Spa Wednesday Notebook

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

***The 36-car entry list for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps has seen a considerable number of driver lineup changes across both classes compared to the previous rounds of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Qatar and Imola.

***Chief among the changes in Hypercar are Pascal Wehrlein’s series debut for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the No. 6 Porsche 963, and ex-Peugeot driver Nico Mueller making his first outing for the Weissach marque and his first appearance in the series since leaving Peugeot at the end of last year.

***BMW M Team WRT and The Heart of Racing are utilizing two-driver lineups due to the clash with the Laguna Seca round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where Dries Vanthoor, Sheldon van der Linde, Ross Gunn and Roman de Angelis are all competing this weekend.

***In LMGT3, both Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos have revamped lineups, with Martin Berry replacing Christian Ried in the No. 61 car and father-and-son duo Brenton and Stephen Grove taking the places of Claudio Schiavoni and Matteo Cressoni in the sister No. 60 car in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***Yuichi Nakayama is also making his WEC debut for Akkodis ASP aboard the No. 78 Lexus RC F GT3 that was piloted by full-season driver Ben Barnicoat in Qatar and by the Briton’s injury replacement Esteban Masson at Imola.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima said that Nakayama was chosen to race at Spa following a test with Akkodis ASP at Spa. He said: “We want to open up more opportunities for drivers, including our Japanese drivers, and as we knew Ben would have to miss this race, regardless of his injury, we had some discussions with the team and we wanted to give him this opportunity. He tested with the team and he proved that he is capable of racing in WEC.”

***On why Masson wasn’t called up again, Nakajima added: “Basically, we know what Esteban can do in a GT3 car, which he proved again at Imola. So we wanted to try a new challenge, and evaluating Yuichi is interesting for Toyota as it provides a reference with the other Japanese drivers.”

***Nakajima clarified that Barnicoat, who is missing this weekend’s WeatherTech Championship round at Laguna Seca as he continues his recovery from injuries sustained in a mountain bike incident, is expected to be fully fit for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***Michael Krumm is on-site at Spa to provide support for Nakayama. Krumm, who is part of the Toyota family via his work as team director for the No. 37 TOM’S car in SUPER GT, is a fluent Japanese speaker owing to his long history of racing in the category.

***Ried’s decision to stand down from driving duties aboard the No. 61 Iron Lynx entry means that Sebastien Buemi is set to draw level with him as the driver with the most starts in WEC history this weekend, on 89. Assuming that Ried does not contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Buemi would pull ahead on his 90th start, and would be on target to become the first driver to reach 100 starts next year.

***For the second race in succession, Michelin has brought its Soft and Medium tire compounds to Spa for the Hypercar class. The French firm’s endurance program manager Pierre Alves said the decision was made following a partial resurfacing of the track made after last year’s event.

***Alves said: “We were able to test in ‘extreme’ conditions and saw not only a clear improvement in lap times, but also better consistency from our tires. To be certain of our choices, we tested all three of our compounds on track, and concluded that the Soft and Medium mixes would be best suited for the event, especially in cooler temperatures.”

***The areas of the track that have been resurfaced are from Blanchimont (Turn 17) to Eau Rouge (Turn 2); from the Kemmel kink (Turn 4) to Bruxelles (Turn 8); and from Campus (Turn 14) to Stavelot/Courbe Paul Frere (Turn 15).

***Porsche, BMW, Toyota, Aston Martin and Peugeot all took part in the two-day test on April 4-5 that preceded last month’s 6 Hours of Imola. BMW and Toyota will return to Spa for a further roll-out test on May 27-28 ahead of the 24H Le Mans.

***Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie said that the French brand’s single day of testing was “definitely worth it” owing to the resurfacing. “The track is very different. We had heard about it from the drivers that raced in the European Le Mans Series race [last August], but we didn’t experience it before the test,” he said. “We actually tested the Hard and the Medium because we thought the Hard might be selected, but finally it was Medium and Soft, which I believe is the right choice.

***Jansonnie added: “What we saw from the test in terms of tire behaviour was completely different from the track previously. [The lap times] are going to come down a lot, because the track has been resurfaced in places that are very important for lap time, all the places where the grip was limiting the performance.”

***Asked about the resurfacing, Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury said it remains unclear whether the Soft will see significant usage in the race. “The degradation is lower, but it’s not only a matter of degradation, it’s also about the temperature,” he said. “I’m not so sure about the Soft to be honest. It really depends on the track temperatures. Generally we still put quite a bit of energy in the tires.”

***Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA driver Will Stevens returns to the scene of his victory from last year’s Spa race, which he scored driving as a duo with Callum Ilott at the wheel of one of the British squad’s customer Porsche 963s.

***Stevens recalled: “Winning as a customer team was a really special moment for us as JOTA. It was obviously a chaotic race with the red flag and everything that went on, but I think we executed a good strategy to ultimately win the race. It was a nice achievement to get the first overall win in WEC for us. So, it will be cool going back to Spa.”

***Alpine will present the hydrogen-powered Alpenglow Hy6 concept car at Spa. The car, which is an evolution of the Hy4 that the French marque revealed at last year’s Spa round, was first revealed at last year’s Paris Motor Show, and is powered by a 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 engine, as opposed to the two-litre inline four unit that powered the Hy4.

***Opening practice for the 6H Spa kicks off on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. EDT), with a second session following at 4:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. EDT).