Preview: TotalEnergies 6h Spa
Text & Images: Rick Kiewiet
Coming weekend the FIA World Endurance Championship sets up camp in the Belgian Ardennes, for the traditional pre-Le Mans race at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. It's the last chance for the teams to gain extra knowledge about the performance of their cars before we head out to the French countryside mid-June. For now, the weather conditions look pretty good, with three days of mostly sunshine, but if there's any track prone to quickly changing conditions it's Spa...
Latest BoP (Balance of Performance) changes see the Ferrari 499p take the heaviest hit. They receive a 12kg weight increase after their 1-2-3 qualifying performance two weeks ago in Imola. Toyota, Porsche and, remarkably, Peugeot, all receive a 4kg weight increase, which still leaves the 9X8 as the heaviest car on the grid at 1069kg (Toyota weighs in at 1068).
Besides the weight increase, the Ferrari also has its power reduced by 5hp (4Kw), other manufacturers with slightly less. Changes in this area are considered rather minor.
In LMGT3, there are also a couple of notable changes, as you can see in the table below:
The #92 Porsche now suffers from a 35kg Success Ballast (SB) 5kg for Imola, 15kg for Qatar (where they won) and 15kg for being first in the championship. The #31 WRT BMW is hit with 25kg, 15kg for winning in Imola and 10kg for being second in the championship and so forth.
For the second race in a row, Jules Gounon will replace Ferdinand Habsburg in the Alpine A424. The Austrian is still recovering from his broken vertebrae as a result of his crash during testing at Aragon.
Weather looks rather good, some clouds, some sun, but on Saturday the traditional chance of rain:
Remember the race is traditionally held on Saturday. Start is at 12.00 on the 11th.
