After running near the front of the pack, both Walkenhorst M6 GT3s dropped out of the July 31 through August 1 24 Hours of Spa before the halfway point of the race. The #35 M6 GT3 driven by Martin Tomczyk, Timo Glock, and Thomas Neubaer retired because of collision damage, while #34, shared by Sheldon van der Linde, Marco Wittmann, and David Pittard, was parked with a technical issue.
Car #35 was running third before midnight when a collision that occurred when Tomczyk was lapping another car led to left front suspension damage. The car was repaired and returned to the track for a time, but it soon exited the race. The #34 car had fought its ways back to podium contention after an early setback, but it lost drive around 3:30 a.m., still before the halfway point in the race, and was parked alongside the circuit by David Pittard.
The #10 Boutson Ginion Racing BMW M6 GT3, running in the Pro-Am Cup class, finished 35th, with Jens Klingmann, Karim Ojjeh, Jens Liebhauser, and Yann Zimmer at the controls.
Walkenhorst team manager Niclas Königbauer said, “Obviously, it is a bitter disappointment. We were up there fighting for the podium with both cars. The drivers and the whole team were highly motivated, and we saw that we had the pace in the race, but sometimes things work out differently than you hope. The fact that two unfortunate situations meant we didn’t finish with
either car makes us very sad—particularly as it was the BMW M6 GT3’s farewell race here at Spa-Francorchamps.”
The overall win went to the #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, Nicklas Nielsen, and Come Ledogar.
The M4 GT3, the car that will take up the charge next season, turned demonstration laps at Spa before the race.—Brian Morgan
[Photos courtesy BMW Motorsport.]