Jules Gounon led the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps for Alpine after three hours of exhilarating racing.
The #36 Alpine A424 Hypercar led the race with excellent performance at the start, owing to Frederic Makowiecki’s brave yet cunning driving.
Not only that, the #36 Alpine showcased marginally better pace than the Ferrari AF Corse factory entrants, which dominated qualifying along with the #83 Ferrari.
After 76 laps, Gounon led by a 1.8-second gap over the #50 Ferrari 499P of Miguel Molina and the #51 Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi.
Robin Frijns held fourth in the #20 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne’s #93 Peugeot 9X8 which rounded the top-five runners.
As the warmth and sunshine at Spa welcomed the second hour of racing with Alpine had showcased promising form towards their charge to the front.
The first virtual safety car deployed after the #92 Manthey Porsche 911 LMGT3.R of Ryan Hardwick dived on the #31 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Yasser Shahin into the bus stop chicane.
Unfortunately, the blue Porsche made contact with the front-right part of Shahin’s BMW thus damaging the steering rack into a spin at La Source.
Shahin consequently ran wide with his broken steering and became stuck in the gravel trap.
The #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P Hypercar sufficed in the lead and retained as Miguel Molina took over from Nicklas Nielsen who did the race start.
Ferrari challenged by Alpine, Peugeot run strongly
On the restart, Molina retained his lead from Frederic Makowiecki’s #36 Alpine and Antonio Giovinazzi’s #51 AF Corse Ferrari.
Paul di Resta of the #93 Peugeot 9X8 Hypercar held fourth in front of the #15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Raffaele Marciello in fifth, although the #15 was being investigated for two separate infringements.
Kevin Magnussen, who was previously at the wheel before Marciello, inflicted a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding presumably on entry whilst Marciello incurred a drive-through penalty. After serving both of these penalties, the #20 BMW was the better-performing of the two.
Paul di Resta wrestled his #93 Peugeot into third on Antonio Giovinazzi, with the momentum down the Kemmel Straight keeping various fights up and down the field alive.
Into the third racing hour, Molina only held a 1.5-second gap on the #36 Alpine of Makowiecki as Makowiecki continued his pace.
Better still, the tension was for positions third–sixth as Frijns attacked #93 Di Resta for third, although he steadily fell back into the grasp of Giovinazzi behind.
Loic Duval in the #94 Peugeot then asserted a great move into fourth on Giovinazzi, with the Peugeots thus running in P3 and P4.
Giovinazzi fought back past the Peugeots amidst LMGT3 traffic.
After a series of Hypercar pit stops, the #36 Alpine jumped the #50 Ferrari of Molina, who was on cold tyres having just emerged from the pit exit, and so Gounon led the race for Alpine.
Aston Martin leads LMGT3 at the hour
At exactly halfway through the race, the #60 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 of Matteo Cairoli hit off Sean Gelael (#59 United Autosports McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo) at the exit of Les Combes, setting off the second safety car period of the race.
Heart of Racing led the race in their #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 Evo ahead of Eduardo Barrichello’s #10 Racing Spirit of LeMan’s Aston Martin.
The Iron Dames ran in third position with their #85 Porsche 911 LMGT3.R taken over by Rahel Frey after Celia Martin’s opening stint.
Manthey’s #91 Porsche was fourth in the hands of Riccardo Pera ahead of Valentino Rossi’s #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo.
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