Spa 24 Hours: The class winners

Four class wins and one overall victory were up for grabs in the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa. These are the winners.

Having started from pole position for the third straight year, the #88 AMG Team Akkodis ASP became the first GT3 team to win the 24 Hours of Spa from pole position. Despite losing the lead at the start, the French squad held on and never gave up even when some minor hiccups came their way. A massive save came deep into the night when a problem with the pedal box looked to throw the team out of the race – until shortly after the red flag came out which allowed the team to repair the car without losing time. Even a trip through the razor sharp gravel at La Source by Raffaele Marciello couldn’t stop Akkodis ASP Team. A puncture in the final hours for the challenging #98 Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3 and a better pitstop strategy than the #2 AMG Team GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 sealed the deal.

Stay tuned for our interview with race winner Raffaele Marciello.

Team WRT’s disastrous 24 Hours of Spa was somewhat saved by its line-up of youngster. While most of their experienced teammates faltered, Thomas Neubauer, Jean Baptiste Simmenauer and Benjamin Goethe took the Silver Cup class win. From 17th on the grid, Goethe was quick to move up the field and before the end of his stint was in 14th. Never running into trouble, that would be the position around which the crew finished as second-best Audi in thirteenth place just one lap behind the Audi of Audi Sport Team Attempto.

History was made when the #83 Iron Dames Ferrari crossed the finish line at 16:46 Sunday afternoon. For the first time, an all-female crew celebrated victory in the 24 Hours of Spa. That, however, is a novelty compared to the way in which the trio of fast ladies secured their win: from starting 50th on the grid, they climbed all the way up to 18th picking off cars in their class until moving into the lead in the dead of night and never letting go.

Andrea Bertolini still knows how to do it and showed it once again. The two-time overall winner grabbed the lead in the morning having spent his stint reeling in Miguel Ramos in the #188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3. This came after the long-leading #24 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 991.2 GT3R was crashed out of the race by a faster car in the 18th hour. Fellow Gold-rated driver Alessio Rovera also proved his sheer speed by setting a new lap record and delivering one of the strongest contributions of any driver in class, while Stefano Costantini and Louis Machiels proved to be the best Bronze pilots in Pro-Am. With a 3-lap gap to second place, the 25-second penalty for track limits received after the finish was merely a formality.

SPS Automotive Performance delivered another female and Mercedes-AMG victory. With just two cars in class, it was always going to be between SPS Automotive Performance and Walkenhorst Motorsport – both very capable teams which showed in the close duel the teams fought especially during the first quarter of the race. A late accident of the leading BMW allowed SPS to get ahead and beat their German compatriots by five laps despite a nightly damper failure. The win was all the more special as Tim Müller, George Kurtz and Valentin Pierburg were joined by Reema Juffali from Saudi Arabia who joined the Iron Dames as female winner of the 2022 24 Hours of Spa. Remarkably, Juffali hails from a country where women as recently as ten years ago were sentenced to lashes when caught driving a car and are only legally allowed to operate a vehicle since 2018. Yet, the 30-year-old has been racking up the wins this year in International GT Open and can now also add a 24 Hours of Spa victory. For Crowdstrike founder and CEO George Kurtz the victory came at a very special moment, just days after the SRO announced Crowdstrike – already well-represented this year with track signage – would take over title sponsorship of the race from 2023 onwards.

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