Story and photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt
July 26-29
This year’s Blancpain GT 24 hours at Spa was won by Tom Blomqvist, Christian Krognes, Philipp Eng in the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3. Alexander Sims, Jens Klingmann, Nicky Catsburg, Rowe Racing, BMW M6 GT3 took second and Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde, Jeffrey Schmidt, Montaplast by Land-Motorsport Audi R8 LMS finished third. But the race has a long, 70 year tradition of 24 hour motor racing that was featured at this year’s event.
The Spa 24 Hour race, which has now become the greatest endurance race for GT cars, was born in 1924, one year after the birth of the Le Mans 24 Hours. During a period from 1924 to 1953, the same type of cars were entered in both Le Mans and Spa, and wins were shared among manufacturers like Chenard et Walcker, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin and even Ferrari.
But after the 1953 edition, the Spa 24 Hours lost its world championship status and the race would not be held for the next 11 years.
In 1964, following a project by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium and journalist-driver Paul Frère, the Spa 24 Hours was revived, but reserved for touring cars in order to set itself apart from the Le Mans 24 Hours. It proved to be the right choice, and factory teams were promptly back in the Belgian Ardennes. During this period, BMW and Ford shared the majority of the victories. At the end of the 1990s, the appeal of the touring cars and of the Spa 24 Hours was in sharp decline, and it was time again to take a new start.
In 2001 the GT cars of the FIA-GT Championship were invited to complete the entry list and it immediately proved to be a success as the spectacular and powerful GT1 cars like the Chrysler Viper impressed the fans. Chrysler, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and Corvette shared the laurels before the regulation switched to GT3 cars in 2011, and the Spa 24 Hours became the jewel of the new Blancpain Endurance Series, created by Stéphane Ratel and SRO Motorsports Group.
Since then, Audi, Mercedes and BMW won all the events under the GT3 regulation but this year’s grid of 63 cars represented no less than 13 manufacturers in total, with Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley, Jaguar, McLaren, Nissan, Porsche, Lamborghini and newcomers Lexus and Honda.
Here are my impressions of the event this year; the night scenes were beautiful and I hope I captured some of the drama of the event.
‘Eau Rouge’ still is one of the most challenging corners of any race track in the world. No place for mistakes there. Two big crashes occurred during this year’s race, causing a red flag and the race to be stopped for an hour and a half during the night.
One of the factory-backed Porsches passing in front of the Uniroyal tower, another landmark of Francorchamps circuit, on the old start and finish line leading to ‘Eau Rouge.’
Evening is always a magical moment of the Spa 24 Hours.
The only Ferrari entered in the PRO category for professional drivers, managed to finish tenth, three laps behind the winning car, despite attacking hard as can be seen here
Brakes are put to the test on this heavy Bentley Continental. Good lighting is also essential in endurance racing.
At the exit of ‘Eau Rouge’ is ‘Kemmel straight’ where passing moves are facilitated by taking the slipstream of another car.
The oldest car of the field, but not the slowest, was surely the Jaguar XK8 developed by the Swiss Emil Frey team, without any support from the Jaguar factory. It finished fourth in its category.
The Aston Martin V12 Vantage is not much newer but it still competitive as it took overall pole position, driven by works driver Belgian Maxime Martin. The race was much more difficult for the McLarens, none of them finishing in the top 20.
The best placed Lamborghini Huracan was only 14th overall. But this one won the Silver cup category, reserved for Silver classified drivers. Each driver is classified according to its previous results, from ‘Bronze’ for amateur drivers to ‘Platinum’ for professional drivers through ‘Silver’ and ‘Gold’.
This Ferrari 488 GT3 was entered in the AM category. Each car was classified in one of the four categories, from ‘AM’ to ‘PRO’ through ‘SILVER’ and ‘PRO-AM’, according to the individual classification of their drivers.
Another Ferrari, entered in the PRO-AM category by the famous AF Corse team from Piacenza, Italy. The team has entered Ferraris in the various GT championships since 2006 with much success.
Mercedes-Benz was the best represented manufacturer with 13 entries. We see here a Mercedes-AMG GT3 in another Francorchamps famous corner, the ‘La Source’ hairpin.
Third in the PRO-AM category was the spectacularly liveried Mercedes-AMG of Australian driver Kenny Habul, an IMSA Sportscar championship regular.
The mistake you don’t want to happen in ‘Eau Rouge’ This Audi R8 driver luckily didn’t touch anything.
This Porsche wears one of the most original liveries of the entry list with sketches and names of Francorchamps corners on its bodywork, like ‘Bruxelles’, ‘Source’ and ‘Raidillon’.
Cars are suffering a lot after 24 hours of racing.
Once again, a BMW won the Spa 24 Hours…for the 24th time. BMW holds the record and surprisingly, Alfa Romeo is second with seven wins, all achieved before WWII.
The winners were Tom Blomqvist, (son of Swede Stig Blomqvist, 1984 World Rally Champion), Norwegian Christian Krognes, revelation of the race, and BMW official driver and the winner in 2016, Austrian Philipp Eng.
After the race, all the finishing cars are aligned in front of the main grandstand for a spectacular display, to the joy of the spectators.
Beautiful night photos for these seventieth anniversary of the 24 hours of Francorchamps with a surprising Victory of the BMW #34 Walkenhorst, a regular team of the VLN on the Nordschleife… The tradition has been respected on the “toboggan” Spadois !!!
Thanks Hug