July Reflections… The Spa 24 Hours

The month of July turned out to be hugely busy, with three major race events back to back for DSC’s editorial duo in Europe. It was a workload not helped by both weather (Spa the usual, Monza and Ricard extremely hot!) and a significantly ailing editor who struggled throughout with what turned out to be mild pneumonia. 

After a week or so of recovery, DSC has taken time to reflect on the ups and downs, pluses and minuses, talking points and areas of concern for three of the packages that are closest to the core of what DSC does. Here is the first of three editorial reflections, starting with the 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium.

In the wake of the centenary Le Mans came the 2023 Crowdstrike Spa 24 Hours, an event that celebrates its own centenary next year. DSC was on site with an ailing editor and a fully up-to-speed news editor, hosted by Audi Sport. (You can read why, HERE )

The event provided a great opportunity to take half a step back from regular paddock pounding and take a closer look at what makes this event tick.

There was much to admire, starting with Wednesday’s parade which included more or less the whole field for the 24 hours itself, plus a number of support event cars and other vehicles of interest running in convoy and at times at speed on the public roads between the circuit and the centre of Spa.

It was the DSC editor’s first opportunity to experience this, not just as a bystander, but as a participant. His chauffeur for the evening was none other than Audi Sport customer racing boss Chris Reinke, who pedalled an Audi R8 LMS GT2 with real verve.

Reinke was keen to show off its visual and aural delights to the thousands of fans and locals that lined the route and packed the centre of Spa where the cars were exhibited.

It’s fair to say that this part of the week massively exceeded my expectations. It was a genuinely joyful occasion, executed well, with a huge level of enthusiasm from both the teams and the public. DSC’s editor had seen road runs done before, but none on this scale and with such unlimited opportunities for the public to interact with the race participants.

In the paddock, this felt like an event of real scale and significance, where a huge number of significant industry players were both present and available, and where two significant cars got their global reveal.

Ford Performance was out in force for the launch of the Mustang GT4 and Maserati too bussed in its top brass for the first public appearance of its new GT2 weapon.

In all, there were around 200 GT cars scattered across the paddock from the Spa 24 Hours, GT4 European Series, GT1 Sports Club, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and McLaren Trophy fields. There was plenty for the fans to look at on track as well as many additional significant cars on hand for static displays.

While there wasn’t a GT2 race on the bill, the SRO’s newest GT formula proved to be very much a subject of conversation among teams, manufacturers and race organisers. Maserati is in, but separately both Ford and BMW effectively counted themselves out, Ford has “too much on its plate” and BMW doesn’t have the right platform.

On the flip side, comments both on and off the record from significant players in the marketplace made it clear too that further escalation in GT3 costs are cause for concern, with GT2 being mentioned as the effective body armour against future issue.

“The price is right,” Stephane Ratel told DSC during the event. “GT3 is getting very expensive. We need a class that is cost-effective, fast and impressive and this is the right category.

“I would be very worried if I didn’t have GT2. Now that I have GT2 I sleep very well!”

Away from that there was a widely-welcomed and pragmatic change in direction for the IGTC. This is one of two surprise announcements during the annual SRO press conference, held on the morning of the 24 Hours. The inclusion of the Nürburgring 24 Hours in SRO’s blue riband global championship takes it in a new direction, finally putting the sword to those that still claim it is significant only as a national race.

The later clarification that the entire existing ruleset will be respected, critically including freedom of tyre choice outside of SRO’s regular Pirelli-only environment, quelled much of the dissension from the headline announcement.

The IGTC deserves a future and a short period of consolidation as the world calms down, which will massively improve its prospects in the longer term

The IGTC is no doubt still in recovery mode after taking heavy blows from COVID and the subsequent packing of the winter schedule in the Gulf area, which hurt its events at Bathurst and Kyalami. That period also saw a withdrawal from Japan.

DSC believes these are the right moves, at the right time, for the right reasons. The IGTC deserves a future and a short period of consolidation as the world calms down, which will massively improve its prospects in the longer term.

The same can be said for the N24, which is going through a tricky period of its own, with rising costs and the future of the NLS (which the race’s participants have been wedded to for many years) still very much up in the air. The addition of SRO’s organisational skills and commercial nous will go a long way in ensuring that the N24 retains its status as a key event on the annual sportscar racing calendar.

The other major surprise was the confirmation that the final round of the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe season, will not take place in Europe. Instead, the teams will travel to Saudi Arabia for a new race in Jeddah.

Putting aside for just a moment the inevitable ‘sports washing’ comments, the package put together by SRO appears to be focused on goals wider than simply an expansion into Saudi Arabia as a marketplace. Flexibility in the shipping package should see significant savings for teams planning to take part in several other events and series in the Gulf region, including the 24H Series and the Asian Le Mans Series (which this coming season, SRO is co-promoting with the ACO).

Referring to the comments above around the damage done to the IGTC by COVID, all moves by any organising bodies to take the wider view on the health of the sport and in particular, the health of the finances of the teams that populated, should be widely welcomed.

Spa, as is so often the case, doled out somewhat mixed weather conditions, and that at the very least played a role in what very sadly was the major headline of the weekend, the fatal accident of young Dutch racer Dilano van’t Hoff on Saturday morning in a Formula Regional Europe race before the main event got underway.

Any death in motorsport is shocking, particularly in the modern era, and deserves full investigation of all the facts and factors. DSC believes another essential ingredient is full disclosure, of any investigation.

Any death in motorsport is shocking, particularly in the modern era, and deserves full investigation of all the facts and factors

It was however, far from helpful to have online comment dominated by the amplified statements of several personalities from the Formula 1 paddock, even though it was abundantly clear that some of those expressing an opinion did not have the full facts available to them.

Opinion is one thing, but the facts should prevail. If changes are to be suggested, they should not be restricted to the latest internet bête noir. They should encompass consideration of everything involved.

The objective should be safety and safety alone and not to satisfy however many Twitter followers any commentator might have.

Those mixed conditions too, can make life as a paying spectator at Spa pretty miserable. But here, there was some good news. With the recent package of spectator facility improvements, including two major covered grandstands continuing to mature well. The stands opposite the endurance pits, and in particular the superb new facility at Raidillon, will undoubtedly have encouraged many to stay trackside for far longer than would have been the case in many previous years.

It is DSC’s firm opinion that we have gained far more than we have lost, with this round of changes.

Onto the race proper. Whilst the spectacle of 70 GT3 cars, often in close formation, is a sight to behold, the progressive impact of an increasingly restrictive ruleset has negatively impacted this event for endurance racing purists.

DSC can take pleasure as much as the next fan in an on-track battle between two, three or more cars. However, it feels like the drive for equality has gone too far and at times, excellence is snuffed out by a ‘minimum this, maximum that’ approach.

2023 in particular saw further changes, notably to do with the enforcement of track limits and the penalties that followed. This area is a real enigma, directly safety related, and it should be said, was often wilfully ignored by competitors, particularly overnight, at this event in previous years.

More than in any other year, the major results were decided by those that stayed within the track limits. Arguably that’s a good thing, but in practice this race felt like a very, very long list of team after team, after team, after team, being dealt penalty after penalty.

Is it time for a wide and open conversation about this issue? One that takes into account every relevant audience and every relevant factor. This should include the question as to whether or not having 70 cars, which through BoP have more or less identical potential performance but with a wide spread of driver ability, is sensible.

In short, this is a world-class event and deserves a world-class race. In 2023 it didn’t get one. The race organisers would do well to think about the reasons why it didn’t.

Images courtesy of Audi, SRO and Frozenspeed

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