STRATEGIC RETURN MAKES SPA A CLASSIC ONCE MORE
The 2020 Spa 24 Hours will go down in history for its delayed autumn date and the absence of spectators as a result of the world health crisis. But I hope that in years to come people will remember the 72nd edition of the Belgian classic as the one where it became a proper endurance race again befitting its traditions and history.
The Spa 24 Hours had ended up as a dumbed-down affair devoid of the tactical calls that should be a part of any proper enduro. It had become effectively a series of 65-minute sprints between pitstops by a restrictive set of sporting rules. From 2016, pitstops were regulated with a pit-in-to-pit-out minimum time that swept away strategy and competition in the pits. Allowing tyre changes to take place at the same time as refuelling in 2018 only made matters worse.
There was some method to the seeming madness. The diversity that is the strength of GT3 means wild differences in the fuel consumption and therefore capacity of the cars. The restrictions were a neat and simple way of levelling out the playing field, but they came at a price.
From this year in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, refuelling time is measured electronically, while tyre changes are back to taking place after the fuel has gone in. Something known as a ‘short’ pitstop has been introduced that allows for the car to be refuelled for 10s (effectively a quarter of a tank) rather than the mandatory 40s minimum of regular stops. Now teams can play the strategy game again. We saw it last weekend, and refreshing it was after four years of bland racing.
Take the Sainteloc Audi squad. The French team hauled its factory entry up from two laps down, something that wouldn’t have been possible last year. Good strategy got it back to the front, and then another tactical call lost it any chance of victory.
It rolled the dice with just over an hour to go. It didn’t work out for the French team, but Sainteloc knew it wasn’t going to beat Porsche in the rain so it was worth a punt. If it had paid off, Markus Winkelhock, Mattia Drudi and Dorian Boccolacci would probably have won the race. Full credit to Sainteloc, I say, for giving it a go.