Ferrari’s Nielsen Leads Opening Hour at Spa

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Nicklas Nielsen kept the pole-sitting No. 50 Ferrari 499P in the lead in the opening hour of the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, as Frederic Makowiecki made an early surge to second place aboard the best of the Alpine A424s.

On the opening lap, Nielsen held the advantage through La Source and Eau Rouge, while his counterpart in the No. 51 Ferrari, James Calado got the run on the third-string No. 83 AF Corse car of Phil Hanson and passed for second at Les Combes.

Makowiecki meanwhile made a strong start in the No. 36 Alpine to move up to fifth, before passing Loic Duval’s No. 94 Peugeot for fourth on the eighth lap.

Two laps later, Makowiecki made a move on Hanson’s Ferrari at La Source to grab third, and was then soon on the tail of Calado, making a bold move on the run down to Eau Rouge to become Nielsen’s nearest challenger, albeit 4.5 seconds behind.

After a brief full-course yellow to allow marshals to assist the stricken Proton Competition Porsche 963, the Hypercar field came in for their first round of stops, with Nielsen maintaining a slender 2.1-second lead over Makowiecki.

Calado ran third, four seconds behind, while Kevin Magnussen, the only driver to take the start on Soft-compound Michelins, ran fourth in the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8.

Completing the top five was Paul di Resta in the No. 93 Peugeot, with the French marque’s two cars swapping places early on.

Toyota driver Mike Conway made a very early first stop due to a punctured front-right puncture, but a faster second stop left the No. 7 car sixth at the one-hour mark ahead of Ferdinand Habsburg’s No. 35 Alpine and Rene Rast in the No. 20 BMW.

First-lap contact between Sebastien Bourdais’s Cadillac V-Series.R and Julien Andlauer in the No. 5 Porsche 963 at Les Combes sent Andlauer to the back of the Hypercar pack, with Bourdais picking up a drive-through penalty.

Hanson meanwhile continued to slip down the order as the opening hour wore on, and finally was forced into the garage for what turned out to be a turbo issue.

In LMGT3, Team WRT BMW driver Ahmad Al Harthy led at the one-hour mark as the first round of pit stops shuffled the order considerably.

Poleman Arnold Robin had stretched a lead of over ten seconds in the No. 78 Lexus RC F GT3, but Al Harthy, who had run fourth behind the two Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3s, jumped ahead by virtue of a faster first stop just after the FCY.

Stefano Gattuso held on to second in the No. 88 Mustang, while the No. 21 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Francois Heriau was promoted from fifth to third in the shuffle.

Ryan Hardwick survived contact at La Source with Thomas Flohr’s Ferrari to run fourth aboard the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, as a longer stop meant that Robin was down in eighth in class at the end of the first hour.