race, but I guess we’ll have some beers and become friends now!”
Pro-Am Cup winner: #59 AF Corse Ferrari 458
Matt Griffin: “That was tough – Spa is one of the toughest 24-hour races you can do. After 90 minutes and the first two safety cars, we were sitting 49 th overall and two laps down on the class leader. So we thought any good result would be tough. Every lap I did was qualifying-style, at the absolute maximum the car and tyres could manage. We were back in contention by the morning and the last four hours were pretty tense. The SMP Ferrari’s penalty took the pressure off a bit, and all my co-drivers were amazing. The car was absolutely perfect, too – as good on the last lap as it was on the first.”
Alex Mortimer: “I can only echo what Matt said – I pushed hard every time I was in the car and stayed clean. The car was great from start to finish and always gave us the opportunity to catch up.”
Duncan Cameron: “That’s the first time I’ve finished the Spa 24! It was gruelling, really hard. Luca our engineer did an amazing job: we always knew what we had to do next. I drove every six hours and ended up doing two double stints. I’m over the moon and it hasn’t sunk in yet.”
Toni Vilander: “The job was to drive at the maximum and never give up. You never know what will happen in a 24-hour race. I said on the radio at one point that all we had to do was take it easy. You can see there isn’t a scratch on our car, which is what you need in a 24-hour race.”
Third overall: #2 WRT Audi R8
Andre Lotterer: “I was optimistic early on Sunday morning that we could make the podium. I think it’s clear people made sure Audi couldn’t win here. I don’t want to complain too much about the Balance of Performance, because it’s very obvious. We did the best with what we had, and the drinks bottle and ventilation weren’t working so well, so it was a lot tougher than Le Mans. We didn’t expect to be here at the end, so we’re pretty happy. As regards my spin – that sometimes happens when you’re pushing like hell. And when you spin backwards the ECU gets confused, so we lost a bit of time getting drive again.”
Frank Stippler: “It’s a better position than I expected, but at the same time we were seven or eight laps down, which shows you our true performance here.”
Christopher Mies: “I took the start and did a double stint, which was very hard. I asked for a single stint, but my co-drivers weren’t ready! We double-stinted in the night, which was okay, and we found 10-15 seconds on the Kessel car each time, but unfortunately for them their engine let go.”
Second overall: #150 Manthey Racing Porsche 911
Marc Lieb: “We didn’t win because the other were faster – that’s the only reason. We gave our all and always had the fastest pit stops. We lacked a little speed on track, then we were only running on five cylinders towards the end. We lost some time changing the brakes, too, but we’re proud to finish second.”
Richard Lietz: “We’re a bit spoiled with air-conditioning in the car. The first three stints or so were tough, then your body gets used to it. We decided not to do double stints, which meant we got less sleep, but we preferred not to be so worn out getting out of the car.”
Patrick Pilet: “It was qualifying pace every lap. The car was great with new tyres, but they tended to drop off towards the end of a stint. The Mercedes was able to double-stint its tyres at night, too. The drive-through was entirely my fault – I didn’t wait for the line. Overall, we’re happy with the weekend. It was a one shot and I think we did very well.”
Overall winner: #84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS AMG
Bernd Schneider (first won this race in 1989): “It was great to win back then – it was my only victory for two years, because my F1 career was so bad. That helped me to survive as a professional driver. I did not expect a 24-hour qualifying session – we pushed all night and only in the last two hours could we be more gentle. The Porsche had better fuel consumption, so we had to catch them on track every time. Without their drive-through I’m not sure we could have done it.”
Max Gotz: “I had a very long run at the start – 2.5 hours in the car, and the strategy was changing constantly with the safety cars. The car is great and very comfortable, which made double-stinting easier, and it was better once the temperature came down at night.”
Max Buhk: “I didn’t feel pressure sharing a car with Bernd – in fact, he took some of the pressure off me. We had no mechanical problems – just a glitch with the radio and drinks bottle occasionally. I’ll need a few days for this to sink in – I really didn’t come here expecting to win.”
Stephen Errity
