KCMG’s two Porsche 911 GT3 R finish in top twelve at 24 Hours of Spa

Porsche customer team, KCMG, has concluded the 2021 24 Hours of Spa in positions five and twelve. The 911 GT3 R driven by Maxime Martin and Laurens Vanthoor, as well as last year’s winner, Nick Tandy, crossed the finish line after 554 laps in front of the sister car shared by Josh Burdo, Alexandre Imperatori and Edoardo Liberati. The endurance classic in the Ardennes is one of the largest GT3 races in the world and, this year, fifty-eight participating cars from nine different manufacturers tackled the 7.004-kilometre rollercoaster circuit across four separate classes.

In the Pro-Am class, the team founder of EBM Giga Racing, Will Bamber, his New Zealand compatriot, Reid Harker, Carlos Rivas from Luxembourg and Wolfgang Triller finished in twentieth place. The German had jumped in as a substitute driver shortly before the start. The quick quartet came out on top in their class against Herberth Motorsport’s No. 911 Porsche (crewed by Antares Au, Daniel Allemann and the Renauer brothers). The Am category was won by Pieder Decourtins and Marc Basseng, Dennis Busch and Manuel Lauck in the determined 911 GT3 R fielded by Haegeli T2 Racing. In the Silver Cup, Allied Racing’s race car from Weissach achieved a ninth-place finish with drivers, Julien Apotheloz, Bastian Buus, Lars Kern and Arno Santamato, at the wheel.

Ten Porsche customer teams tackled the 24-hour marathon at the Circuit de Spa- Francorchamps, with a total of a dozen 911 GT3 R. The initial phase of the race was marked by a serious accident in the Raidillon corner. This signalled an early end for Rutronik Racing’s 911 (shared by works drivers, Kévin Estre, Richard Lietz and Sven Müller) and resulted in a caution phase lasting a good fifty minutes. When green flags came out and the race resumed, a heavy rain shower immediately caused chaos on the track — multiple pit lane drive-through penalties for disregarding track markings, not to mention another full course yellow at an unfortunate time, saw the Rutronik Porsche, which had been running in a promising position, drop out of the leading lap at around midnight.

Subsequently, the 911 campaigned by GPX Racing (with drivers, Earl Bamber, Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet) had to retire with steering problems. To make matters worse, Dinamic Motorsport withdrew both its 911 GT3 R after penalties and repairs threw the team out of contention for promising positions. Then, the best-placed Porsche was that of Schnabl Engineering (managed by Falken Motorsport boss, Sven Schnabl), but this car’s race also came to an abrupt end, retiring just before dawn — at around 4am, contact with another car led to an accident, which threw Michael Christensen, Dennis Olsen and works driver, Frédéric Makowiecki, out of the competition.

Only the two KCMG-fielded Porsches managed to make it through the Belgian endurance classic relatively unscathed. As a result, they were among the frontrunners. In the final hour, a last heavy downpour allowed the No.47 car (pictured top) to make up two places and move into fifth, but even this crew suffered setbacks: Tandy and Martin had to contest the last third of the race alone — their teammate, Vanthoor, had to watch the action from the sidelines after an unfortunate collision in the paddock. For full race results, hop online and visit total24hours.com/results.