BMW secure 1-2 finish in thrilling WEC 6 Hours of Spa, McLaren win in LMGT3
- Aaron Carroll
- 34 minutes ago
- 7 min read
The No.20 WRT BMW of Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde has won the World Endurance Championship (WEC) 6 Hours of Spa after a strategy call early on put them in a great position.
The No.15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Rafaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen made it a BMW 1-2 after holding off the No.50 Ferrari in a thrilling battle at the end of the race.
The No.21 Ferrari crossed the line first in LMGT3, but they had a five second penalty so the No.10 Garage 59 McLaren of Marvin Kirchhofer, Tom Fleming and Antares Au took victory.
As it happened
The green flag flew at 14:00 local time and Loïc Duval in the No.94 Peugeot led the field away from the No.12 Cadillac of Will Stevens. In LMGT3 Tom van Rompuy started the No.78 Lexus well too, ahead of Eric Powell in the No.77 Ford Mustang.
Duval managed to initially get away well, but Stevens slotted into his slipstream on the way up the Kemmel Straight, pulling out and going down the inside to take the lead on lap one of the race.
After the first handful of laps, the two LMGT3 leaders had pulled out a small gap to the rest of the field as they fought. Powell tried to get by frantically, and he eventually made the move stick with a brave move going up Eau Rouge.
He found some great pace after making the move too, but not long afterwards he caught the gravel on entry to Stavelot, spinning the car off into the gravel. He was completely beached, and brought out the races first Safety Car (SC).
After the restart, Duval didn't really have too much pace compared to the others around him, losing position to Ferdinand Habsburg in the No.35 Alpine as well, demoting the pole car down to third within the first 45 minutes.
The No.38 Cadillac was keeping pace with the leaders for the early part of the race, but Earl Bamber had a coming together with the No.92 Porsche, both going off into the gravel. They continued on, but Bamber had a puncture and had to crawl back to the pits.
Separately, he also reported a brake issue to the team, who brought it into the garage to figure out the issue. They lost 14 laps to the leaders in total, so it was just a test day for that crew afterwards. The No.19 Genesis also joined them in the garage with mechanical problems, they lost only seven laps.
Much later on in the race, the same car in the hands of Sebastian Bourdais stopped on pit entry, having to crawl it's way into the garage. They never re-emerged from the pits, officially retiring from the race.
As would prove to be crucial for the rest of the race, the No.20 BMW short fueled on their first pit stop, in an effort to get clean air at the front of the field. That they got, and Rene Rast used it to set a blistering pace.
For the next few hours, that car fluctuated with the rest of the field on pit strategy. They would lead for half a stint, before pitting and giving it back to the Cadillac/Alpine grouping. The No.8 was also on the same strategy, just slightly further back, they would fluctuate in and out of second place.
In LMGT3 the No.88 Ford jumped the No.78 Lexus in the pit stops to take the class lead. Stefano Gattuso in the Proton Mustang then began to pull away from the rest of the field.
The No.21 AF Corse Ferrari was going quickly in class too. François Heriau had caught up to Gattuso before the next round of pit stops, where the Ferrari crew showed off their muscle, getting their car back out ahead of the Ford and into the lead of the race.
Around this time too, Thomas Fleming was in the No.10 Garage 59 McLaren. He was the fastest man on track for most of his stint, bringing the car up the order, eventually landing in second towards the end of the race.
Miguel Molina in the No.50 Ferrari had fought his way back through the pack into second place after starting eighth. He was helped by a quick initial pit stop from his AF Corse crew. Their second stop was not the same though. The front-left tyre got stuck on, and they lost around 20 seconds of time.
There was a short Full Course Yellow (FCY) for small bits of debris on track, which benefited the No.8 Toyota. They were in the pits as it was called, so they got a cheap stop.
At around the halfway point in the race, the No.35 Alpine was all over the back of the No.12 for the lead of the race. Antonio Felix Da Costa wouldn't get the move on Louis Deletraz on track though, he got the jump in the pit lane. Subsequently, Deletraz lost a few positions, going down as low as fifth.
The No.15 BMW and No.51 Ferrari had a few close battles throughout the course of the race. The two eventually came together, with the BMW being spun around at Les Combes. But they got moving again with no lasting damage.
The No.94 Peugeot was still in the fight for the top spots for much of the race, but their race would end early. Malthe Jakobsen came out of the pits on cold tyres, and found Matteo Cressoni in the No.79 Mercedes spinning in front of him at Les Combes.
The two collided quite heavily, destroying the front-left portion of the car, including the suspension. Despite the mechanic's attempts, that was the end of the race for the pole sitters.
The ensuing VSC gave the No.15 BMW a cheap pit stop, propelling them into the equation for the end of the race.
The rest of the field pit too, evening out the playing field. So the No.20 led from the No.8, both of whom now on the same strategy as everyone else.
The timing of those final stops was going to be crucial, but it turns out it wouldn't matter. In a strange incident, the No.51 Ferrari was t-boned by the No.32 BMW GT3, which was propelled into the Ferrari by the No.91 Porsche which missed it's braking points.
The BMW broke the radiator on the Ferrari, spilling fluid over the road. That was the end of their race, with Alessandro Pier Guidi visibly frustrated by the incident, not at all his fault.
That brought out another VSC, which set everyone up on equal strategy for the end of the race. The No.8 Toyota had pit just a lap before the VSC was called, so they lost out. The No.20 led the restart from the sister No.15 and the No.50 Ferrari.
It was a frantic restart, with the leading six cars getting away with a gap to the rest, due to GT traffic in the middle.
Up the Kemmel straight, Alex Riberas in the No.009 Aston Martin was trying to pull to the inside of the No.35 Alpine of Antonio Felix Da Costa. The Alpine made a late defensive move, forcing the Aston onto the grass and spinning him out at very high speed.
Riberas spun across the track and scraped along the left side barrier. He was very lucky to not have a much bigger incident, but nonetheless there was a lot of debris - mainly from a polystyrene board hit by the Aston.
That caused a Safety Car, and reset the field once again. The restart order stayed the same, the No.20 from the No.15 and the No.50. The No.7 was fourth, ahead of the No.35 and the No.007. Interestingly, the No.17 Genesis was seventh, inside the points in the cars second ever race.
The second restart in the final hour was almost as dramatic. Da Costa was going up Eau Rouge on cold tyres and spun by himself at the top, once again very lucky not to have been a bigger accident. The car spun across the track, narrowly missing the No.007 Aston Martin, before colliding with the barrier and picking up suspension damage.
There was no debris though, so no intervention was needed for the incident.
The battles continued then. Robin Frijns in the leading No.20 got a gap of a couple seconds out front, meanwhile behind him Magnussen in the sister car was defending from Antonio Fuoco in the No.50 Ferrari and Kamui Kobyashi in the No.7 Toyota.
In LMGT3 it was the No.21 Ferrari of Alessio Rovera defending from Marvin Kirchhofer in the No.10 McLaren. But the Ferrari would get plauged by a late five-second penalty for an earlier unsafe release from a pit stop.
Back in Hypercar, the battle for second was turning into a four car battle. Tom Gamble in the No.007 Aston Martin was joining the back of the existing three way battle.
Gamble did eventually catch, and after many close moments he got the Toyota for fourth place as a gap formed between those two and the BMW and Ferrari ahead. Meanwhile Frijns was still going well in front of all of this.
Magnussen in the No.15 was able to defend and hold off the Ferrari, securing a BMW 1-2 finish. Then was the No.50 Ferrari, No.007 Aston Martin and the No.7 Toyota.
The No.83 Ferrari was sixth ahead of the No.93 Peugeot. Genesis secured their first points in the WEC in eighth with the No.17, ahead of the No.12 Cadillac and the No.8 Toyota.
In LMGT3 the No.21 Ferrari crossed the line first, but due to their penalty the No.10 McLaren secured victory. Second was the No.27 Aston Martin with the No.92 Porsche finishing off the podium.
Rovera ended up fourth, with the No.34 Corvette in fifth place. Sixth was the No.58 McLaren, ahead of the No.87 Lexus and No.91 Porsche. Finishing out the points was the No.33 Corvette and the No.61 Mercedes.
