General
Huge crash during WEC qualifying in Spa, Ferrari disqualified from pole
- Ludo van Denderen
The #50 Ferrari with start will start the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday from pole. During qualifying, the Italians drove the fastest time. The margin to Porsche was over half a second. Cadillac will start third on Saturday, at least in seemed until the Ferrari on pole was disqualified. There was also a huge crash in the GT cars, in which the driver was miraculously unhurt.
Qualifying for the hypercars started more than 15 minutes later than planned, as part of the tyre pile-up had to be replaced after a huge crash in Raidillon at GT cars. Once underway, both Porsches were very close to knocking each other off the track. Kevin Estre had to slam on the brakes to avoid Matt Campell after the latter had to swerve at the last moment to avoid a slower competitor. By swerve to an exit lane, the Porsches managed to avoid a lot of drama.
RED FLAG - Huge incident for #92 on Raidillon.
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) May 10, 2024
Driver is safe and will undergo medical checks at the hospital, as per normal procedure.#WEC #6HSpa pic.twitter.com/foRahXusaI
WEC qualifying in two parts
As in Formula 1, qualifying in WEC is split into several parts, in this case two. In the first part, the aim is to qualify in the top ten, after which these top ten cars compete for the first starting position in the so-called hyperpole (similar to Q3 in Formula 1).
At Spa, it was the #50 Ferrari that went through as fastest (with Antonio Fucco behind the wheel), ahead of Brendon Hartley's Toyota (#8) and the first Porsche (#5). Robin Frijns surprisingly also managed to get through to the top 10 with his BMW. Nyck de Vries was not in action during qualifying, as Kamui Kobayashi was designated for the second Toyota. The Japanese driver got no further than spot 15. That was a disappointing result for the car that won the previous race in Imola.
In the ultimate battle for pole, Ferrari was tremendously fast and Porsche could never come close. The session came to an early end because in the closing stages an Alpine was on the track with a burning exhaust.
Update 23:00 CET
Late that evening Ferrari was disqualified by the FIA. The Italians start at the back, while the Porsche #5 car takes pole at Spa.
The results of qualifying Spa
