FIA GT – TOTAL Spa 24 Hours – Hours 4, 5 & 6
Set Up, Cycling And Things

So a Safety Car a few seconds after the three hour mark, which gives us a chance to catch up with things…

Or not – because Niarchos is back running almost immediately, and the SC disappears at 19.09. Nelson Valkenburg carries on with the race notes (below).

Pedro Lamy, who drove the opening stint in the #1 Maserati, is not very happy.

“Oversteer. The car has changed since qualifying. My feeling is that it is because of the rain. Thomas (Biagi, in the #2 car) was very unhappy. But we cannot change the set-up. I also had a problem with the belts coming undone – but I managed to tighten them up again.”

Ollie Gavin adds to this subject: “The circuit has gone green after the rain. I think the teams with a stiffer set-up are struggling – which includes us. We went for a set-up on Thursday, and didn’t really change it. We’re quite stiff, and we’re using the tyres quicker than we’d like. We’re waiting for the track to come to us. The Phoenix car seems to have really nailed the set-up.”

“The traffic is crazy at times. The yellow flags mean that you lose so much time stuck behind slower cars, waiting until you get to a bit of bit of track with green flags.” Is the #3 losing time at pit stops too?

No set-up issues at Peka Racing, with the #4 Corvette. Bert Longin did a double stint, then climbed into his cycling gear “for 20 minutes, to get rid of the lactic acid – then 45 minutes massage.” J&B whisky too Bert? What a funny man.

“I was fighting the Maseratis like hell. I had a big fight into Les Combes – was it with Montanari? We touched five times, then he went onto the grass. I took two cars on lap 1 at Raidillon, then one more at Les Combes – I’m very happy with our pace.”

A 2:17 for Bert became a 2:16 for Anthony Kumpen.

All smiles at Phoenix then, as Ollie Gavin’s comments would suggest.

“Magnifique, superb,” said Jean-Denis Deletraz to Marcel Fassler after his double stint, most of it in the lead, for the first two hours.

“Yes, almost perfect, some understeer on my last few laps,” said Fassler.

Gollin was next in, for a double stint, then Hezemans, then J-DD. “We might do single stints if it rains,” said Deletraz.

Back in G3, David Ashburn pitted twice early on – because the penalty box had moved! “I couldn’t find it – I had to go out again while the team worked out where it had moved to. When I was lapped (by the GT1 and GT2 leaders) I just held my line.”

“That made for good TV,” said Martin Rich, who will be fourth man in this car.

Max Busnelli, on the accident for the #12 Playteam MC12 in the early going: "I just could not see who it was, a slow Ferrari 430 GT3 (nr. 201 JMB Ferrari from the Coupe du Roi). There was nothing I could do. I was slowing down to pass a number of slow GT3s and then this car came from the back and touched me from the back. I spun and there was nothing I could do. On the next turn 8, I went wide and was stranded on the side of the road, with rear damage. Of course, I picked up a lot of gravel and the car is quite damaged in the back. I managed to drive back despite the back hanging.”

Lap 76 – immediately after the re-start: the impressive Kumpen takes the lead after coming in right as the safety-car came on track. The Carsport C6.R came in a few laps later and as the safety-car was called in, came out 12 seconds behind the Peka Racing car.

After the restart there is mayhem as several cars try to use the same piece of tarmac, the #70 Ferrari loses out with a puncture.

On Lap 80 Ryan Sharp takes second from Gollin in the Carsport C6.R. Mike Hezemans is apparently getting very nervous in his garage as the former leader is going round in 2.19s. Kumpen justifies the nerves with a fantastic lap of 2.16.9 as he pulls away.

In GT2 Ortelli pulls away from Lieb by pulling a 2.24.0 out of the head. The German himself no slouch as he goes round in 2.25.6. These two are currently the class of the field. Leo Machitski is running in sixth, just ahead of the recovering Raymond Narac Porsche.

Fantastic stuff at the head of the field as a very agressive Kumpen manages a 2.16.7 – the fastest lap of the race- against a 2.17.6 for Sharp. Fabrizio Gollin is now turning in 2.18s, around the same pace he was doing before the safety-car. The field just can’t live with Kumpen’s pace at the moment.

Last year’s hero, Eric van de Poele is off at Les Combes as he fights with Carsport’s Fabrizio Gollin, who is a lap ahead of the Belgian. The Maserati spins and takes to the grass, but is able to rejoin.

Trackspeed continue their fightback after the earlier delays, Luke Hines setting lap times equal to the class leaders. The British Porsche 997 GT3 up to ninth in class and 34th overall.

Proving that the Porsche is quick enough to fight with the GT2 Ferrari, Marc Lieb sets a personal best of 2.24.2. The BMS Porsche now only 19 seconds behind the AF Corse 430 GT2 as Ortelli must have hit traffic, his lap time only a 2.30.

19.40 - Greg Franchi takes over from Vosse in the Alphand Corvette. The erstwhile leader is down in fifth after a slightly disappointing hour. The Belgian single-seater driver is ahead of compatriot Stephane Lemeret.

The GT2 leader comes in on his 87^th lap for a full service, handing over the class lead to Lieb who is consistently going round in the low 2.25s. The Porsche seems to be able to go a few laps longer on load of fuel, something that might prove significant over 24 hours.

At 19:50 Gollin starts to catch Ryan Sharp in the JetAlliance Aston Martin, now only four seconds behind. Kumpen continues to pull away though, clearly lapping quicker than the opposition.

The #50 car is back out after its earlier problems. A broken radiator has been repaired after Muller apparently went off on oil - Sean Edwards confirming that the track was covered in oil.

100 laps, four hours, Kumpen and Piccini yet to stop.

Dirk Muller: “It would make perfect sense if there was oil down, the rear just snapped out as I put the power down.  I broke the radiator and got stones in the steering which meant that I hit the barrier and then went off again.”

Renaud Kuppens - #101 Gillet Vertigo: “There was a lot of damage, we are repairing the car now but it will be at least 2 hours.”

Olivier Beretta (on his strange loss of pace at the end of the second stint for the #3 Luc Alphand Corvette): “We were on the wrong rubber, we put on soft tyres when it should have been medium.”

Jamie Davies - #23 BMS Aston Martin: “We’re lacking grip and we have understeer and oversteer in the car so we’re far from perfect on balance.  We are where we are though and we’ve just got to live with it.  We’ll try some different things with tyre combinations to see if that helps but with the weather being so cool the track just isn’t ‘rubbering up’ as it should.  The race will come back to us though.”

Sean Edwards - #99 Tech 9 Porsche: “The biggest problem out there is traffic, a safe and comfy pace on a clear lap is around a 2:25 or 26 but with so many slower cars out there it’s easy to lose a couple of seconds on a lap.  At the moment the Ferraris are very fast but if (and when) it rains we’ll kick some Ferrari ass!”

Emmanuel Collard - #97 BMS Scuderia Italia Porsche: “We are going well, we will double stint from here and there is a lot more to come from the fight.”

The latest in a long list of woes for the #28 Lamborghini seem to have been explained by Jeroen Bleekemolen: “I went over a kerb and the emergency power cut-off plug popped out.  The marshals pushed the car back to the box and when it went out again with Jos (Menten) driving, the car pitted immediately with a collapsed rear wing.  It is possible that the guys pushing the car might have accidentally damaged the wing.”

The #60 ProSpeed GT2 Porsche is out: the team suspected a faulty crankshaft sensor, and spent an hour changing it – but the fault was still there. It turns out that a chunk of rubber ripped out a front wheel arch fender, and simultaneously destroyed the wiring to the wheel speed sensor, which gave a duff signal to the dash – and the ‘engine’ problem. Porsche doesn’t bring this wiring to the circuits…

Chris Niarchos was a ball of frustration after the incident which brought out the Safety car. “It was a numbskull moment I’m afraid, I came up on waved yellows for the recovery of a Porsche (at the exit of ‘No Name’ corner) and just got distracted for a moment, missed my turning in point and locked up the rears and spun backwards, ending up almost parallel parked against the (#107) Porsche.”

The Porsche arrived back in the paddock bearing the scars of its own accident, with suspension damage at the front left and right rear, the #63 Scuderia Ecosse car continued with minor cosmetic damage.

20.20 - and it's trying to rain.....

Current position: Only Corvettes have set laps in the 2:16s (nos 3, 4 and 5), but Franchi is the slower man in #3, and this car has faded in fifth. Mollekens in the Peka C5 and Hezemans in the Carsport C6 are 1-2, 40 secs apart - but with Wendlinger matching their pace in the Jetalliance Aston in third.

de Simone is fourth in Playteam's #11, then Franchi, who pits for Gavin to drive his second stint. The Vitaphones are sixth and seventh (fifth and sixth after Franchi's stop, #3 dropping to seventh), but their pace, especially Lamy in #1, seems to be improving, Pedro into the 2:17s with this car's best lap of the race. Gavin is right with the pair of MC12s.

23, 18 and 16 make up the tail of the healthy GT1s.

Hezemans' C6 suddenly starts belching rubber smoke from the l/front wheel. He doesn't pit - but half of a lap, slowly (2:50 lap), has let Wendlinger catch him. And passes, to take second. Hezemans pits on the next lap, at about 20.45.

Still with GT1, Gavin has swept past Lamy and unlapped himself from the #11 Playteam, and lapped the #16 JMB MC12 - and closes on Lemeret in #2. Four MC12s in two laps? Meanwhile, Hezemans looks like a man on a mission, now fourth, a lap down. Gavin does pass Lemeret for fifth. Lamy goes faster - best lap of the race, a 2:16.680.

GT2... Aguas and Collard are 15 seconds apart for the GT2 lead, Case in #52 Edil Cris 430 is third, then #74 Ebimotors, #76, #62 and #99. Enge is in #62 for the first time, pulling away from Maassen and catching Long.

We can't believe how much we've written in this two hour period. The race hasn't settled at all......