ROWE RACING is in a good position for the 69th edition of the 24 Hours of Spa. BMW works driver Philipp Eng qualified in 11th place in the Super Pole on the Formula 1 track in the Belgian Ardennes on Friday evening with the BMW M6 GT3 with #99. This saw the Austrian give himself, Belgian DTM driver Maxime Martin and BMW works driver Alexander Sims of Great Britain a good basis for the race that gets underway at 4:30 p.m. CET on Saturday. The trio clinched victory from this very starting position last year and gifted the team from St. Ingbert the biggest success in their history.
Eng drove flawlessly in qualifying for the Super Pole and with his best time of 2:18:047 minutes on the 7.004-kilometre track was only seven tenths of a second between the best time overall, even though the team deliberately set his car up for the race rather than for a fast qualifying lap. The sister car with #98, in which Dutchman Nick Catsburg, the fourth former Spa winner in the ROWE RACING squad shares the cockpit with the two BMW DTM drivers Bruno Spengler of Canada and Tom Blomqvist of Great Britain, is performing at a similar level at the season highlight of the Blancpain GT Series. However, this crew had technical issues during the evening qualifying session on Thursday, which meant they missed out on the Super Pole and will start the race from 42nd on the grid.
Local hero Martin, whose dad Jean-Michel won the 24 Hours of Spa four times, will drive the initial laps in the BMW M6 GT3 with #99 in the race on Saturday. The starting driver in the sister car is Catsburg, who won the 2015 race.
Hans-Peter Naundorf, team principal ROWE RACING: “Eleventh place is a good starting position for the race, we know that we don’t need to be right at the front to be successful in such a long and intensive race. Philipp drove a great lap even though we didn’t have a qualifying set-up, rather have been working towards the race for the entire weekend. We’ve got the right schedule, we had no incidents with the #99. And we’ve sorted out the problem with the #98 that saw us miss out on the Super Pole. We are confident for the race with this car as well.”
Philipp Eng, ROWE RACING #99 BMW M6 GT3: “It was so much fun completing two whole laps on the track in Spa without traffic. It was sheer driving pleasure. I’m delighted that the team entrusted me with the task of competing for the Super Pole; anyone in our car could have contested the final qualifying session. The BMW M6 GT3 felt very good, so now it’s time to switch to race made and drive without making any errors for 24 hours. If we end up in the same position as last year, that would be fantastic.”
