The penultimate race of the 2023 Le Mans Cup season brings the LMP3 and GT3 drivers and teams to the fabled Ardennes Forest and the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps. This race is taking place in the third weekend in September and in a month, we will be at the finale. Spa Francorchamps in Belgium is a seven-kilometer ribbon of asphalt (4.352 miles using the standard, old money format), of tight, twisting turns, and high-speed blasts through the Ardennes Forest. It is a rollercoaster ride. This Race might just be among the trickiest of the year. Among it’s 20 corners, the most famous combination, known worldwide in motorsports is the fabled combination of Eau Rouge/Raidillon. A 17 degree slope, taken flat out at 240 kilometers an hour, (150 miles an hour).
Spa is a tremendous challenge for cars, drivers, and teams, because of the capricious weather conditions and we have seen that in a myriad of endurance races on this circuit over the years. Julien Gerbi for Team Virage, driver of the #16 car, tells us that managing speed and braking are paramount. There are braking references and speeds to keep an eye on with the proximity of the walls. Free Practice 1 was good but Free Practice 2 was wet. Julien Gerbi qualified and raced a car here in Le Mans Cup as a sub for an injured driver, but before that, it had been some 19 years since he’d raced here at Spa.
Team Virage are trying to do their best for a proper result. Matt Bell, lead driver for Nielsen Racing tells us that this week at Spa leading up to the race has been typical with changeable weather conditions. It’s been cold, warm, wet, or dry depending on the day, depending on the session. Tricky conditions throughout practice but the sessions were enjoyable. At Spa you just deal with whatever this place throws at you. You never know what the weather is going to do around here. It’ll be 50/50 on the start of the race either in the wet or the dry.
Nielsen Racing are coming off the back of a win and are feeling bullish about doubling up. The #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 leads the GT3 standings in the points table, but the top three are covered by a mere ten points. Racing Spirit of Leman went fastest in Free Practice 1 but are cautious about predicting anything before race day. Arnold Robin says the team is feeling good, the Aston Martin is running well and they have good VMAX on the straightaways, maximum velocity, that they can use.
Spa is a magical track. With random conditions, avoid problems at all costs. As a Bronze driver, Arnold Robin knows to hand the car over to co-driver Valentin Hasse-Clot in good shape. Free Practice was a real mixed bag of results for the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Kei Cozzolino and Hiroshi Koizumi. Cozzolino says the car was fabulous at Aragon and they brought the exact same car with the exact same setup to Spa Francorchamps and it didn’t work at all. So, what does that say? Throw out the notebook and start writing a new one. Each track presents a different and new challenge.
They ran in last place before changing setups and maybe they’ve been able to find their sweet spot in the top three, in the rain. The temperature is different and Cozzolino also points out Aragon in Spain where we raced last time was a high grip circuit while Spa is low grip. It is hard to get heat into cold tires. Kei Cozzolino says that it is his teammate Hiroshi Koizumi’s first race at Spa. The important thing for them is to keep the car clean and sustain no damage. They hope for a clean race, a safe race. Heck, everybody does.
Koizumi and Cozzolino have a trustworthy relationship as co-drivers and both live in Japan. So, every time they race together in Europe it is like being on holiday. We’re taking a lap around Spa with Kei Cozzolino, too. So, a little bonus coverage on the driver profile before we go racing. On the main straight, brake for La Source as late as possible even in the damp conditions. Accelerating out of La Surce we come next to the most famous corner at Spa Francorchamps that everybody knows. It’s Eau Rouge. There are wet patches. Kei Cozzolino says he wanted to take the corner flat out, but in the wet, he is a little bit chicken.
A slight lift over the top of Eau Rouge and back on the power. Up the Kemmel straightaway, uphill. It takes a while to accelerate and then we go down to Les Combes, braking as late as possible, using the curbs, cutting the corner, and then into the Brussels hairpin with wet patches on the road. Go outside to the dry, through turn nine and the no name turn into Pouhon, then, still on cold tires, dive down to Campus, using the green paint on the curb. Then, third gear, through Stavelot and into Paul Frere corner. Stay flat through Blanchimont, be careful with track limits and down into the Bus Stop.
Stay clean through these corners to avoid spinning. A great lap with Kei Cozzolino in the Ferrari 296 GT3. So, here are the tpp qualifying positions as race time draws nearer. Nielsen Racing car #7 on the pole ahead of #67 from Haegeli by T2 Racing and #97 from Cool Racing.
1. #7 Skelton/Wells Nielsen Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan 2:13.178
2. #67 Decurtins/Verheyen Haegeli by T2 Racing Duqueine M30-D08 Nissan 2:13.213
3. #97 Droux/Sanjuan Cool Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan 2:13.722
In the GT3 class, pole belongs to the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini.
1. #63 Hamaguchi/Abril Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO 2 2:18.160
2. #64 Bateman/Martin Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3R (991.2) 2:19.157
3. #55 Andersen/Birch GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 Evo22 2:20.574
The United Autosports #23 Ligier of Wayne Boyd and John Schauermann is smoking on the starting grid! Oh dear! Therefore, they shall start the race from the pit lane. Le voiture est fumer. The field is formed up, ready for a start. Green flag in Spa Francorchamps to begin the penultimate round of the 2023 Le Mans Cup. Tony Wells covering off the inside line as Pieder Decurtins gets swamped immediately. He’s dropped three or for spots and we have two cars spinning on the exit of La Source! Both Team Virage cars have spun around in the same place, at the same time! Jeepers creepers! The Cool Racing car is off in the gravel trap. I think there are two more LMP3 cars taking evasive action through the gravel. Dear, oh dear.
OK. They’ve escaped the gravel traps and both Virage cars are up and running again. One of them seems to be missing a rear wing. One appears to go to the pit lane. No. At the last second, he stays out on track. A local yellow flag in La Source as Tony Wells leads outside front row starter Pieder Decurtins. Jon Melsom for Nielsen Racing, Erwin Creed for M Racing, and Adrien Chila for Cool Racing are next in line. There is debris on the road. Still waiting at pit exit it is the #23 United Autosports John Schauerman driven car.
At least Schauerman missed all the first turn carnage, and we should be able to get away without a safety car. So, Haegeli by T2 are the meat in a Nielsen Racing sandwich and it is more accurately, the berries and custard in the middle of a tart. John Schauermann is joining the race from the pit lane. We have trouble farther around the lap and we’ll get to that. But in replay, from the La Source shemozzle, we see both Team Virage cars crunching into each other, and someone got a second hit again as well. That was poor old Oskar Bittar, the Paraguayan driver in the second Team Virage car #59 he shares with co-driver Alessandro Bracalente of Italy.
Julien Gerbi makes a tight turn to the inside and Luis Sanjuan also got rotated. Sanjuan near the pit wall and there are other cars off in the gravel trap on the other side of the road. Julien Gerbi rejoins the fray, but Oskar Bittar got clonked a couple of times. It looks like the #9 Racing Spirit of Leman LMP3 car is the on that hit him. #9 has German drivers Christian Gisy and Ralf Kelleners sharing the wheel. Kelleners, the vastly experienced long-distance sports car racer who has been at it for many years and of course his father, Helmut Kelleners was also a well-known racing driver. Helmut Kelleners won twice here at Spa in the 24 Hours of Spa in 1968 and 1970.
He also won the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring in 1972 for the fabled Alpina BMW team (a BMW tuning outfit), with Austrian driver Gerald Pankl. All those races were for touring cars back in those days. Helmut Kelleners won in a Porsche 911 in 1968 with Erwin Kremer and Willi Kauhsen. He also won at the wheel of a BMW 2800CS sharing with Austrian driver Gunther Huber. Pankl won the Nurburgring 24 twice and Helmut Kelleners only ever won it once. I remember Ralf Kelleners driving Porsche’s Ferrari’s, Lola’s, and Audi’s in decades gone by.
No wonder poor old Oskar Bittar spun out at Raidillon. He is missing a rear wing on that LMP3 car. Bittar got hit by the #9 Racing Spirit of Leman car and Gerry Kraut, the American driver, Gerald Kraut plowed through the gravel trap. Kraut, the IMSA VP Sports Car Challenge and sometimes WeatherTech Championship LMP3 driver sharing the #22 United Autosport Ligier JS P320 Nissan with Australian Scott Andrews who we have seen in LMP3 as well as in GT3 and GT4 competition this year in the WeatherTech Championship in IMSA and in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.
He is out of the race because he went through the gravel trap and had a right front suspension failure. He was sent spearing into the grass but then scrubs off speed grinding to a halt in the grass. Game over. Safety Car scrambled and we have a GT3 pit stop for the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin. Valentin Hasse-Clot handing over to Arnold Robin. This is at the 15-minute mark in a race scheduled for an hour and 50 minutes duration. Our pit lane reporter Stef Wentworth is about to ask Oscar Bittar what happened out there.
We are sorry to see him out of the motor race. In the beginning of the race, they were minimizing risk. He was giving everyone else space and got hit in La Source from behind, he spun, and tried to get back on track before being crunched again, T boned in the middle of the car. It is sad for him because his sponsors and family are here to watch. You can hear it in his voice. Oscar Bittar is heartbroken after being caught up in someone else’s accident, a wreck not of his own making.
It was the white and blue #77 Team Thor car of Icelandic driver Audunn Gundmundsson that turned Oscar Bittar around, and the #4 Nielsen Racing car in the hands of either Matt Bell or John Melsom (I don’t know who started the race in that car), that tagged Julien Gerbi and Luis Sanjuan into individual spins. Poor old Bittar got hit by one of the Inter Europol machines and then got thwacked again by the #9 Racing Spirit of Leman entry.
Green flag. An hour and 21 minutes of racing remains on the clock here at Spa Francorchamps. Tony Wells leads the motor race ahead of Pieder Decurtins. John Melsom is third even after punting Julien Gerbi into a spin. Erwan Creed is next followed by Adrien Chila. The field is spread out as they race safely through the La Source hairpin. Audunn Gundmundsson is in sixth place now after tagging Oscar Bittar earlier. Then comes both Spanish flag liveried CD Sport cars of Fabian Michal and Kiril Smal, and Franck Chappard and Shahan Sarkissian.
Audunn Gundmundsson in the Team Thor LMP3 car is now under pressure from the first of the two MV2S cars with Christophe Cresp at the controls. Try as he might, half an hour into the motor race, Cresp is having the door slammed in his face. Making good their escape is the two-way battle between M Racing and Cool Racing. Into Campus corner, right by the technical college here at Spa, it is a battle between John Melsom and Erwan Creed. Creed wants to make his move. He wants to make up ground and stay in contention. Creed’s determination is his undoing! Ker-runch! He misjudges the pass and cannons right into the back of Melsom’s car!
Melsom lifts off the throttle or dabs the brakes to settle the car down, but in the end, both pay the price and go off the road and into the gravel, big! This race will be put under the safety car immediately. There’s debris all over the road as the corner workers attend to John Melsom making sure he is OK. A difference of course between marshals working in the United States and in the rest of the world, is that while American marshals wear white uniforms, worldwide, marshals wear orange uniforms. A different colored uniform, but they all do the same job, keeping drivers, teams, and spectators safe. We owe the marshals a debt of gratitude. Without them, there’d be no motor racing.
In replay, let’s see what happened. Erwan Creed looks outside, cuts back in behind Melsom, misjudging the distance as Melsom eases into the brake pedal, and… ker-runch! Heavy contact made as we now are cleared up and ready for a restart. One hour and one minute remaining. So, we are closing on the halfway mark in the race. Well, hang on just a minute. The leader dives for pit lane and a whole queue of LMP3 cars forms up behind. So, scheduled pit stops now the order of the day and we should be seeing driver changes, possibly.
Tony Wells hitting his marks and handing the #7 Nielsen Racing LMP3 car to Josh Skelton to finish the race. Team Parker is even in, from 14th overall leading the GT3 class. The #67 Haegeli by T2 Racing LMP3 car is in as well, Pieder Decurtins handing the berries and custard liveried car to co-driver Brent Verheyen. Alright. 53 minutes to go as we press the fast forward button and after the pit stops, my gosh, we have a jumbled candy dish of LMP3 and GT3 cars ready for the restart. Half the top ten are GT3 cars.
The overall leader, as we get the call to go back to green, is the #86 HCR with CaffeineSix Porsche, the High Class Racing entry driven by Anders Fjordbach of Denmark and British driver Tim Creswick. Creswick is the race leader followed by the Iron Lynx Lamborghini with Vincent Abril of Monaco at the controls. He passes by and second on the road is the blue #26 LMP3 car in the hands of Tommy Foster. Foster in the #26 360 Racing Ligier he shares with Terrence Woodward. That is an all-British driving duo of course. Meanwhile, Simon Birch is doing all he can to find speed to move up to second place, but he cannot quite make it. Birch in the #55 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 in an all-Danish team.
He shares the first of their two or three cars with Thomas Andersen. This is a two-car team. They had a third car for one race earlier in the year. Tim Creswick in the HCR CaffeineSix Porsche with the pink nose, he is dropping back through the field. So, what happened to poor old Creswick? We wonder about that. Vincent Abril is escaping at the front of GT3, and Tim Creswick is being mugged by other GT3 contenders! Oh dear. Creswick is being monstered by the #83 AF Corse Ferrari from behind while the #42 Steller Motorsports Audi R8 LMS EVO II comes around the outside to pick up a place.
#42 being driven by another British duo, Sennan Fielding, and Mark Cole. Tommy Foster takes the lead for 360 Racing with James Winslow the next LMP3 car on the road. Winslow at the wheel of the #3 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30-D08 Nissan he shares with Alexander Bukhantsov. The HCR with CaffeineSix Porsche is running slowly and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari goes off into the gravel and back on. Tim Creswick continues struggling for pace and has a real ice cream headache on his hands with another GMB Motorsports Honda crawling all over the back of him.
This motor race is a jumbled traffic jam of GT3 and LMP3 cars and believe me, the LMP3 cars are far quicker than the GT3 cars are. We have also seen this very thing happen stateside in the VP Racing Sports Car Challenge in IMSA where it is a similar format, except, in IMSA, GT4 cars race against the LMP3’s in short events, very much modeled on the Le Mans Cup idea. All these cars are out of position as the GMB Motorsports Honda goes by the HCR CaffeineSix Porsche downhill through such corners are Fangnes, Pouhon, and Campus.
The AF Corse Ferrari flies past Timothy Creswick. Creswick is running out of road, and he has to play catch up. It has been a tough old time for the HCR CaffeineSix Porsche boys today. The LMP3 cars are desperate to make up ground in the second half of the motor race with just 50 minutes to go. Contact out of the Bus Stop chicane as Inter Europol turns ANS. Poor old Nicolas Schatz is the cue ball and he’s just been hit by the CD Sport LMP3 car of Franck Chappard! Oh dear! One or both of those cars needs to be rescued.
We have a safety car, again, with 48 minutes to go and Colin Noble goes off the road once again, aboard the Team Thor LMP3 car! Yikes! That was a lucky escape through Piff Paff, also known as Fangnes. That corner has a couple of names, as do some on this circuit. In this replay, one of the Inter Europol cars tags the ANS car into a spin, and poor old Franck Chopard in the CD Sport car had no place to go, except, bang! Right into the path of the spinning ANS automobile. Just unbelievable. 36 minutes of racing left and the LMP3 battle is heating up. Tommy Foster and 360 Racing under intense pressure from United Autosports Wayne Boyd at the wheel of their #23 Ligier.
From a pit lane start, the #23 United entry is challenging for the lead and in third is the #3 DKR Engineering car with James Winslow at the wheel of it. Boyd goes around the outside and makes the pass stick, up the hill through Les Combes! That was a good one! What a pass! From last to the top of the pile with 35 minutes to go. At Nielsen Racing, the radio traffic tells us that there is a penalty for one of their competitors. Ah yes. There is a message at the top of the screen that makes this official. #26, drive through penalty for overtaking during the safety car procedure.
Josh Skelton has his target, but he’s in trouble! Josh Skelton goes off the road and spears across the gravel trap and into the barriers! Out of Les Combes, he ran wide onto the curb and was spat right into the wall! Ouch! Game over. Full Course Yellow. Skelton says something broke on the car and it understeered into the wall. No question. The car is destroyed. In replay, Skelton is right at the top of the picture. Let’s see if we can tell what happened. Yes. The car snapped out of control and pounded itself into the barriers.
Just over seven minutes to go and now we see the third-place battle. James Winslow under massive pressure aboard the #3 DKR Engineering car from the #97 Cool Racing entry. He loops it into a spin at Brussels corner and David Droux in the Cool Racing car is a lucky chap to avoid that shemozzle. Kiril Smal follows him through bu that spin demotes poor old Winslow right off the podium. Simon Birch having completed 30 laps of the race so far, as we close in on the final lap, leads in class by 1.2 seconds. 30 laps, 130 and a half miles.
Sennan Fielding in the Audi for Steller Motorsport is next followed by the AF Corse #51 Ferrari of Kei Cozzolino.
1. #55 Birch/Andersen GMB Motorsport Honda NSX GT3 Evo22
2. #42 Fielding/Cole Steller Motorsports Audi R8 LMS EVO II
3. #51 Cozzolino/Koizumi AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3
Cozzolino has massive pressure on him from the Leipert Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. That is car #19 with the Finn Patrick Kujala at the wheel of it. Kujala sharing with Luxmebourg’s Gabriel Rindone. Kujala is being pursued by the Porsche with Scott Malvern driving. Malvern in the #18 Team Parker Racing Porsche 911 GT3R sharing the car with Nick Jones, in another all-British duo. Only a second behind Malvern is the second best GMB Motorsports Honda NSX. That is the #88 car of Jan Magnussen and Lars Engelbreckt Pedersen, another all-Danish duo.
Of course, Jan Magnussen is a former factory Corvette Racing driver who has raced in sports cars and Formula 1. I think he may have done some IndyCar racing, but he has a wealth of experience as a driver. Cozzolino cuts the corner from Eau Rouge to over the top of Raidillon. Kujala might have a bite of the cherry with that mistake from Cozzolino. The Aston Martin has gained a spot over one of the GMB Honda’s. Two laps to go as David Droux leads. Amazingly, the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Audi that we saw in the pit lane after 15 minutes of racing is now up to sixth place.
Cozzolino under pressure and now the Leipert Motorsports Lambo is making a move! Down the inside he goes. He makes the pass into the Jacky Ickx curve, but at the same time eases the Ferrari offline and into the gravel trap! This opens the door for Scott Malvern and poor old Kei Cozzolino loses two positions and is now fifth, in the space of a single corner. United Autosport watching the leader. First through fourth in GT3 are glued together.
Simon Birch in the Honda leads followed immediately by Sennan Fielding and Patrick Kujala. Honda vs. Audi vs. Lamborghini. Don’t forget the Porsche of Scott Malvern. He isn’t out of this yet either. GT3 is extremely competitive with four different cars in the top four places. Different designs, different mechanical combinations, and some good drivers. After troubles at the beginning of the race, United Autosport and car #23 have recovered, clawed their way to the lead, and now are going to win the Le Mans Cup race at Spa Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest! Wayne Boyd takes the win alongside John Schauermann! Unbelievable!
Simon Birch wins GT3 for GMB! No rain at all, thank heaven! 32 laps completed by the winners. 139 miles. Cool Racing in second place and CD Sport completing the podium. GMB, Stellar, Leipert, Team Parker, Racing Spirit of Leman, AF Corse, GMB, Team Parker. What an amazing GT3 finish! I mean, there were seven or eight cars contending for the victory! Absolutely incredible! How close do you like it? Well done to United Autosport. There was a hole in a water pipe and they changed it out and made their way back to the front.
Overall/LMP3: #23 Boyd/Schauermann United Autosports Ligier JS P320 Nissan
GT3: #55 Birch/Andersson GMB Motorsports Honda NSX GT3 Evo22
Cool Racing were denied their podium finish after a ten second post-race penalty dropped them to seventh place. CD Sport and MV2S completed the LMP3 podium. Team Virage did not have a good race today and so this affects them in the points as there is a tie between CD Sport and Team Thor for second spot in LMP3. Team Virage now lead the standings, by only 21 points going into the final race of the 2023 season. Simon Birch and Thomas Andersen win GT3! Simon Birch, a young racing driver, at 16 years old. He has a promising future.
Sadly, it wasn’t to last for the GMB boys. Post-race results were amended, and Stellar Motorsports and the #42 Audi were determined to be the race winners. Mark Cole and Sennan Fielding score their first win in only their fifth ever Le Mans Cup race start!
Overall/LMP3: #23 Boyd/Schauermann United Autosports Ligier JS P320 NiSSAN
GT3: #42 Cole/Fielding Steller Motorsports Audi R8 LMS EVO II.
In GT3 Racing Spirit of Leman lead the championship by 12 points, 79-67 over AF Corse, as we head next to the season finale for 2023 at Portimao, Portugal, for the championship deciding race of Michelin Le Mans Cup. Don’t miss it. Join us in Portugal. The 2024 Le Mans Cup calendar has been announced. Barcelona starts the season on April 13th followed by Le Castellet and Paul Ricard in the south of France on May 4th. Rund three is Road to Le Mans as the support race to the 24 Hours of Le Mans between June 13th and 15th(with two races as is tradition), Spa Francorchamps, we return back to this wonderful circuit for round four on August 24th after the summer break.
The final two rounds will be at Mugello in Italy’s Tuscany region in late September and at Portimao in Portugal in mid-October to wrap up the season. Before all this, we’ll see you for the 2023 finale at Portimao. Bye bye for now, everybody.
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