Podium for WINWARD Racing at Spa
Good performance, lots of bad luck, but also a happy ending for the WINWARD Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.
The centenary edition of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa ended with great disappointment on one side and great joy on the other for WINWARD Racing. First held in 1924, the endurance classic on the legendary Grand Prix circuit in the Belgian Ardennes once again counted not only towards the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS but also towards the Intercontinental GT Challenge, the unofficial GT3 world championship, in which the German-Texan team was entered as a Mercedes-AMG representative. With 67 cars from nine different brands, the 24 Hours of Spa was again regarded as the strongest GT3 race in the world.
The final result did not quite match the WWR crew’s high expectations. Lucas Auer (29, Kufstein/Austria), Maro Engel (38, Monaco) and Daniel Morad (33, Markham/Canada) retired early on Sunday morning in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 entered by Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER, after a dominant start and an eventful night shaped by difficult conditions. In WINWARD Racing’s sister car, Tanart Sathienthirakul (31, Bangkok), Daan Arrow (20, Amsterdam) and Colin Caresani (20, Aerdenhout) missed out on a possible class win in the Silver Cup for driver line-ups with the FIA Silver rating, but finished third and climbed onto the podium.
The disappointment was greatest in the “MANN-FILTER Mamba” camp. Yet the start of the twice-round-the-clock race had gone perfectly. Starting from the front row in perfect weather, Lucas Auer took the number 48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 into the lead of the impressive field with a bold overtaking move after 26 minutes. Half an hour later the Tyrolean had already pulled more than five seconds clear when a rear-left puncture, caused by running over a sharp piece of carbon on the track, started a real rollercoaster ride through the order.
The slow lap back to the pits cost around half a minute, and driving in heavy traffic afterwards about the same again. And when a Full Course Yellow slowed the race shortly after the Mamba’s next routine stop, giving the competition a far less time-consuming pit stop, the yellow-green MANN-FILTER car had dropped back to 44th.
With consistently fast lap times and some clever tactical moves by the WWR strategy team, Auer, Engel and Morad fought their way back into the top 10, although the different pit rhythms of the cars kept distorting the picture. Not least because the race had to be neutralised behind the safety car between 11 pm and 1.45 am after heavy rain had flooded the 7.004-kilometre rollercoaster track.
When the rain eased a little later, the WWR management decided on an early switch to slick tyres in order to save a pit stop if possible. The move did not work out, firstly because the track was still too wet, and secondly because Daniel Morad was hit from behind by a rival on the very first lap after the restart and had to pit with another puncture.
Having dropped out of the top 30 again, the Mamba crew began another chase, which came to an abrupt end at almost exactly 5 am at the La Source hairpin. “Two rivals were fighting behind me, and one misjudged his braking so badly that he drove straight into my car. I knew immediately: that’s it,” said a bitterly disappointed Lucas Auer. “It’s a real shame. We had a really fast car, but unfortunately we had a few setbacks.”
Team-mate Daniel Morad saw the first puncture as the root of all evil: “It feels terrible to have had a race-winning package and now be left empty-handed. Somehow we were always chasing the deficit we picked up through the early puncture. We gave absolutely everything. But that’s how this game goes sometimes.”
“It’s just a pity,” said Maro Engel. “Team WINWARD gave us an incredibly good race car this weekend. It was huge fun to drive the Mamba on this track. It just wasn’t our race. The puncture started the difficulties that stayed with us the whole race. Days like this happen. We look ahead and take motivation from a very strong performance this weekend.”
Strong showing by the Silver Cup juniors
The crew entered in the Silver Cup in the number 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 saved the day for the WINWARD squad, even though they were not spared bad luck either. Starting from pole in their class (29th overall), Colin Caresani, Daan Arrow and Tanart Sathienthirakul were always in the fight for the podium, with the two young Dutchmen in particular shining with top times. The big setback came at 8.35 am, about two thirds into the race, in the form of a broken front splitter mount. Replacing the splitter cost twelve minutes and every chance of the class win.
Even so, Caresani, Arrow and Sathienthirakul did not give up and crossed the line after 24 hard hours in difficult conditions in third place in the Silver Cup. “It’s such a shame, because we could easily have won this race,” sighed Arrow. “After a good first stint, the biggest challenge in the night was not falling asleep during the endless safety car phase. And when it was finally over, the race went from the most boring to the most exciting and frightening you can imagine. Visibility was terrible, the track extremely slippery. I can’t say how the problem with the front splitter happened. Either way, it is of course frustrating when a possible class win slips through your fingers like that.”
His compatriot Caresani summed up the race in a similar way: “The night was extremely difficult and challenging. At one point there was a really violent thunderstorm and aquaplaning at 60 km/h. The light show in the sky was breathtaking. Overall it went very well, we had a very fast car and good pace. It’s a pity, we had what it takes to win our class here. But it was also a great feeling for me to bring our Mercedes-AMG GT3 home in third place.”
For Sathienthirakul, the 24 Hours of Spa was “probably the most exciting and toughest race I have ever driven. The heavy rain in the night and the extreme traffic on this demanding track were a real challenge. At times it was like flying blind. On the other hand it was also huge fun! And the podium makes up for all the adversity.”
WINWARD Racing team principal Christian Hohenadel commented on the turbulent weekend with the calm of an experienced former racing driver and team boss: “A 24-hour race has its own rules. A good overall package is never enough on its own. You also need a fair amount of luck to do the right thing at the right place at the right moment. We did a lot right, as the podium for our juniors shows. The boys did a great job. I feel very sorry for Luggi, Maro and Daniel. They have absolutely nothing to blame themselves for, and as always the pit crews gave everything. But in the end it just wasn’t meant to be.”
There is no time to rest for Auer, Engel and the team from Altendiez, though. Next weekend the fourth DTM weekend of the 2024 season takes place at Nuremberg’s Norisring. Two weeks later the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS continues, first with the Sprint Cup weekend at Hockenheim and seven days later with the Endurance Cup race at the Nürburgring.