Spa Wednesday Notebook

Photo: SRO

***GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and Intercontinental GT Challenge teams continued preparations for this weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on Wednesday, which included the annual track-to-town parade that featured every car competing in the Belgian endurance classic, as well as most of the machines from the support series that includes the GT4 European Series, Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, McLaren Trophy Europe and GT3 Legends.

***The parade also included the BMW M3 Touring 24H, driven into the town center by Kelvin van der Linde. The car that finished fourth overall in last month’s Nürburgring 24 will be on display this weekend as part of its European tour that included an appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It is due to also be present at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next month.

***The entry list is down to 69 cars following the late withdrawal of the No. 81 Era Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, which only had team owner Kyle Tilley and 2024 BTCC champion Jake Hill listed as drivers.

***Several other teams, meanwhile, have confirmed the final drivers in its lineups, including all four pilots for the No. 914 Razoon – more than racing Porsche, which will see Kenzie Beecroft, Ed McDermott, Bryce Fullwood and former Isotta Fraschini FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar pilot Carl Wattana Bennett in the Pro-Am Cup entry.

***Australian rising star Bayley Hall has been a late confirmation in the No. 123 Muehlner Motorsport Porsche, enough so for Hall to have gotten his sister to fly from Queensland to Darwin to deliver his passport for the journey to Spa-Francorchamps. Hall was competing in the Dunlop Super2 Series, a support series for the Repco Supercars Championship, last weekend at Hidden Valley Raceway in the Northern Territory of Australia.

***Hall told Speedcafe last weekend: “I’ll be flying directly from Darwin to Singapore, Singapore to London, London to Brussels and then down the highway to Spa-Francorchamps. It’s been a bit of a logistical nightmare to make it all come together. Booking hotels in German and French and whatever is painful, but it’s part of the job.”

***Andreas Latorre and Armand Fumal have also been late confirmations in the Muehlner Porsche alongside Tobias Mueller. Paul Meijer, who was originally listed to take part, has been replaced in the Bronze Cup entry. The Bernhard Muhelner-owned team will be taking part in its 60th 24-hour race this weekend. Click Here for the latest entry list.

***Teams had their first running on Tuesday with a Paid Test Session and a Bronze Test. Tommaso Mosca led the way in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, thanks to a 2:178.002 lap time that edged out local favorite Maxime Martin, in the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, by 0.091 seconds. Martin set an identical time to the No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Dennis Marschall. Charles Dawson, meanwhile, paced the Bronze session in the No. 222 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.

***Only two Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs are on the grid this year, largely due to the clash with this weekend’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, where all but one of Corvette’s factory drivers are competing in. Nico Varrone, the seventh factory pilot, is on Formula 2 duty at the Red Bull Ring. Sportscar365 understands that JMR Johor Motorsports Racing attempted to run a Pro car with NTT IndyCar Series ace Scott McLaughlin but it failed to materialize due to lack of available works drivers.

***Robert Wickens, who also holds close links to the GM brand, is understood to have attempted to make his 24 Hours of Spa debut in Steller Motorsport’s Corvette, although DXDT Racing’s transporter fire last month, which destroyed the Canadian’s primary Bosch-designed hand control system, among the team’s primary race car, resulted in the second unit, already in build for a possible Spa run, being allocated to Wickens’ IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program instead.

***The clash with the third leg of the Michelin Endurance Cup has also cost several U.S. teams and/or drivers, including Wright Motorsports, which finished fourth in Gold Cup on its race debut last year and Porsche Motorsport North America Selected driver Tom Sargent, who currently leads SRO’s GT Academy in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS.

***CrowdStrike founder and CEO George Kurtz, meanwhile, is missing the race for the first time since 2019 due to his LMP2 commitments at The Glen. Kurtz, whose company serves as the race’s title sponsor, is understood to have been a major driving force in IMSA having moved its Watkins Glen date in both 2024 and 2025 to alleviate the clash.

***SRO founder and CEO Stephane Ratel told Sportscar365 the clash with the WeatherTech Championship enduro ‘doesn’t justify’ a date change for the 24 Hours of Spa, which is expected to retain its same date when the 2027 schedule is released on Friday. IMSA, meanwhile, has already confirmed next year’s Watkins Glen race will again take place on June 24-27.

***Forty six of the 69-car entry are nominated to score IGTC points, a new series record, represented by 15 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evos, 11 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos, eight BMW M4 GT3 EVOs, eight Ferrari 296 GT3 Evos, two Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs and a pair of Corvettes. The top two scoring cars overall from each brand will score manufacturer points. Click Here for the IGTC nominated car and crew list.

***After scoring wins in both the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour and Nürburgring 24, Mercedes-AMG heads into the weekend with a nine-point lead over Porsche in the IGTC standings, with defending champions BMW third, two further points behind.

***Martin and Maro Engel, who won both races as co-drivers, head the points with 50 apiece, although are split up this weekend due to their full season GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup teams. Engel is in the No. 48 Winward-run Mann-Filter entry with Lucas Auer and Luca Stolz, with Martin in the No. 17 GetSpeed car with Maxi Goetz and Fabian Schiller.

***Additionally, Engel and Auer jointly lead the overall GTWC Europe Pro class points standings, with offers additional points this weekend incrementally at the six, 12 and 24-hour marks.

***Head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing Stefan Wendl told Sportscar365 that the outcome of this weekend, which sees three ‘Performance’ teams, will shape the level of support and drivers for the final two rounds of the season at Suzuka and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Wendl said: “You will hear after Spa when we have the latest picture from our championship standings. Then we exactly know what to do, which drivers, and where we put them on which cars.”

***He added: “Indy will be different anyways because it’s part of a championship and that will be the Silver driver mandatory (in Pro). There for sure we’ll have a look at how we can integrate ourselves into the current and competitive team and driver lineups that are already there and leading the championship too.”

***After Kerong Li ran unopposed in the Independent Cup at the Nürburgring 24, the High Class Racing driver will face competition from Jonathan Hui, Ralf Bohn, Prince Jefri Ibrahim, and Johannes Zelgar. this weekend. Li currently holds a 32-point lead over Kenny Habul, who is absent this weekend, with third-placed Jonathan Hui, 35 points back, being Li’s closest competitor. The Independent Cup, however, does feature a drop-score, meaning Hui, Bohn and others could still have a chance of taking the title.

***High Class team principal Anders Fjordbach indicated there were additional FIA Bronze-rated Independent Cup drivers scheduled to contest the N24, but the cancelation of NLS1, and the abandonment of the N24 Qualifiers Race 1 due to the death of Juha Miettinen, led to several drivers not being able to secure their Ring permits.

***Fjordbach, who will share driving duties of their Pro-Am class Porsche with Li as well as Leo Ye Hongli and Bo Yuan, said their maiden run in the globe-trotting GT3 series has been a “great, fun challenge.” He told Sportscar365: “We’ve really enjoyed it as a team but also as the drivers. This from jumping from regulations to regulations is a new challenge that we’ve never witnessed before. This has been really cool because when you do ELMS or Michelin Le Mans Cup or WEC or whatever, every year, it’s so easy to anticipate exactly what will happen. Here we go into it as if it’s our debut every time.”

***He added: “This is really cool and it’s some of the most historic races in the world. I’m personally so happy that we did it because it has given us some experience that’s hard to get anywhere else.”

***BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos told Sportscar365 that the Bavarian manufacturer is again taking a race-by-race approach to its IGTC participation, with no confirmation yet if Team WRT will run the final two rounds of the season. Complicating matters is that only Max Hesse, who currently sits third in the title race, is the lone BMW driver realistically in with a chance of the drivers’ title. Hesse is in the No. 46 WRT BMW alongside regular GTWC Europe Endurance Cup co-drivers Dan Harper and Valentino Rossi this weekend.

***Roos told Sportscar365: “For sure you will see BMWs there (at Suzuka and Indianapolis). You will also see some of our drivers but if it’s the same effort as what we had in the last years, that WRT, for example, was doing the races, we can’t confirm yet. It’s generally a topic where we have to discuss how it fits into our whole second half of the year, also financially.”

***Mercedes-AMG’s Wendl has insisted that its all-new Mercedes-AMG GT3 remains “on schedule” despite little-to-no talk about the new car in recent months, and no test races planned until next year. “It was never the plan to race it in 2026,” Wendl told Sportscar365. “It means this will unlikely happen.”

***Wendl added: “We said that we will put also some races, like test races, into our testing [program for 2027]. If we feel that the car is ready to do it, when we will hopefully announce something on how we will join whatever, Creventic or NLS or other races where it’s allowed to run with an un-homologated car.”

***This weekend marks the final event for Head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport boss Christoph Sagemueller, who will depart the German manufacturer “at his own request.” Sagemueller will be replaced by current head of Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Head of Commercial and Marketing, Simon Wilbers, effective July 1.

***With near-record temperatures blanketing Europe, including the Ardennes region of Belgium, drivers are bracing for extreme conditions this weekend. Thursday will officially kick off track action for GTWC Europe/IGTC competitors, with two Free Practice sessions followed by qualifying and night practice. Superpole is on tap for Friday afternoon, followed by an evening warm up session. Live coverage of all sessions, except for FP1, will be available on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

Source: Sports Car 365