The 24h of Spa: Les Combes and the Weather Gods.

Yellow flag. Red flag. A race stoppage of almost six hours. This is how the 71st 24h of Spa will be remembered in motorsport history.

Rain fell almost relentlessly onto the track from the overcast skies above the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. Sometimes it was wet, sometimes it was dry. And then it became impassable. At this point, the race was already well into the night and the unremitting battle for victory was in full swing in a race characterised by accidents and full-course yellow phases. After the conditions steadily deteriorated, at around 5:45 am, the race was temporarily stopped. The rain was too heavy and the course was too dangerous, due to the poor night-time visibility. The cars headed for the pits.

When they returned to the track at 11:30 am on Sunday, the nerve-racking chase continued. The interrupted three-way battle between the GPX Porsche, Black-Falcon Mercedes and WRT Audi now entered a decisive stage. On the still damp track, the GPX Team’s Porsche 911 GT3 R with Kevin Estre at the wheel unleashed its full power. Two hours before the end, Nico Müller in the Audi was leading the race, before approaching the “Les Combes” chicane at high speed. In exactly the same place where Estre had previously overtaken Marco Engel in the Mercedes, Nico Müller in the Audi now skidded under pressure from Estre, which, thanks to his error, left the way clear for Estre’s victorious run to the finish.

After a wet race, Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen and Richard Lietz in the 911 GT3 R delivered another cut and dried victory for Porsche at Spa-Francorchamps.The Porsche success in Spa was rounded off with the ROWE Porsche in second place and another three 911s in the Top 10.