With points doled out at the six-hour mark of the Spa 24 Hours, the situation at the top of both the overall Blancpain GT Series standings and the Blancpain Endurance Cup rankings is largely unchanged from before the race.
Rob Bell continues to lead the former solo due to his Sprint Series exploits (now on 124 points), from Dominik Baumann and Max Buhk (who didn’t score at six hours, but stay second on 78 points). Bell’s co-drivers Ledogar and van Gisbergen are third, now on 68 points. The big beneficiaries at six hours were Fred Vervisch in the #1 Audi (now up to fourth on 65 points) and Christopher Mies in the #6 Phoenix Audi (up to fifth on 62 points). Joint sixth are Laurens Vanthoor (who didn’t score at six hours due to the #28 Audi’s incident) and the #8 Bentley drivers Andy Soucek and Maxime Soulet.
In the Blancpain Endurance Cup standings, the #58 McLaren crew continue to lead from the #84 HTP Mercedes trio and the #8 Bentley drivers. Vervisch and Dries Vanthoor also gained here, thanks to their #1 Audi running third at the six-hour mark and now sit joint fourth in the standings. ROWE Racing’s difficult season to date means the #99 crew’s haul of 12 points only serves to put them seventh in the Endurance Cup.
Finding the pattern, strategy update at six hours with Paul Truswell
The complexity of SRO regulations for the Blancpain Endurance Series, along with three Full Course Yellow periods, one of which evolved into more than an hour of running behind the Safety Car – meant that the race took a long time to settle into any kind of pattern.
The swingeing five-minutes penalties handed out to the top six entries from Mercedes excluded them from playing any part in proceedings for the first quarter of the race: it will remain to be seen whether they are able to catch up the lost ground over the course of the race. Certainly, the fact that the track went to Full Course Yellow after less than half of the penalty time had elapsed for the nos. 84, 86, 88 and 00 Mercedes helped their cause enormously. However, the pace of the best of their average lap times has only just matched that of the leading cars, so it would seem that the ‘correction’ to the ECU settings has more than balanced their perceived performance advantage in the SuperPole shoot-out.
Without major attrition, there would seem to be no way that they will be able to overcome their disadvantage, although a top ten finish is likely. At the one-quarter distance it was the unpenalised Black Falcon car of Haupt, Simonsen and Christodoulou, that had started from the pit lane, which was the best of the Benz’s, having pulled a faster pit stop under the most recent Safety Car. The HTP cars that were running the cleanest of the penalised Mercs, pulling out a slight advantage over the other Black Falcon and the AKKA car, but without being able to get back onto the lead lap.
As far as the battle for the lead was concerned, the no. 28 WRT Audi (Rast/Müller/Vanthoor) and the no. 99 Rowe BMW (Martin/Sims/Eng) were emerging as the contenders for the points, due partly to a very fast double stint by Maxime Martin after the withdrawal of the first Safety Car, and also due to fast pit-work by the WRT crew.
With five hours of the race gone, these two were on diametrically-opposed pit-stop schedules, which allowed them each to lead half of each full driving stint of 65 minutes. However, a Safety Car period to deal with the ROAL BMW, which hit the barrier at Raidillon forced the WRT Audi to surrender its advantage, as it was the only car with only half-a-stint completed: all the others were able to pit for a full fuel replenishment and a reset of the driving stint time.
The no. 28 WRT Audi then lost two laps having the left rear corner patched up after a coming-together with Jonathan Hirschi in the Jaguar when battling for position on the start-up lap after the green flag for the second Safety Car, putting it out of contention.
Seven cars remain on the lead lap, with the last of them, the no. 7 Bentley having benefited from a pit stop under the most recent Safety Car to make up for a drive through penalty for abuse of track limits. These seven comprise three Audis, two Bentleys, a Lamborghini and the leading Rowe BMW.
With the four caution periods accounting for around two hours of the six so far run, the pattern of this race has yet to properly emerge. It will be a matter of staying out of trouble and looking at the situation when the sun comes up, but before that, there will be more points on offer at 4:30 tomorrow morning!”
