No.48 Mercedes leads with 6 hours to go, being chased by AF Corse Ferrari and a pair of Porsches

Credit: SRO/JEP

Luca Stolz in the No.48 Mann-Filter Winward Mercedes leads the way with six hours left of the 24 Hours of Spa, but he is being chased down by the rapid Tommaso Mosca in the No.51 Ferrari that has now recovered to the front after an earlier puncture.

Third is the No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche in the hands of Bastian Buus, with Ayhanchan Guven in the No.22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche in fourth. The top four are all in a train battling for the lead.

The No.5 Optimum McLaren leads Silver, after an incident with the No.65 Ford, which now has a puncture after being spun around by the McLaren. They're in 12th, with the Gold leading No.998 BMW ahead in 11th.

Bronze is led by the No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari which has led that class for much of this race, with the Pro-Am lead being held by the No.0 JMR Corvette from 29th overall.

As it happened

After half an hour of steady racing, the No.44 Greystone GT McLaren stopped on the start finish straight, bringing out the Full Course Yellow. The McLaren got going just after the FCY was declared, but race control decided to take advantage of this and declared a long FCY period followed by Safety Car and wave around to clean the track.

The FCY came after the two leaders, the No.80 Porsche and the No.51 Ferrari, had made their regular stops. This benefited the No.48 Mann Filter Mercedes, who were yet to pit and took advantage of the FCY to take the lead.

During the Safety Car period, the No.3 Mercedes was dragged into the garage to retire following a technical issue, leaving the No.48 as the sole Mercedes in the top ten.

During the restart, the No.48 pulled away neatly as the No.80 in second had three lapped cars halting early progress.

The No.998 BMW, leading in Gold, was awarded a 15 second time penalty for speeding under FCY. They were not the only BMW to get a time penalty for speeding; the No.46 Team WRT BMW, running fifth, was given a 10 second time penalty, also for speeding.

10 minutes before the six hour to go mark, Tommaso Mosca in the recovering No.51 AF Corse Ferrari had been jumped for fifth by Ayhanchan Guven in the No.22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche, but Mosca wouldn't allow the Porsche to get away. The Italian sent a move around the outside of Les Combes and made it stick.

Meanwhile at the front Charles Weerts in the No.32 BMW was the last of those off-set on strategy to come in the pits, leaving Solz in No.48 top, battling with Bastian Buus in the No.80 Lionspeed GP Porsche. Mosca and Guven were just another four seconds down the road from those two.

Mosca kept pushing on too, getting around Buus under braking for Les Combes. Out of all the leaders who were now running rogether, he seemed the quickest and was already chasing Stolz in front.

Just before we ticked over into the final six hours, the No.5 Optimum McLaren tried a move for the lead of Silver on the No.65 Ford Mustang, but spun the HRT car around. Maxime Oosten in that car got moving again but he had to limp around an entire lap with a puncture.