The Total 24 hours of Spa qualifying

Welcome to the 61st edition of the Total 24 hours of Spa, the main event of the FIA GT Championship. The circuit offers challenging corners as well as spectacular scenery and usually difficult weather conditions making it one of the toughest endurance races. After three rounds, the Vitaphone Racing Team currently leads both the Teams and Drivers championships. The team has three Maserati MC 12 cars on the grid and are hoping to repeat the success of last year when they finished first and second.

The Corvettes are in hot pursuit with Saleen, Nissan and Ford challenging for those elusive points at the end of the 24-hours on Sunday afternoon.

GT2 provides the traditional battle between Ferrari and Porsche. Porsche is ahead coming into the Belgian race but with BMS Scuderia Italia competing with two Ferrari F430’s they will be up for the fight, especially after their podium finish at Le Mans.

The G2 and G3 classes feature a whole host of talented drivers including 1997 F1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve in the Gravity Racing International Mosler MT900 competing in G2. Phoenix is racing an Audi R8 LM and is up against three Porsches from Jetalliance and PMB Motorsport.

Porsche have been dominant in G3 and Muhlner Motorsport is looking for a fifth win. Hoping to stop the Porsche winning ways will be Matech GT Racing with two Ford GT cars, Barwell Motorsport with an Aston Martin DBRS9 and two BMW Alpina B6 GT3 cars from Sport Garage.

Other championship racing at Spa this weekend will include; Cooper Tires British F3 International series, Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo, GT4 European Cup but they are racing with the Dutch GT4 championship and the Formul’Academy Euro Series.

Total 24 Hours of Spa Qualifying

There were three qualifying sessions for the Total 24 Hours of Spa which apart from fifteen minutes at the start of the first session were run entirely in the wet.

Qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps was dominated by the Maserati’s who have one-two-three on the grid for the race. Alex Muller claimed his second pole in a row with Alessandro Pierguidi in second and Andrea Bertolini third.

Joining the Maserati on the second row in fourth was the no 8 Sangari Corvette Z06, the third row comprises of no 3 SRT Corvette and the no 40 VDS Racing Ford GT.

Gianmaria Bruni claimed pole in GT2 in the no 50 AF Corse Ferrari F430. This brought his impressive tally of poles to seven and put him ahead of the no 55 CRS Racing Ferrari F430 of Tim Mullen and the no 59 Trackspeed Porsche 911 of Jorg Bergmeister.

Phoenix Racing was fastest in G2 with their Audi R8 driven by Marcel Fassler. In G3 Matech GT Racing with Thomas Mutsch driving set the fastest time. by Melissa Warren www.girlracer.co.uk