Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup Round 4: 24h Spa race report

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After a gruelling 24 hours, BLACK FALCON have successfully brought home all three of their Mercedes-AMG GT3s entries to the finish at Round 4 of the 2018 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup. The team narrowly missed out on an overall podium with their Pro-class #4 AMG but took third place in the Silver Cup following an incredible recovery drive for the #6 car.

The Spa 24 Hours was held at the iconic circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, the famous long-time home of the Belgian Grand Prix and a track with a history stretching back almost a century. It’s the blue riband event in the GT racing calendar, the hardest race of the season, taking place around one of the most challenging circuits in the world. 221 drivers in 65 cars from an impressive 13 different manufacturers took part, half of which were entered in the Pro class for all-professional driver line-ups. Fierce battles raged across the multiple classes over the full 24 hours, and with critical championship points awarded at the quarter and halfway marks positions were hard-fought throughout the race.

For once, the rain held off in the Ardennes region, and instead it was the dust and dirt on track that provided the biggest challenge, creating a slippery and changeable surface. As ever there was heavy attrition, with almost a third of the field either retiring or suffering serious issues during the race. There were multiple Full Course Yellows, plus a two-hour period when the race was temporarily suspended during the night due to extensive barrier damage at Eau Rouge, but the experience and professionalism of BLACK FALCON’s drivers and mechanics saw them through all the travails to delivery important points for each car’s championship aspirations.

The AMG factory-backed, Pro class #4 Mercedes-AMG Team BLACK FALCON AMG GT3 starred GT veterans Yelmer Buurman (Netherlands), Maro Engel (Germany) and Luca Stolz (Germany). Their car proudly displayed a special multi-colour, striped livery supporting the 320 Changes Direction initiative (www.changedirection.org). This charity was founded by Talinda Bennington, wife of Chester, the late vocalist with the multi-million selling group Linkin Park, to support people with mental health issues, and backed up the team’s 2016 Spa entry that sported a Linkin Park livery.

Always near the sharp end of the field throughout the opening practice sessions, #4 took the rolling start on Saturday afternoon from 10th position, and the drivers swiftly fought their way up to the top five during the opening phase of the race. For the next 24 hours they were battling between third and fifth places, always in the mix but missing the last bit of outright pace to chase down the leading cars. Nonetheless, the team managed to step into the fight for victory in the early morning due to perfectly executed pitstops and a splendid strategy, spending the least time of all top-running cars in the pits by a margin of minutes. A late Full Course Yellow was thrown right when the third last pitstop was done costing the crew more than a minute and three positions. Putting everything into their run to the flag there was a nail-biting final hour as Luca closed in on the third placed car – even temporarily taking the lead on the track with 45 minutes to go as the cars ahead pitted. Luca drove into the pits for his final stop soon after, emerging in fifth, and although he gave it his all that would be the finishing position for #4. He crossed the line just 20 seconds behind the car in front and on the same lap as the winner, once again finishing as best placed AMG in a 2018 24 hours race with a final count of 511 laps.

In the Pro-Am class, the #5 AMG featured the regular season-long trio of Rui Aguas (Portugal), Saud Al Faisal (Saudi Arabia) and Kriton Lendoudis (Greece), who were joined for the 24-hours by super-quick young gun Tom Onslow-Cole (United Kingdom). They had a solid qualifying, but #5’s race suffered a set-back almost immediately: a collision in the first half hour of racing forced the AMG to pit for repairs, severely delaying the car. However, all four drivers put in sterling performances that brought #5 inexorably back up through the field. During the night #5 got to the cusp of the top 40, and as dawn broke the car’s position continued to improve, the drivers fighting hard for every position. Into the last hour Rui put in a final push, with 31st position their reward, sixth in class.

The full-season drivers of the Silver Cup #6 Mercedes-AMG GT3, Abdulaziz Al Faisal (Saudi Arabia), Hubert Haupt (Germany) and Gabriele Piana (Italy), were boosted by the addition of Manuel Metzger (Germany) for Spa. Their weekend started off badly when a tyre exploded in Free Practice and the therefore inevitable high-speed accident severely damaged the car, writing them out of qualifying, but the BLACK FALCON mechanics put in their usual maximum effort to have the AMG repaired and ready in time for the race. Having started at the back of the field with no practice at all, an early gear-shift problem caused further delay, but the #6 crew more than made up for these early set-backs. They scythed through the pack to be in the midfield by early evening and in the hunt for a good result in class, scoring important points at both the quarter and halfway points in the race.

Like #5, the #6 AMG also had a fine run during the darkest hours, pushing up into the top 30, and continued to fight its way forward during the final quarter of the race. Hubert crossed the line in an excellent 23rd overall after 24 hours, third in Silver Cup and continuing their unbroken run of class podiums during 2018.

Carrying their battle-scars from a challenging race but otherwise undamaged, the three BLACK FALCON AMGs leave Spa holding a clear lead in Silver Cup, third in the overall Teams Championship and fourth in Pro-Am. There’s now a month break for the team to recover, regroup and prepare for the season finale, which will be held at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix, the Circuit De Catalunya near Barcelona. There, the team can look to claim Silver Cup honours with #6, and there’s the potential of further improvements for #4 and #5 – the Pro crew lie just six points off the overall points leaders, and the #5 drivers are only eight points behind their nearest rivals, with 25 points on offer for a win.

You can support BLACK FALCON across all social media platforms: follow them via twitter.com/TeamBlackFalcon, facebook.com/teamblackfalcon/ and instagram.com/teamblackfalcon to get live action updates direct from the tracks, as well as fantastic images of the team in action.

RACE DATES
Blancpain Endurance Series
Round 5: 29-30 September (Barcelona)