24h of Spa – Garage 59 takes the top 20 in qualifying

Included among the favorites for this 69th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa, fourth round of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance cup, la McLaren 650S GT3 n°58 from Garage 59 is for the moment honoring its status at the end of the first day of driving in Belgium, and at the end of the two qualifying sessions on Thursday.

The first session was livened up at the start of the evening by the duel between Audi and Mercedes, with Team WRT, ISR Racing and Saintéloc Racing facing the armed arms of the star HTP Motorsport, Team Black Falcon and AKKA-ASP. At the end of the first 75 minutes, the #3 Mercedes-AMG GT86 of Thomas Jäger, Maximilian Götz and Gary Paffett took the lead in 2'18"532 facing the No. 56 of Team Black Falcon of Juncadella – Morley – Toril – Al Faisal by 71 thousandths, then also first in Pro-Am. A first session where the top 20 was held in one second.

However, from the start of the night session, neutralized twice under Full Course Yellow, notably for the incident involving the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG GT89 of Team AKKA-ASP, Shane van Gisbergen and Garage 59 went on the attack. The New Zealand driver, winner of the Bathurst 12 Hours at the start of the season and associated with Côme Ledogar and Rob Bell in the Ardennes, lowered the best performance in 2'18″474, a benchmark that no one will be able to improve.

The #3 and #86 Mercedes-AMG GT56 complete the provisional top 20, ahead of the #8 Audi R28 LMS from the Audi Sport Team WRT of Vanthoor – Rast – Müller. Team AKKA-ASP, in sight with the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG GT88 of Vautier – Rosenqvist – van der Zande in pre-qualifying, confirms its performance by moving up to 5th position ahead of the No. 8 Saintéloc Racing Audi R26 LMS of the Parisy – Guilvert – Haase trio. The No. 8 Audi R75 LMS of ISR Racing with Nicolas lapierre – Henry Hassid – Franck Perera – Philippe Giauque finished 13th.

5e et 6e temps de la session nocturne, les Bentley Continental GT3 du Team M-Sport, où l’on retrouve notamment Vincent Abril, champion Sprint Cup en titre, ont effectué une belle remontée dans la hiérarchie. Les BMW M6 du ROWE Racing, mais aussi deux Lamborghini Huracan (n°16 – Grasser Racing et n°666 – Barwell Motorsport) et la Ferrari 488 n°53 AF Corse de Lathouras – Pier Guidi – Rugolo climb into the top twenty.

The Superpole, which will pit the top 20 against each other for pole position, will begin tomorrow afternoon at 18:00 p.m. The cars will set off every minute for two timed laps.

Results Qualifications