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Classic Endurance Racing - Spa-Francorchamps Report

© Planetlemans - Marcel ten Caat

Round three of the Classic Endurance Racing series brought the historic cars to an historic track, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. Like in Monza the sun was out all weekend as thirty-four cars took to the track. As the race started on Saturday afternoon there were thirty-two of them taking the start.

Like in Monza two weeks ago the Porsche 936 of Jean-Marc Luco and the Lola’s of Michel Quiniou and David Ferrer (in a T70 Spider instead of a T280) were at the front battling each other, but this time they faced opposition from Jacques Nicolet in the Lola T298 and Olivier Cazalieres in a Chevron B36. In free practice it was Nicolet’s Lola that was quickest around the 7 km circuit, folowed by Luco and Cazalieres.

During qualifying Nicolet showed he had the best car for this circuit as he trashed the opposition in the first qualifying session. His lap time of 2:31.072 was 1.665s quicker than Cazalieres and even 2.663s quicker than Luco’s Porsche. In the second qualifying session on Saturday the cars were a couple of seconds quicker than on Friday afternoon, but still Nicolet managed to stay ahead of the rest. The Lola T298 went around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in 2:27.691, only a quarter of a second quicker than the Porsche 936, but more than enough to secure the pole position for the race.

During the race on Sunday afternoon Jean-Marc Luco found out that it was not going to be his race and he retired three laps into the one hour race. At the front Nicolet, Quiniou and Cazalieres managed to get away from the rest of the field and after the pit window had closed the three cars were still far ahead of the rest of the field, with Cazaliers leading ahead of Nicolet.

Nicolet was much quicker than Cazalieres though and despite the gap being 11 seconds shortly after the pit stops it was back to 2 seconds only a few laps later. With Michel Quiniou also lapping a couple of seconds quicker than Cazalieres the top three was within 5 seconds of each other again with twenty minutes remaining. One lap later Nicolet passed Cazaliers and at the finish line the gap was 0.017s.

The race did not last much longer for Cazalieres as he limped back into the pit lane and retired from the race. This handed the third place to David Ferrer, one minute behind Nicolet and Michel Quiniou. Four laps later, in lap 20, Ferrer came into the pit for what an unscheduled stop. As he got out of the pit Corentine Quiniou in the Chevron B16 passed him and took third place. Ferrer did not complete his outlap and retired.

At the front Nicolet stayed out of reach from the cars behind him and went into the final lap with a 20 seconds lead. He did not make a mistake on his way to the chequered flag and secured the win at Spa-Francorchamps. The Quiniou family completed the overall podium with Michel in the Lola T280 in second and Corentine Quiniou in third place.

Next meeting: The Nürburgring. A classic name, but a modern track. Perfect for a classic race in modern times!