Site icon Sports of the Day

Schumacher-Alpine takes the lead in the WEC at Spa

Jeffrey Gooding

A powerful first stint from Frederic Makowiecki, then Jules Gounon takes the lead in the Alpine A424 36 – Mick Schumacher battles for his first WEC victory

No Ferrari show here: Frederic Makowiecki put the Alpine 36 (Gounon/Makowiecki/Schumacher) in second place in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps with a brilliant performance in the first hour. After one hour, he is right behind the leader. The former Porsche works driver put on a real fireworks display in the first hour of the race.

After two and a half hours, the Alpine 15 (Magnussen/Marciello) made an excellent start from eleventh place to finish sixth.

Makowiecki then made short work of Phil Hanson’s AF Corse Ferrari 51 (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi) at the start and subsequently ran into problems.

Makowiecki overtakes in Eau Rouge

But even Calado was not safe from the powerful forward momentum of “Fred Mako.” After half an hour, the Frenchman pushed past him with a huge maneuver in the dreaded Eau Rouge, and Calado gave way.

Now only Nicklas Nielsen in the Ferrari 50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen) was ahead of him. The Dane proved to be a tough opponent and only let Makowiecki get within about two seconds. The picture did not change after the first pit stop. Now it’s all about who can get their tires through the double stint better.

Behind them, the expected chaos raged in the early stages because the Hypercars were very close together and there were regular overtaking maneuvers by LMGT3 cars, which were driven by amateurs in the early stages. There were some tricky scenes, including Magnussen having to swerve onto the grass at 300 km/h, but there were no consequences.

Yellow Ferrari loses two laps

After a wild opening phase, which included a drive-through penalty for the Cadillac 5 at Les Combes on the first lap – the order settled down a little.

As predicted in our long-run analysis, Ferrari is by no means as dominant in the race as it was in qualifying, but is still benefiting from its favorable starting position. However, the yellow 7 (Conway/Kobayashi/de Vries) suffered a front right tyre failure, which necessitated an early pit stop. The race promises excitement—and a realistic chance of Alpine and the driver trio’s first overall WEC victory.

After an hour and 15 minutes, the race was neutralized by a safety car with a VSC in front because two LMGT3 cars came to a standstill at the same time.

Exit mobile version