Six and a half dozen of the most beautiful cars took to the grid this year, the famous track in the Ardennes.
Infrastructure track is designed so that there is a whole two pitbildinga with boxes located on the rays of the sharpest turn — Loop La LAS, and accordingly there are two grid, with top boxes and the top grid has traditionally been used by Formula 1, but lower — for lots of support. But the number of cars in the contest Spa 24 Hours makes it very undesirable start from formular section, or all of these tens cars will actually be nowhere to go in the first turn, and starting from the bottom of the grid they manage at least a little to be distributed prior to entering the On-Rouge and then to the Radillon.
The race in the Ardennes, which has been several years has included in its calendar championship Stefan Rattelya Blancpain GT Series, attended not only by drivers who are traveling in the two championships under one roof — Sprint Series and Endurance Series, but here are permitted and the drivers of the national GT3 series and Intercontinental GT Challenge. Thus is formed and the lattice of the maximum 65 crews (can no longer accommodate the circuit itself), which in itself is a delightful spectacle.
The race in Spa — one of the most unpredictable events in motorsports, and for several reasons. The first is, of course, the number of participants, the level of which is definitely different. Second — this is a high complexity of the route, consisting of segments with huge elevation changes, blind corners and false apexes. Third — whims of weather, because trail is in the mountains, where the change of rain and sun can be literally a matter of minutes. Well, the last — the total for all daily marathons: tired of people and technology, attention and concentration drop silly mistakes.
This year, all were in abundance, but scandals and surprises began even before the start.
I must say that this year the most successful in most of the races were on the team Mercedes. Even if they did not win, you still finished in the top. The fans obviously did not forget some completely crazy breakthroughs and victories that are gained by the crew Bernd Schneider and Jules Black Falcon team Zhimkovyaka. It was beautiful and the performances HTP Motorsport team crews.
It happened in Spa. In the last qualifying segment, which is called the «Superpole», shared the first 20 places on the grid, and the fact that all six Mercedes teams with factory support Black Falcon, HTP Motorsport and AKKA ASP were at the top of the peloton, probably, someone has suggested on certain thoughts.
As a result of technical inspection it was found that the ignition is on these cars put at odds with the requirements of the regulations. Superpole results for them were canceled, and then another, and added 5 minute penalties Stop & Go — with the wording for unsportsmanlike behavior. There was a view that all the «fraud» carried out with the full knowledge of pilots.
Punished were crews №00 and №56 team Black Falcon, # 84, # 85 and №86 RES Motorsport team and №88 AKKA ASP team.
Thus, the right to start from pole position went to René Rast # 28 Audi Sport Team WRT R8, but he had some difficulties with the start, and although he still managed to keep the lead, he had a rather difficult under attack Stalking rivals. By the way, René Rast motorsport fans may know the team G-Drive, where German stands in one carriage with Roman Rusinov in the World Endurance Championship (WEC).
The intensity of the struggle in the first minutes of the race was able to reduce none other than Marco Zifrid, which this time was the start of a pilot crew №333 on bright green Ferrari Rinaldi Racing team. The Rinaldi Racing, which is essentially a Russian team is going well and our pilot Rinat Salikhov, one of three Russians who in 2016 came at the start of the 24 hours of Spa.
Within three minutes after the start Zifrid caused the appearance of yellow flags. Made a mistake in the heat of the struggle for the position, he flew into the gravel and it is deeply stuck, so he had to wait for help to come back to the track. Unfortunately, as a result of this incident, Ferrari was able to get back on track after losing only three laps, at the end of the peloton.
By and large Zifrid played into the hands of «erring» Mercedes, four of whom immediately drove to the pitlane to serve a five-minute stop-and-go.
The restart of the race turned out to be a bad one for the Audi # 28. Rast could not dial the desired speed, and was forced to skip ahead of two rivals: Lamborghini # 63 Grasser Racing Team and Ferrari # 50 team AF Corse. But on such a procedure it proved indestructible, and more than an hour the tip of the peloton remained in relative peace.
But in the depths of there are many events, including pleasant for us: Ferrari # 49 team Kaspersky Motorsport, in a carriage that rides the Russian pilot Alexander Moiseev, made a fantastic breakthrough with 55 starting places on the 31th and took the first position in the class Am.
The first half hour of the race was relatively quiet. But on 90 minutes, an accident occurs, the cause of which can only be described in one word: silly. At the exit of the pitlane Porsche # 77 at high speed and not looking around literally crashes into the side running along its trajectory Ferrari # 53. Both cars fly by with the force gardreylam Red water from them in different directions fly splinters, but both pilots, fortunately, are intact and can themselves get out of the car.
They suffer not only cars, but also the security barriers so the second mode FCY is quickly replaced by a very real safety car, who is forced to spend the whole string of cars racing through the narrow neck, which remained after the overlap routes for maintenance and evacuation. Giancarlo Fisichella, in the pits waiting for their shift to the Ferrari # 53 with surprise could only shrug: it was clear that the race car is not coming back.
70 minutes repair gardreylov occurred on both sides of the road. 70 long minutes the pilots were forced to move behind the safety car. This time would be more than enough to hold a full sprint arrival and still have left, but there was nothing about it.
The first significant milestone in the race — 6-hour mark, the first virtual podium for the three leaders of the race, in which the first points are distributed. In Spa this mark came at 10.30 pm, and in that moment made his way into the lead crew BMW # 99 ROWE Motorsport, who earned his first 12 points, and in fact at the start were not even in the top ten!
Short rain that poured over the Ardennes, had virtually no effect on the balance of power in the race, however, subsequent trace accident # 15 BMW Team Italia in Radillone again led to enter the safety car, thereby reducing the gaps in the peloton. However, when restarting an event that affected all further alignment of forces: # 28 Audi Sport Team WRT R8 has made contact with the Jaguar №114 Emil Frey Racing, resulting in both cars returned to the pitlane at the forced repair. So the crew René Rast, Nico Muller and lost three laps Vanthoor and returned to the track with a large backlog.
The Am category after Bentley # 30 Parker Racing Team lost control and flew into gardreyly in Les Combes, leadership returned to the Ferrari # 49 Kaspersky Motorsport. As for the green Ferrari # 333, they could do nothing about it as diligently to make its way to the top.
Just after midnight, there was another accident. And again with the Bentley. Car number 24 as a result of its own mistakes in piloting flew to the fence of the tire and had to eventually get. Although damage to the eye and were not too great, however, turned out to be impossible to repair the vehicle, as a result seriously damaged suspension. In addition, safety barriers were again damaged, causing them to require repair, as it led to yet another output on the safety car track. Incidentally, it was only the fourth since the beginning of the gathering of the race.
By the 12-hour mark, which also includes a virtual podium for pilots stage Endurance series, led the peloton car Bentley # 8 Sula, bitches and Wolfgang Ripa. This brought them to 12 points, and after this, when one of the Ferrari №41 spilled oil in the «bus stop», and again on the track the safety car came out, Rip went to the pitlane to serve the 5-minute penalty. The peloton led the BMW # 99 ROWE Racing. By this time, finally rehabilitated Ferrari # 333 Rinaldi Racing, which has managed to climb in the class Am to the 3rd position and even gain their first points.
However, it happened for a reason. At around 5 am there was a technical descent due to a problem with the engine crew Kaspersky Motorsport, who had previously headed its category.
«I'm terribly upset — Alexander Moiseev said. — We really were very fast, and I expect that we will be fighting for the podium. And we're fighting: the first six hours, we almost continuously in the lead, and even won the virtual podium! And now we are all lost because of the usual technical problems! But these difficulties we have as a racing team only increase motivation and raise team spirit. I want as soon as possible get back on track, and very soon we will have such an opportunity — during a race at the Nürburgring, the track that I really like. »
... Returning from Stop-and-go Bentley # 8 again regains top position, holds it long enough, and then again receives a penalty in the form of travel in the pitlane — should not this time for exceeding the time limit location on the track (the gap between the pitstop exceed 65 minutes). Again leadership intercepts BMW # 99.
Meanwhile, Audi # 28, which is rolled back after contact with Jaguar №114, slowly wins back position after position. Lawrence Vanthor who «raised» his crew to 4 places in the overall classification, even managed to show the best lap time in the race: 2'18.793.
Four hours before the finish line at the head of the peloton he was still №99, and on the heels of his advancing Bentley №8. I wonder what would have been the crew gap Bentley from the rest of the peloton, if they are not continually waste time serving various sentences! After all, in addition to the 5-minute penalty they still had to call four times to drive through!
Around the same time there is another dramatic event. Audi # 6 Christopher Mies, who pretend to be on the podium, suddenly flashed fire in one of the turns. When they began to understand the reason of fire, discovered that one of interrupted fuel hoses — and it happened immediately after Miz punched wheel. Perhaps a piece of rubber or perhaps disc damaged hose, and this in turn led to the fire.
But as a result of the incident was released Audi №6 place in the top 3 other Audi — at number # 28, which René Rast was extremely happy.
The fire led to the emergence of the next seyfiti car, which sincerely delighted many crews: the end of the race, as he had promised the weather forecast over the Ardennes storm clouds gathered and rain began to drip. So it was a good opportunity to call on the pitstop to change tires.
Rain has not taken one. Less than an hour to finish the rain came again, and this time the element played with the unfortunate Bentley # 8 cruel joke. Just a few minutes before they went on their last race pit stop, and that has led to dramatic results. Those cars out of the top five that «outlasted» them on the road, went to the pit stop under ordinary yellow flags, and they were able to return to the track in front of the crew №8.
The entire race in Bentley №8 was based on the principle of «in spite of.» Five-minute penalty for exceeding the time limit on finding the track and four fine passing on pitlane crew was able to play, but a fatal mistake from the last pit stop (well, how can we predict!) Deprived them not only of victory and a place in the poduime. After the return of the leaders on the track # 8, the Bentley was on the fifth position. However, fortune smiled at him at last, but it was more like an ironic grin: a few minutes to finish the crew Mercedes # 86 was punished by passing on the pitlane for unsafe driving when leaving the boxes and dropped back to fifth place, allowing Bentley # 8 play one position. The fourth in the end. How insulting!
1. BMW # 99
2. Mercedes # 88
3. Audi # 28.
Photo: Blancpain
