Toyota Gazoo Racing clinched a 1-2 victory at the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, in front of a record crowd for a WEC race at the Belgian circuit.
After 148 laps, the #7 Toyota took the chequered flag, Toyota’s 42nd WEC win and the second consecutive win in Spa for the No. 7 crew driven by Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi.
The trio led home the sister No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercar (Brendon Hartley/Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa) with the Japanese manufacturer now leading the Hypercar manufacturer standings by 33 points over Ferrari after three races.
The final podium position went to the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P driven by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi – with a flying Calado surging on the final lap to move ahead of the No. 5 Porsche Penske 963.
Taking fifth place and making it four different manufacturers in the top five was the No. 2 Cadillac Racing V.Series.R driven by Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook.
Hertz Team JOTA made an impressive debut finishing sixth place in the Porsche 963 Hypercar with Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye at the wheel. Glickenhaus Racing’s trio of Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Franck Mailleux take more points placing seventh in the headline Hypercar class.
Peugeot TotalEnergies finished eighth and ninth respectively with the No.93 9X8 driven by Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul di Resta finishing ahead of the sister No.94 9X8 belonging to Gustavo Menezes, Loic Duval and Nico Mueller.
Team WRT achieved a Spa-Francorchamps LMP2 double as they repeated their 2022 victory but this time it was with the No.41 Oreca-Gibson as opposed to the No.31 that triumphed 12 months ago.
Rui Andrade, Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz took victory by 6.042 seconds over the No. 23 Oreca of Josh Pierson, Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis in a tense and thrilling race.
Deletraz and Blomqvist fought in a tight battle in the final hour of the race with Deletraz able to vault the United Autosports car in a dramatic late splash and dash pit-stop.
Inter Europol Competition rounded out the podium after Albert Costa chased down the No.9 Prema entered car driven by Andrea Caldarelli in the closing stages.
The Spanish driver shared the car with Fabio Scherer and Kuba Smiechowski meaning that along with Kubica, two Polish drivers stood on the podium for the first time ever in WEC’s 11 year history.
Lilou Wadoux made history taking the LMGTE Am class win alongside teammates Alessio Rovera and Luis Perez Companc, becoming the first ever woman to win an FIA WEC class.
Rovera in the No. 83 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo took the chequered flag 18.6 seconds ahead of the No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R driven by Nicolas Varrone, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating.
For the second race running Catsburg fought off massive pressure from the pole sitting ORT by TF Aston Martin Vantage AMR driven by Charlie Eastwood to hold on to second and extend the U.S entered teams points lead.
The Iron Dames (Sarah Bovey, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting) in the Porsche 911 RSR-19 car #85 finished fifth. By Melissa Warren
