A heavy rain shower in the opening moments brought out the safety car.
SPA-FRANCHORCHAMPS, Belgium—August 15th—On Saturday afternoon in Belgium, the Toyota Gazoo Team hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez took the pre-Lemans racing tune-up–the Total Six Hours of Spa. Run at the famous, four-and-half-mile Spa-Francorchamps, the Toyota team took advantage of a Rebellion entry mistake and hybrid troubles experienced by their sister car.
Conway, who began the race, had to wait for a heavy rain shower in the opening moments, which brought out the safety car for the first time (for 15 minutes). Once the flag was dropped, the Briton quickly passed the Rebellion, driven by Frenchman Norman Nato, who went wide on the opening first turn at La Source. From that moment on, the only threat came from the second Toyota in the final hour.
When that hybrid was able to recover its power unit, Sebastian Buemi, managed to get close to Conway. The leading #7 pitted, but was caught in traffic, unable to pass, and finished in second, 34 seconds behind. The Rebellion eventually took third with Nato being joined by Bruno Senna and Gustavo Menezes.
The LMP 2 class was just as predictable. The United Autosports entry of Phil Hanson, Felipe Albuquerque, and Paul Di Resta went on win one lap ahead of the second-place Cool racing team, which was led by Nicolas Lapierre, Antonin Borga, and Alexandre Coigny. The Racing Team Nederland entry was fortunate to get third when American Mark Patterson spun at Bus Stop Chicane in the High-Class Racing car. That gave the Dutch team the final spot on the podium.
The team escaped a bad crash when the car piloted by Fritz Van Eerd, bumped the French Signatech Alpine car of Thomas Laurent, spinning Laurent into the barriers at high speed. Laurent was unhurt, but the car was a total mess. That’s when the second and final safety car came out just before the last hour of the race. The United Autosports car also finished fourth overall.
It took the last few minutes of the race for the LMGTE class to finish. The Porsche GT Team car of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre got lucky when Aston Martin’s Marco Sorensen got wide at La Source in the final hour, giving the German car a victory of five seconds. The second Aston Martin of Alex Lynn and Maxim Martin took third.
The LMGTE AM race was the closest of the day. The Ferrari of Francois Perrodo, Emanuelle Collard, and Nicklas Nielsen took the win by 2.8 seconds over second-place Dempsey-Proton Porsche. Aston Martin TF Sport finished third.
With two races remaining, Conway, Kobayashi, and Lopez are all tied in the point standings with 137 points in the LMP 1 class. LMP 2 has Albuquerque and Hanson tied for first with 120 points. Di Resta has 105. The GTE PRO has Sorensen and Nicki Timm leading with 127 points with Estre and Christensen next with 108. Finally, the GTE AM class has Collard, Perrodo, and Nielsen equal with 110 points each.
The next round will be the most famous of them all–the 24 Hours of Lemans–which will take place at the Circuit of the Sarthe, France, on September 19th and 20th.
