SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, BELGIUM – Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed’s Luca Stolz, Fabian Schiller and Lucas Auer finished a hard-fought CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa ninth in Pro Cup in their Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Rowe Racing’s Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Nick Yelloly won round three of the 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup in their BMW M4. The AKKODIS ASP Team Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, Timur Boguslavskiy and Jules Gounon finished second after 537 laps, with the Scherer Sport PHX Audi of Luca Engstler, Kelvin van der Linde and Nicki Thiim third.
How the race unfolded
The 75th edition started behind the safety car, with the AF Corse Ferrari leading after an hour and Stolz 13th in Pro. He climbed to 11th by two hours, and by three hours Schiller had taken over in seventh, as the Scherer Sport PHX Audi took the lead. The car was ninth after five hours and 10th after seven, as the lead passed between the Manthey EMA Porsche, Team WRT BMW and Scherer Audi.
Through the night the WRT BMW, Audi Sport Tresor Orange, Scherer Audi and AKKODIS ASP Mercedes swapped the lead, and by daybreak the Al-Manar crew had dropped to 13th. A strong morning stint by Auer lifted the car to eighth in Pro at two-thirds distance (391 laps), still on the lead lap at 440 laps.
Into the final two hours, Stolz pushed the car up to seventh, but Rowe Racing came through to win, and Schiller took the flag ninth, a lap behind the leaders.
Practice and qualifying
Rowe Racing’s Daniel Harper, Neil Verhagen and Max Hesse topped Thursday practice with 2min 18.186sec, with the Al-Manar car lower down on 2min 19.407sec. In the three 15-minute qualifying sessions, the car was 20th in Pro in Q1 (2min 24.347sec), ninth in Q2 and fourth in Q3. The Manthey EMA Porsche of Julien Andlauer, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre took Pro Cup pole ahead of Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing’s Maro Engel, Mikaël Grenier and Daniel Juncadella, with Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed 13th.