24 Hours of Spa – The Mercedes-AMG of Marciello-Juncadella-Gounon sets the tone

Everything happens. Like a dry track at Francorchamps for the four phases of qualifying which determined, this Thursday evening, the places from 21st to 58th position on the starting grid for this 73rd edition of the 24 Hours of Spa. The top 20, on the other hand, will compete this Friday during the stressful but motivating Superpole exercise between 19:50 p.m. and 20:20 p.m.

Several lessons can be learned from these qualifications. First that the nine brands present at the 24 Hours all have at least one car in the top 20.

This Thursday evening, the Mercedes-AMG from the AKKA ASP team was the fastest thanks to a homogeneous crew. The result signed by Marciello, Juncadella and Gounon (the addition of the times then makes it possible to calculate the average time of each crew) leaves their closest pursuers (theAston Martin of Garage 59 with Nicki Thiim, Ross Gunn and Marco Sorensen) by more than 4 tenths! The Audi R8 LMS of Mattia Drudi, Dennis Marschall and Christopher Mies completes the top 3 but 0,657 sec behind the reference Mercedes.

Among the top cars which will not be invited to compete in the Superpole, we note the Porsche 911 of Sven Müller, Richard Lietz and Kevin Estre which failed in 21st place.

Besides the violent exit of Tim Zimmermann's Lamborghini Huracan above the Raidillon which led to a red flag lasting several minutes in the middle of Q1, the other fact to remember is the relegation, to the back of the grid, of the Audi RS8 LMS of Dries Vanthoor, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde, generally considered among the favorites of this edition.

24 Spa 2021 Hours Qualifying Ranking: