Audi 1-2 With 8 Hours To Go
Nicki Thiim leads the 2023 Crowdstrike Spa 24 Hours with 8 hours to go, the Dane taking the lead in the #17 Scherer Sport PHX Audi from fellow Audi man Dennis Marschall close to the top of the hour, the German pedalling the #40 Audi Sport Tresor Orange One R8 LMS Evo 2.
We were about to post the Hour 16 update but it can wait because @NickiThiim is alongside and past Marschall!
The Scherer Audi leads at Spa.
LIVE https://t.co/TY70FyI33w#IGTC | #Spa24H pic.twitter.com/NdgHgM5xC4
— Intercontinental GT Challenge (@IntercontGTC) July 2, 2023
The Audis emerged from an overnight run that saw dramas for a number of leading runners and with the around 20 cars on the lead lap down to nine by morning.
Dramas for significant BMW and Mercedes AMG runners had blunted their attack:
The #32 Team WRT (Weerts) and #998 ROWE Racing (Verhagen) BMWs came together on the Kemmel Straight as the race neared the halfway point in apparent miscommunication around a Full Course Yellow. That incident saw both cars out of the race from top ten positions and the race under FCY for over an hour for barrier repairs. Both drivers were thankfully unharmed.
The #87 Akkodis ASP Team car ( water leak) and #999 GruppeM Racing (wheel bearing failure) AMGs also both retired from the leading group.
Also out of the race by the 16 hour point were the #83 Iron Dames Lamborghini – Doriane Pin impacting the barriers at Blanchimont, the #63 Pro class Iron Lynx Lamborghini, retired by the team as they were not puling back the 5 laps lost to braking issues after leading early in the race, the final Iron Lynx runner, the #19 Gold Cup car after Michele Beretta suffered a stuck throttle, Barwell Motorsports’s #78 Pro-Am Huracan was retired after the team determined that the time they lost to incidents involving contact from another car and then a stuck throttle (stones in the mechanism!) could not be recovered.
Track limits violations continued to make an impact in the rhythm of the race eve after the tally was reset after the first 6 hours. This looks set to be part of the narrative for the remainder of the race too.
The battling Audis in the lead had caught and passed the previous lead battle between Christian Engelhart’s #54 Dinamic/Huber Porsche and the #777 Mercedes-AMG Team Al Manar AMG GT3 of Luca Stolz.
Contact between the leaders!
LIVE https://t.co/TY70FyI33w#IGTC | #Spa24H pic.twitter.com/9EqeSvKJ6D
— Intercontinental GT Challenge (@IntercontGTC) July 2, 2023
The two though would clash at La Source as the race went back to green after a Full-Course Yellow, Engelhart turned around by the AMG man, the delay to both seeing the Audis take full advantage.
Elsewhere in the top ten and the classes the surviving #98 ROWE Racing BMW sits third ahead of the #92 Manthey EMA and #96 Rutronik Porsches.
The sole top-10 AMG is the #88 Akkodis ASP car running sixth ahead of the #71 AF Corse Ferrari, the #11 Audi Sport Team Comtoyou R8, the #5 Gold Cup leading Optimum McLaren and the #46 Team WRT BMW.
The leading Bronze cup pair are the 12th and 13th placed overall #911 Pure Racing and #91 Herberth Porsches whilst Silver Cup is headed by the 19th placed Team Comtoyou Audi.
Pro-Am is in the hands of the #75 SuEnergy1 AMG – 26th overall.
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