In the second round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC), it was BMW who took a shock overall victory at Spa-Francorchamps, with McLaren making up for their Imola misery in LMGT3.
The race saw an incredibly tight final hour as strategy and tense battles played a key part in the overall one-two victory for the German manufacturer.
Qualifying rundown
The second round of the World Endurance Championship at Belgium’s legendary Spa-Francorchamps saw a weekend of maiden awards.
Before BMW’s shock win on race day, it was Peugeot’s time to shine, with the #94 Hypercar taking the team’s first-ever pole position.
Despite a spin at the beginning of qualifying, it was the Dane Malthe Jakobsen aboard that car who took the pole crown with a time of 2:00.653.
At the end of qualifying, it was the #94 on pole with the #35 Alpine of Charles Milesi in second and the #12 Cadillac of Will Stevens in third.
The winner of the first race, the #8 Toyota, qualified all the way down in 16th, second to last in class.
As for LMTG3, it was the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus who put it on pole in that class, hoping to rectify a troubled opening round.
Maiden victory
While qualifying can be a good step up for race day, in endurance racing, the order of the grid is frequently nullified come the chequered flag – and nowhere was that better represented than here.
Despite starting 11th on the grid, it was the #20 BMW M Team WRT Hypercar that achieved the team’s first-ever outright victory in WEC.
With the help of their team, the car – manned by Robin Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde – performed a strategic miracle when they short-fueled in one of their early pit stops, taking them from ninth all the way to the lead.
This meant they were off-strategy with the rest of the field, but with enough hours left and with the help of a few safety cars, they slowly managed to cut the fuel deficit back in free air and hold on to the stunning win, despite a lot of last-hour shenanigans.
READ MORE: Motorsport news: Toyota claim shock victory at WEC opener
The power of teamwork
Not only did BMW win, but they also achieved a one-two, with the sister #15 car finishing in second at the end of the race.
That car, piloted by ex-F1 driver Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor, played back-up in the final hour, with Magnussen putting on a stout defence in a thrilling five-way shoot-out for the win.
Heading into the final hour, the #51 Ferrari Hypercar of Alessandro Pier Guidi was T-boned at La Source by an out-of-control LMTG3 BMW to bring out the safety car, bunching up the pack again and initiating this manic chase for victory.
It was the #009 Aston Martin Hypercar that brought out the last of the safety cars as driver Alex Riberas was put onto the grass by the #35 Alpine heading down the Kemmel Straight, hitting the barrier in a manner that could’ve been a lot worse than it initially seemed.
That move would later come back to bite Antonio Felix Da Costa in the Alpine when he spun at the top of Radillon on the next restart all on his own, hitting the inside barrier and limping back to the pits.
Manic fight for second
Frijns in the leading #20 BMW had sped off by the first of those restarts, with Magnussen in the #15 involved in a brilliant tussle between the #50 Ferrari, the #7 Toyota and the #007 Aston Martin.
Come the last restart, with 25 minutes left on the clock, Frijins bolted once more as Magnussen was again left to defend from three other cars, with the Ferrari behind him also on fresher tyres.
The quartet battling for second were all separated by about half a second going into the flat-out left-hander of Blanchimont with five minutes left, all narrowly avoiding LMGT3 traffic as well as each other.
The #15 of Magnussen somehow crossed the line in second place, with the #50 Ferrari capping off the podium in third despite being held up in the pits earlier due to a faulty wheel gun.
The #007 Aston Martin achieved the team’s best-ever finish in fourth place, while the #17 Genesis Magma racing car claimed points after it finished an incredible eighth despite it only being the team’s second-ever race.
LMGT3 honours
As for the lower class in WEC, it was the #10 Garage 59 McLaren that came back after late heartbreak at Imola to take an avenging victory in LMGT3 in Spa.
The car, driven by Antares Au, Tom Fleming and Marvin Kirchhöfer, started 15th on the grid, storming through the entire field on its way to victory.
It was actually the #21 AF Corse Ferrari that took victory on the road, but late on, the car was given a five-second time penalty after driver Alessio Rovera was unsafely released into the path of the eventual winning car in the pits.
With the LMGT3 finish being as tight as the Hypercar field, the Ferrari dropped back to fourth with that time penalty as the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin finished in second and the #92 Porsche recovered to third, following on from earlier contact with the #38 Cadillac Hypercars.
Incidents elsewhere
As for the pole-sitting #94 Peugeot, that car saw heartbreak as driver Jakobsen wasn’t able to avoid a spinning LMGT3 Mercedes at Les Combe in the fourth hour, collecting him in the process and taking both cars out of the race to trigger another safety car.
Despite taking the lead away from the #94 on the opening lap, the #12 Cadillac struggled for pace in the second half of the race after it switched to soft tyres, ultimately finishing in ninth.
Following the contact with the #92 LMTG3 Porsche early on, the #38 Cadillac tapped the barriers, damaging the car, and was later forced to retire following further mechanical complications.
Unfortunately for the pole-sitting #78 Lexus in LMTG3, it was once again troubled by issues, forcing the car to retire just shy of the last hour.
CLICK HERE for the full race results
Post-race reactions
After the race, Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, told dailysportscar.com: “A victory is always sweet, especially in a world championship that is so hard in terms of competition.
“It was a sad week for us last week because of the news of Alex [Zanardi]’s passing. He would have loved to see us winning here. But we are super happy to have this victory in the pocket.
“We kept working, we worked hard, we brought the evo update, which started with a P3 in Daytona, we got a P3 in Laguna and now a 1-2 this weekend. It feels good right now.”
Driver of the winning car, Rene Rast, added: “We were not sure which car would take that gamble. In the end, it was a gamble; I was the lucky one to get that strategy, which brought us the win today.
“It’s down to the team, because before the race we knew that this strategy, if everything works in our favour, could actually pay off.”
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Michael Davey