WEC Season 10: 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps 2022 Race
Overall
Francorchamps stayed true to its reputation with changeable weather conditions and heavy rain halfway through the race. Robin Frijns with his WRT #31 dominated the race in the rain conditions but couldn’t resist the speed of Hypercar under dry conditions. Toyota #7 and Alpine #36 took off to finish in that order.
The race started under dry and sunny conditions. Nielsen with Ferrari 488 GTE EVO spinned at La Source triggering the first FCY.
Glickenhaus #708 led the race during the first half hour.
Both Toyota took the lead after 15 laps with Buemi (#8) leading the race until 1,5 hours when #44 Arc Bratislava Oreca touched heavily the barriers at Campus triggering the first red flag as the rain made its first appearance. At the restart, Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid #8 decided it had enough of the day and Buemi had to park it. Sister #7 took the lead.
With rain pouring and a couple of red flags, WRT #31 took the lead until the track started to dry.
Jose Maria Lopez took the checkered flag first. It is Lopez, Kamuashi and Conway’s second win at Spa-Francorchamps with the GR010 Hybrid #7 and Toyota Gazoo Racing’s sixth consecutive victory on the Belgian race track.
Left: Third red flag. Glickenhaus #708 is third behind #31 WRT Oreca and #7 Toyota.
Bottom: Pipo Derani runs to pit for face-to-face communication with the team.
Up right: After third red flag, when track started to dry the pole-sitting #708 Glickenhaus moved up to second place but a miscommunication between the team and Pipo Derani caused an extra pitstop for tires change. Pipo Derani, Romain Dumas and Olivier Pla ended 9th overall.
Both Ferrari took the lead over Porsche #92 during the rainy period, James Calado resisting to a heavy pressure by Christensen with Porsche #92 to win LM GTE classes with just 1/2 second!
