No.51 Ferrari lead 24 Hours of Spa behind Safety Car after the first four hours

Credit: SRO

The first four hours of the 24 Hours of Spa come to an end under Safety Car with wave by currently going on. No.51 AF Corse Ferrari continue leading the race, with Nick Nielsen currently behind the wheel. The No.48 Mann Filter Mercedes driven by Maro Engel is in second.

Third overall and leading in Gold is the No.58 McLaren, currently being driven by Tom Fleming. Leading the Silver class is the No.45 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari, and the No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari lead Bronze.

Read about hours one and two here.

As it happened

During the Full Course Yellow that started just before the two-hour mark, most of the cars came in for a cheap pit stop, including all the front-runners. Alessio Rovera got into the leading No.51 AF Corse Ferrari, and Louis Prette climbed into the second-placed No.58 Garage 59 McLaren.

When the race went back to green, Rovera quickly built up a sizeable lead of over six seconds in just one lap as the other frontrunners had a patch of lapped cars to cut through.

The green flag racing did not last long as the FCY was brought back on just after one lap, after the No.4 Dinamic GT Porsche was beached in the gravel. In a separate incident, the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari hit the wall on the exit of Jacky Ickx following contact with the No.88 Audi and sustained some damage on the rear left bodywork.

Once the race went green again, the incidents did not stop coming; the overall third-placed No.71 Selected Car Ferrari made contact with the No.555 McLaren at the Bus Stop chicane. This incident brought the No.71 under investigation and also brought the No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes with Jules Gounon behind the wheel, right behind the Ferrari.

Gounon, however, could not mount an attack on the No.71 as his hands were full fending off Lucas Auer in the No.48 Mann Filter Mercedes in a close battle for fourth place.

Down in the Bronze class, a tight battle for the lead between the No.93 Ziggo Sport Porsche and the No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari was interrupted by a ten-second penalty for the No.74. The Ferrari had made contact with the No.11 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin at Pouhon, causing it to spin around.

The No.71 Ferrari was eventually awarded a drive-through penalty, taking it out of contention for any of the podium spots for the time being. This was not the end of misfortunes for the Ferrari cars, as the No.50 AF Corse started going slowly that same lap, but after a quick trip to the pit box, everything seemed to be sorted out, and the Ferrari 296 was back on track.

The No.48 Mercedes was slowly starting to make progress up the field, slowly climbing up from fourth to second, getting past the fellow Mercedes, the No.3, and the No.58 McLaren.

The No.28 Haas RT Audi was beached in the gravel at turn one, bringing out yet another FCY. This was a long FCY period, followed by the safety car and a wave around procedure for lapped cars. Almost all teams took advantage of the FCY to make pit stops and maintain track position, with the exception of the No.32 BMW who opted not to pit in a bid to stay on the lead lap.

In the midst of all this, the No.17 Getspeed Mercedes had to call it a day, what started off as a promising weekend ending in despair, following their disqualification from qualifying after topping the sessions and technical issues ending their race early, the crew's steady progress in the first four hours being brought to an abrupt end.