The centenary edition of the #Spa24H quickly turned into a battle of survival, which resulted in only 39 of the 66 starters going the full distance.
All three Garage 59 McLarens took the chequered flag, with the top finisher being the #159 raced by Benji Goethe, Tom Gamble and Dean Macdonald, which came home P9 in the PRO class and P11 overall. This was the top finishing position for the McLaren 720S GT3 at Spa.
“Just getting to the end of this race is a big achievement,” said Benji. “We’re not where we wanted to be but we had some setbacks yesterday, which lost us some time. It wasn’t meant to be for us but I’m happy to get to the end and look forward to coming back next year.”
The #188 McLaren looked strong early on, claiming Bronze Cup pole position and running at the front of its class before a cracked brake disc caused the car to drop down the order. A strong fightback from Miguel Ramos, Louis Prette, Marvin Kirchhöfer and Adam Smalley brought the #188 over the line P12 in class.
In the #158 car, Nicolai Kjærgaard, James Baldwin, Mark Sansom and Chris Salkeld fought their way through various problems from an early puncture to being hit during one of the multiple full course yellow periods. They finished P11 in class.
“I’m relieved to finish as two years ago, we didn’t,” said James. “That was definitely the toughest race I have done in my entire life. Thanks to Garage 59 for having me and for being awesome.”