+ Buus, Feller and Preining go from back to front for Lionspeed GP
+ Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari complete hard-fought overall podium
+ Ibrahim and JMR beat Li to Independent Cup win
+ Result: CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa
Lionspeed GP, Bastian Buus, Ricardo Feller and Thomas Preining overcame their pitlane start to claim CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and Intercontinental GT Challenge victory for Porsche.
Thursday’s engine change forced the crew to battle back from the tail of this year’s 69-car entry. The #80 911 GT3 R established itself as one of three Porsches fighting for a top six finish by Sunday morning before emerging as the most likely of Stuttgart’s contenders to beat the Mann-Filter Mercedes-AMG shared by Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and IGTC championship leader Maro Engel, as well as AF Corse’s pole-winning #51 Ferrari – featuring Alessio Rovera, Tommaso Mosca and Nicklas Nielsen – which lost considerable time with two punctures and 40 seconds of pitstop penalties.
Preining ultimately took the chequered flag 12.3s clear of Auer who successfully fended off the Ferrari – just as his co-drivers had for much of the final four hours – to finish second by just 0.7s.
It was Buus and Feller’s maiden IGTC win, while Preining added a second to his total after finishing overall runner-up but first of the Intercontinental contingent at the ADAC Ravenol 24h Nürburgring two years ago. Buus also became Spa’s youngest winner since Jules Gounon in 2022.
IGTC’s six manufacturers filled 15 of the top 16 positions. However, none were taken by erstwhile joint-drivers’ championship leader Maxime Martin whose GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG retired on Saturday evening.
That leaves Engel heading Stolz by 17 points, with Martin now third a point further back and Buus moving up to fourth another three behind. Crucially, though, Engel is expected to prioritise his DTM programme over the weekends of IGTC’s remaining events at Suzuka and Indianapolis, meaning the battle for drivers’ title honours appears finely poised.
Likewise in the manufacturers’ standings where Porsche’s first and fourth place Spa finishes have turned a nine-point deficit into a lead of the same amount over Mercedes-AMG. BMW is another 20 behind.
In the Independent Cup, Jefri Ibrahim clinched the event’s Pro-Am victory with JMR’s Chevrolet to also score his first IGTC class win of the season. But runaway points’ leader Li Kerong (High Class Racing) finished second in both to maintain his stranglehold on the class. Tsunami RT’s Johannes Zelger rounded out the podium.
The event, which also drew a new record attendance of 132,000, was officially started by President of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, Pierre Fillon.
PORSCHE SEES OFF MERCEDES-AMG AND FERRARI
In terms of pace, Ferrari should have added to its single GT3-era victory. Its lead trio of Nielsen, Mosca and Rovera – who clinched a commanding pole position on Friday – were also the quickest in race trim but found themselves almost two laps down on Saturday evening following a puncture and penalties.
That gave the leading Mercedes-AMGs, Porsches, BMWs and Ford a chance to stake their claim. All four manufacturers led on merit at some point before a combination of DNFs, Full-Course Yellow periods, Safety Cars and a heavy rain shower in the early hours brought AF Corse back into the mix.
Mann-Filter’s Winward Racing-run Mercedes-AMG was a model of consistency across the full 24 hours, with Engel, Auer and Stolz all fast and error-free. However, they couldn’t match the pace of either the recovering Ferrari or Lionspeed Porsche that announced itself as a serious threat on Sunday morning.
That 911, as well as those run by Schumacher CLRT and Boutsen VDS, hovered around a top six also featuring Mann-Filter, both AF Corse 296s and WRT whose #46 BMW dropped away from the front as morning turned to afternoon.
Pitstop cycles kept the order revolving but at this point it was Winward’s Mercedes-AMG that held a slender net advantage. That lasted until Preining used a perfectly executed undercut with 5.5 hours remaining to jump from third to first at Mann-Filter and CLRT’s expense.
The crew routinely established near-20-second leads before neutralisations threatened to offer their rivals a chance. None were forthcoming.
Nielsen and Rovera took it in turns to pass the other leading Porsches but couldn’t crack Engel, Stolz or Auer who had just enough in hand to keep the Ferrari behind until the chequered flag.
Fourth went to Schumacher CLRT’s 911 which engaged in an aggressive battle with Boutsen VDS’s Porsche. The damage sustained helped drop the car down to eighth at the finish, behind AF’s other Ferrari shared by Arthur Leclerc, Sean Gelael and Lilou Wadoux, WRT’s Dan Harper/Max Hesse/Valentino Rossi, and the Walkenhorst Aston Martin that somehow avoided retirement on lap one despite a brief airborne moment amidst a multi-car accident.
Further back, Ford’s encouraging outing ultimately came up short despite HRT’s #64 Pro entry spending time out front on merit before retiring at the Bus Stop. The sister car was also a class contender before being spun out of the lead whilst running in the overall top six.
IGTC now travels to Japan for the Suzuka 1000km on September 11-13.
