Neel Jani of the #99 Proton Competition Porsche held the lead after two hours of racing at the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
The opening hour gave way to a frantic, exciting yet controlled race start with a charging form by Andlauer in the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963, after gaining the lead before he built a substantial gap.
Into the second hour, the action continued with the Porsches – works and customer cars – showing encouraging pace, although the #6 Porsche Penske of Frederic Makowiecki was tailed by Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 Ferrari 499P on the Kemmel Straight, before the move was made by the Italian.
Toyota were chasing redemption after a challenging start, as #7 GR010 Hybrid driven by Mike Conway was being chased by Will Stevens in the #12 JOTA 963, and so the two Brits continued together.
As Andlauer opened up the gap to second place, the car which started in second place – the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn – endured a difficult start and pitted to fresh left-side medium tyres in order to gain back the pace they were not able to keep up, primarily down to the tyre performance.
He overtook Marco Wittmann in the #15 WRT BMW M Hybrid for P11 as he chased the points threshold.
The first safety car period was deployed after Marco Wittmann in the #20 BMW WRT – who was later penalised with a drive-through penalty – for crashing into the #38 JOTA Porsche of Phil Hanson, who made contact into the #46 BMW M4 WRT of Ahmad Al Harthy.
As the #46 hit the left side barrier before Les Combes (Turn 8), a virtual safety car – which became an extensive safety car period shortly afterwards – was declared to conduct a complete replacement to the barrier in which the #46 hit into.
A tense moment for the #99 of Jani was when the door refused to close after several repeated attempts, although it was resolved which meant they ignored a black and orange flag.
Jani held the lead in the Hypercar class ahead of James Calado in the #51 Ferrari 499P, followed by the #5 Porsche Penske of Michael Christensen.
Fourth was taken by the other #6 Porsche Penske of Andre Lotterer as Yifei Ye rounded off the top-five in the #83 Ferrari 499P AF Corse.
In LMGT3, Sarah Bovy asserted great pace in the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 with up to 40 seconds established on the second-placed #59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 EVO of James Cottingham.
The attention was on the fight for just outside the podium places, when Al Harthy was fending off Ian James in the #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage, as Francesco Castellacci in the #54 Ferrari 296 AF Corse and the #92 Manthey Porsche 911 Malykhin completed the compact train.
James and Castellacci made their way into P4 and P5 as the AMR fended off the Ferrari, leaving Al Harthy to lose two positions.
Unfortunately for him, the day for the #46 became lesser ideal when they were collected into the multi-car collision.
In the LMGT3 lead was the #85 Lamborghini of Sarah Bovy, followed by the #59 McLaren of James Cottingham, with Yasser Shahin’s #91 Manthey Porsche in third.
Arnold Robin in the #78 Lexus RC F of Akoddis ASP held fourth position as Francesco Castellacci followed in fifth for the #54 AF Corse Ferrari.
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