Robert Seiwert
Head of Motorsport Department
Robert was already writing for sports specialist media before his MSM days. Since 2011, he has been reporting on DTM, Daytona, Le Mans and Co. directly from the race track.MORE
The 6-hour WEC race in Spa-Francorchamps has been extended by 1:44 hours as a result of an accident-related interruption. The race management decided to take this step after repair work on the guardrails on the Kemmel straight took around two hours.
At 5:13 p.m., Race Control showed red flags after a serious accident involving the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R (Bamber, Lynn) as a result of a collision with the #31 WRT-BMW M4 GT3 (Leung, Gelael, Farfus).
Caddy driver Earl Bamber was driving on the Kemmel straight in the slipstream of Neel Jani’s #99 Porsche until he hit the WRT BMW in this tight situation, took off briefly and spun several times on the track. Bamber and Gelael gave the all-clear, but were screened at the medical center to be on the safe side.
The repair work at the accident site took almost two hours. The race management decided at 6:56 p.m. to extend the race by the red flag time. At the restart at 7:10 p.m. there were still 1:44 hours to complete.
The actual 6-hour race ultimately turned into a 10-hour marathon day for spectators, drivers and teams. Many visitors had already left the racetrack, assuming that it was the end of the workday and knowing that there would be traffic chaos on Saturday morning.
At the restart after 96 laps, the two factory Ferraris with starting numbers #51 (Pier Guidi, Giovinazzi, Calado) and #50 (Fuoco, Molina, Nielsen – started from P19 after qualifying disqualification) were in the lead. Behind it was the #99 Jota-Porsche in third place, followed by the third Ferrari on the grid, the private #83 499P (Kubica, Shwartzman, Ye). The two Toyota GR010 Hybrids finished fifth and sixth.
© Motorsport Magazine