Henrique Chaves topped this evening’s extended Warm Up session ahead of the 2023 Spa 24 Hours, setting a 2:18.730 in the #188 Bronze Cup-entered Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3.
Making it a 1-2 for the Garage 59 team and McLaren was Marvin Kirchhöfer, who ended up with a tenth of Chaves’ times in the #159 sister 720S GT3 which is entered in the Pro class.
Completing the top five in the session were the #55 Dinamic GT Porsche, #32 WRT BMW and #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, who were all within half a second of the fastest time. The #55 Porsche’s time made it two Bronze Cup cars in the top five.
Further down the order the IGTC-entered #75 Sun Energy1 Mercedes-AMG GT3 ended up 14th with its new-look driver line-up, which has changed for a second time on short notice.
The car initially missed Qualifying after Kenny Habul crashed during Pre-Qualifying. The incident left him unfit to race, forcing the team to source both a brand-new chassis and a replacement driver.
Initially, Australian racer Liam Talbot was scheduled to drive the car in Habul’s place, but he has been unable to arrive at the circuit in time to complete the mandatory track time in order to participate in the race. As a result Adam Osieka, the CEO of GetSpeed which is running the Sun Energy1 Mercedes effort, will race.
The Sun Energy1 team will start from the pit lane due to its absence from Qualifying.
The 75th CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa will get underway tomorrow at 16:30 local time with the #20 Huber Motorsport Porsche heading a 70-car field.
Images courtesy of SRO (featured) and Frozenspeed (Mercedes)
