Starting Drivers
Qualifying driver Franck Perera has been elected to start the pole sitting #163 Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2, with Lucas Auer (#48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo) joining him on the front row.
Further back, Laurens Vanthoor (#992 Porsche 911 GT3.R) and Daniel Juncadella (#130 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo) will be aiming for an early charge through the field, as they start PRO cars from 43rd and 52nd overall respectively.
Cars Missing Warm-Up
ROWE Racing elected not to run the #98 in the Warm-Up yesterday evening as they already felt happy with their BMW M4 GT3. The defending winners are set to start from fifteenth on the grid today, 11 places higher than last year.
Attempto Racing’s #88 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II also missed the Warm-Up so they could change the gearbox ahead of the race. Lorenzo Patrese qualified the car a sensational fourth on the grid in Superpole, taking pole position in the Gold Cup class.
Hardship Lap For Proton Mustang
The #64 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 will complete a single installation lap between support race sessions pre-race after suffering engine problems in the Arm-Up session yesterday.
The car is the same Mustang GT3 that raced at Le Mans as the #44 in LMGT3 finishing fourth in class!
Super Pole Penalties
Six cars were given penalties in Superpole, for missing their target pit-release time.
For Superpole, the cars were released in one-minute intervals with a departure time from pit exit specified in the regulations. There was a five-second buffer allowed, with any additional time beyond the five seconds being added as a penalty to the car’s Superpole time.
The six cars penalised were the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin, the #22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche, the #23 Phantom Global Racing Porsche, the #28 Haas RT Audi, the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, and the #92 SSR Herberth Porsche. Of the six, the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini was hit the hardest, getting 1.6 seconds added to Caldarelli’s SuperPole time.
After catching up with some of the team managers this morning, there is the feeling that the 5-second buffer offered to the teams was insufficient to deal with the delay between the official timing in Race Control and the timing available to teams. Two teams told DSC today that they felt they were in the clear based on the timing available, but were pinged for missing their target by less than a second.
One team manager added that they felt it was an overreach to penalise the car for such a short delay, but that the penalty in grid position was trivial in the context of the 24 hour race.
BoP Adjustments
The BMW M4 GT3s received a 10 kg weight break in a Balance of Performance bulletin issued on Friday evening, the cars down to 1320 kg.
The Audis have been moved in the opposite direction, up 5kg to 1315 kg.
Pirelli
Pirelli have taken the whole lower plaza just below the F1 pits for their tyre supply operation, with the assembly line firing in full force this morning. In total, Pirelli are supplying over 8000 Slick P-Zero Racing tyres for the event – 30 sets for each car, plus an additional set for the 20 cars that made Superpole.
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies have brought 160,000 Litres of fuel to the 24 Hours of Spa, split across over 3000 barrels and 11 trucks.
Their 100% sustainable Excellium Racing 100 biofuel is being used at the race for the first time, and is powering all 66 GT3 cars in the main event. TotalEnergies are also supplying fuel for the support categories and generators in the paddock.
