Comtoyou Racing - winners of the 2024 Spa 24

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Remember this date - 30th June 2024 – the day when Belgian team Comtoyou Racing team and Aston Martin Racing won the Spa 24 Hours.

Making history together at the centennial running of the this great event, The Jean Michel Baert led team also won their first Spa 24 race alongside that of the new 2024 Vantage GT3 as well as Aston Martin Racing first win at the Ardennes circuit in over seventy years.

Again, the event didn’t fail to deliver on excitement, incident and accident as well as heart break and elation as sixty-seven similar powered GT3 cars competed for the top honours with the five available classes.

There was to be no fairy tale to the start of this race though as both the #007 Comtoyou Racing and #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin’s made it through to Superpole but had to make do with starting positions at the tail end of the top twelve. Then onto of that, there were the performances of five more Vantage GT3 crews to consider over what will be a gruelling race.

The sister #12 Comtoyou car was the first to experience the heart break of the event as they were eliminated from the race early on as they were taken out by a passing Ferrari coming out of La Source that would see their steering and suspension deranged but they fortunately avoided the carnage that then followed involving the Ferrari stranded on track.

Then the rains came – as expected and just a hard and persistent as it usually at the circuit. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the #36 Walkenhorst AMR was lost due to a high speed off at Eau Rouge that saw the car heavily damaged in the tyre wall and a wheel making its way down the hill to pit out without the rest of the car attached. Luckily, the driver was otherwise OK for the impact, but his dismay and regret was clear for everyone to see.

Night would then turn into the gloom of Sunday as the rains still persisted although they had relented in intensity. All appeared to be going well for the #35 Walkenhorst Silver Cup entry as having lead (or there abouts) the class for much of the race to that point.

However, another error from the #34 Team WRT BMW saw that car make contact with another car at Les Combes only for that rebounding car to be collected by the avoiding #36 car at the next corner. Unavoidable as far as the Aston Martin was concerned – unnecessary as far as the BMW was concerned as whilst they and the Ferrari continued, the #36’s day was already run.

By now, the race was coming to its end and whilst the #007 Comtoyou was still at the sharp end of the leading pack, they were not alone as the #34 Walkenhorst laid chase, but their race winning chances would also come to an end at Les Combes as contact between them and the #51 Ferrari was deemed their fault for which they would receive a ten second time penalty added to their race time. That would see them eventually finish P4 overall – still a great achievement.

The highlight, however, was the #007 Comtoyou car of Mattea Drudi, Marco Sorenson and Nicki Thiim who, with the help of the team and those from AMR, brought their car home to win the Spa 24 together for the first time.

Have seen their trials and tribulations within the opening rounds of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, this result was thoroughly deserved as they kept the car of the tarmac, made no obvious contact with other competitors to run a faultless adaptive race strategy!!