Belgium’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa returned to the legendary Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and we were trackside for the biggest race in GT3 motorsport
The road to the iconic Circuit de Spa- Francorchamps is long and winding. Located southeast of the town of Spa in the eastern-most part of Belgium, the grand old track grazes the sleepy villages of Francorchamps, Stavelot and Malmedy as it snakes through the countryside. In late June, tens of thousands of endurance racing diehards from Turin to Tokyo make the pilgrimage along the quiet village backroads for the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa race. Inside the circuit they find campgrounds, beer gardens, carnival rides (including the famous Ferris wheel) and an impressive concert stage. Then there’s the actual race.
The 24 Hours of Spa celebrated its centenary last year and is widely considered the most prestigious GT3 race in the world. It is currently run as a points-earning round for both the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and the Intercontinental GT Challenge but also attracts drivers who would not normally enter either of those series. A record 75 GT3 sportscars, each driven by three or four drivers in shifts, took to the Spa track in 2025. The field is a mix of “gentlemen” drivers with deep pockets and pro drivers hailing from a wide range of series, all arranged into five classes.
“You have pros – the best GT drivers in the world – and then you’ve even got gentlemen racing in the same race and you’ve got young kids trying to prove themselves,” Haupt Racing Team driver Arjun Maini explains. “It’s so diverse, and even the level of the gentlemen now it starts to go up a lot, and it’s really cool to see. I think it’s great for the sport.”
Like Le Mans, cars are not racing a set number of laps but trying to cover the greatest distance within 24 hours. Carmakers like Ferrari and Porsche love Spa because it offers a chance to put their engineering expertise to the ultimate test. For fans, part of the thrill is the fact that the GT3 sportscars on the track are by and large the same cars you can actually buy, granted you have a spare million or two lying around.
While Formula 1 sees 10 constructors pour money into building and upgrading two cars all season, the 24 Hours of Spa is a blend of customer racing teams and marque-backed entries manned by factory drivers. Team WRT driver René Rast is among the pro drivers fielding the 2025 race and knows the track well. The lightning-fast German claimed overall wins here in 2012 and 2014 and is the 2017, 2019 and 2020 champion in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship. He also won the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in 2014 and picked up two class wins at the 2012 and 2016 24 Hours of Daytona, which is just about as good as it gets in endurance racing terms.
This year, Rast teamed up with ex-Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen and MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi in the BMW M4 GT3 EVO. “It’s a nice feeling to be back in Spa and it’s very cool coming back with Kevin and Valentino in the same car,” Rast tells us inside the paddock. “Obviously, we want to win, but nobody’s expecting us to win, so it’s more like an underdog feeling and we’re doing our own thing and having a lot of fun.” From a pure marketing standpoint, the lineup is genius.
What better way to get eyes on the team than to pick three marquee drivers from different corners of Motorsport? Haupt Racing Team – the official Ford Performance team in Europe – has a similarly starry lineup for their pro-class entry. The entry is led by British racer Jann Mardenborough, whose remarkable life story from teenage gamer in Cardiff to international racing star was immortalised in the 2023 film Gran Turismo. “We’re not here just to make up numbers, we’re here to win,” he tells us in the HRT garage.
Mardenborough is paired with India’s Maini and Frenchman Thomas Drouet in the Mustang. “The chemistry you have for your teammates is very important,” Jann explains. “You’ve got to be able to trust the guy, knowing when you’re next in the car, he hasn’t destroyed the tyres or the brakes or if, you know, there’s something wrong – he says it to us before we get in the car.” Ford teammate Maini believes to succeed at Spa drivers have to check their ego at the garage door. “It’s trying to operate as well as possible to get all of us at a good level, which is what we’ve seen so far,” he says. “I think we’ve all been doing a great job, and that’s not having an ego and being willing to help your team and push together.”
Maini, who previously served as a development driver for Haas F1 team, believes GT3 racing is entering a ‘golden era’. “For us coming through to see where sports car racing and GT racing in general is going and the upward trend, I mean, in all the championships the number of cars in the top class is crazy,” he says.
In the silver class, Ford has tapped racing royalty David Schumacher – son of Ralf, nephew of Michael – alongside fellow Germans Finn Wiebelhaus and Salman Owega as well as Frenchman Romain Andriolo.
“It’s really something huge for me to be part of this,” Schumacher tells us. The rising star became a Ford factory driver earlier this year and has already developed his own pre-race ritual. “We have one mechanic, and he has a quite tight suit, and he has a bit of a stomach, and my ritual is every time before I go in the car, I have to pat his stomach. I started this year, and it’s worked well until now, so I keep doing this.”
On race day Saturday, members of the Belgian royal family are on hand to wave the national flags as the 101st running of the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa gets underway. Unlike Formula 1 races, which barely last 90 minutes, the 24 Hours of Spa is an endurance test for both drivers and spectators alike. Drivers typically take refuge in motorhomes and try to count sheep between shifts. But many fans stay awake for the whole race, which begins mid-afternoon on Saturday then roars through the night and beyond.
And the best seats in the house are not in the VIP areas or above the pits but the large grandstand overlooking L’eau Rouge and Raidillon. The fabled Raidillion turn sees drivers race steeply uphill before a sweeping left-right-left series of corners topped off by a blind summit straight into the woodlands. It is often ranked among the single most terrifying turns in all of motorsport and has led to multiple driver fatalities.
This year’s race will be remembered for several close battles in each class, as well as a fair share of safety cars, but thankfully no deaths or serious injuries. BMW’s Team Avengers (aka Rossi, Rast and Magnussen) finish eleventh but appear to have gone down having an absolute ball. Ford had little to celebrate, with the pro car recording a DNF due to contact with a competitor right before sunrise and the Silver car simply struggling on pace. In a twist, Grasser Racing’s Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 takes the overall victory and notches Lambo’s first win at Spa in the Italian marque’s 61-year history.
As the anthems are played and the champagne corks are popped, the elaborate set ups in the paddock are already being dismantled. A small army of spectators gather their belongings and briskly head towards the gates to catch the last bus back into town. For grid vets like Rast, 38, it is simply a case of better luck next year. “I just actually got statistics sent from somebody,” he reveals. “I’m on P5 among German racing drivers for most races ever. So, I’ve done 5,020 races and P1 is 5,050 races so I need to do like 40 more and then I’m P1.” Could those 40 races include the 24 Hours of Spa in 2026? “I can still see at night, so everything is okay,” he jokes.
Mardenborough, 33, whose career highs and lows have played out both on track and on screen in a Hollywood movie, also shrugs off retirement plans, saying, “It’s weird because I still see myself as a 20-year-old kid, so when these guys say their average age is 22 it’s a bit mad. I still consider myself a young guy, but, you know, my position in the team is experienced and to pass on to these guys as well and to be in this moment in GT3 racing in general is great. It’s a cool moment in time and may it continue.”
By Reilly Sullivan
