24h Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Spa is celebrating its 70th anniversary (like Porsche) this year with an impressive 63-car grid set to compete this coming Saturday. While Le Mans is the most famous endurance race in the world, the 24 Hours of Spa is the most popular specifically in GT, and every endurance driver dreams of winning both races.
Only four drivers set to take the start at the 70th running of the Total 24 Hours of Spa have won both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the race in Belgium, but just one has done so twice: Romain Dumas. The word feat is an understatement for the new record-holder at the Pikes Peak hill climb at the wheel of his electric Volkswagen since he won with a car in the "smaller" class, assisted by terrible weather favorable to this type of auto.
The unprecedented trio that Romain Dumas, Le Mans winner in 2010 and 2016, formed at Spa in 2003 with Stéphane Ortelli and Marc Lieb was the first victorious driver line-up comprised of three previous or future Le Mans winners: 1998 for Ortelli and 2016 for Lieb. Up to that point, only two trios had won both races: André Lagache and René Léonard, together in 1923 at Le Mans and in 1925 at Spa, Jochen Mass (1989 at Le Mans) and Hans-Joachim Stuck (1986 and 1987 at Le Mans), winner in 1972 in the Belgian Ardennes.
The three drivers who claimed the top step on the podium in 2003 will take the start this year in different cars. Saturday, Stéphane Ortelli will take the wheel of the #114 Lexus RC fielded by Emil Frey Lexus Racing, and the two others will represent Porsche (#540 911 for the German driver now the head of the marque's client competition division, and #911 911 for the Frenchman). Three-time Le Mans and one-time Spa winner in 2007 Marcel Fässler will drive for Audi.
Though two other 24 Hours of Le Mans winners will also take the start at the 70th running of the Total 24 Hours of Spa, they have yet to reach the top step at the race in Belgium, but will join forces for this year's attempt: Earl Bamber will reunite with his 2017 Le Mans teammate, Timo Bernhard, founder of KÜS Team75 Bernhard, fielding the #117 Porsche 911. The two men will be joined by Laurens Vanthoor who won the Belgian race in 2014 before winning at Le Mans in LMGTE Pro this year.
The start at the 70th running of the Total 24 Hours of Spa will be given on Saturday 28 July at 16:30 local time: live stream the race on the official website.
PHOTO: Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb won the 24 Hours of Le Mans together in 2016 and the Total 24 Hours of Spa in 2003.
