No bad results at all in the qualifying sessions for the competing Porsches. The Belgian based Prospeed team had the #75 Porsche 997GT3 R on the first start row in 2nd position and the #75 on the 3rd row in 6th position and there were 2 more Porsches in the first 10 at the starting grid.
Well, things turned out a bit different. The race was only a few minutes old when the 2 Prospeed Porsches hit each other, causing damage that had to be repaired, and therefore causing a great loss of time. Later in the race, both Prospeed Porsches had to retire from the race because of technical problems.
Bad luck for the Prospeed team of Rudi Penders, who runs a belgian Porsche dealership in Liege too. But this won't stop the team to look to the future with much confidence. After all, in a mechanial sport things like this can happen, no matter if you are a highly skilled professional team or amateurs.
After 24 hours, the Timo Schneider Audi R8 LMS crossed the black and white checkered flag first. I haven't checked the statistics yet, but I am convined the 63th edition of the 24 hours of Spa were the worst in many years for Porsche. No Porsche in the top 10. You have to look at the 17th position to notice the first Porsche, a 997 GT3 Cup S.
The 2011 edition is one we Porsche afionados would like to forget as soon as possible, and we better start looking to future,hopefully more succesfull races. In the meantime we can still enjoy the pictures.
Text : Liebe zu Ihm
Pictures : Wilfried Geerts
