A pitlane start to a win in any race is incredible, but to do it in a 24 hour race with 69 cars and a lot of attrition is a huge achievement. And yet that's exactly what Lionspeed GP achieved in this year's Spa 24 Hours.
Bastian Buus started the car from the pitlane, and by the end of lap 1 was 66th. Ferrari factory driver and 2024 Le Mans winner Nicklas Nielsen, in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari, was leading.
Buus, though, was already moving forwards. By the time the safety car came out for the multi-car crash in the second sector in the first couple of laps, Buus was 62nd. When the race went green again almost 20 minutes later, he was 52nd, by virtue of cars pitting under yellow.
At this point, the young Dane in the #80 Lionspeed GP car was just over 50 seconds off the lead, which was still held by countryman Nielsen in the (effectively) factory Ferrari.
By lap 97, getting on for 5 hours into the race, Buus and his teammates, Porsche works driver Thomas Preining and Audi refugee Ricardo Feller had got the car into 15th position, around 22 seconds off the lead. This was the lap Nielsen had the puncture which put him a lap down and meant he and teammates Alessio Rovera and Tommaso Mosca had to fight back up the order through the remaining 19 and a bit hours.
Looking at the average pace for this portion of the race, Buus, Preining and Feller were not the fastest in the 18-car Pro class, but fought their way through the Golds, Silvers, Bronzes and Pro-Am cars to get into the Pro class mix by the time quarter of the race was done.
That's almost certainly due to the amount of cars the 3 drivers had to pass in that first quarter.
However, from that point on until the end of the race, they were marginally quicker than the #51 AF Corse Ferrari, which realistically had the pace to win if it wasn't for that disastrous puncture Nielsen suffered, metres after the pit entry in the bus stop chicane. This meant he had to do an entire lap at slow speed to avoid damaging bodywork or suspension, putting the car a lap down.
From there until the end of the race they stayed within the confines of the Pro class. By hour 15, they were third behind the #48 MANN-FILTER Mercedes and the #51 AF Corse Ferrari in the lead, which had worked its way back up the field.
Preining initially took the lead on lap 348, in the 16th hour of the race. He stayed there for 13 laps until #48 Mercedes's Maro Engel regained it.
The Austrian retook the lead on lap 419, and apart from brief periods during pitstop cycles, Buus, Feller and Preining led for the vast majority of the 122 laps until the end of the race.
If we look at the 40% race pace (taken the top 40% of laps in this period for each car, to remove laps done under yellow flag or safety car) for these laps between the top 3, we can see that the #51 Ferrari, with Rovera, Nielsen and Mosca on board at various points, was pushing hard. Their minimum lap time in this period, a 2:17.340, set by Rovera on lap 406, was quite a bit quicker than Preining's 2:17.840, set 6 laps later on lap 412.
But, the median lap times between the two for the same period are very, very similar: 2:18.755 for the #80 Lionspeed Porsche, and 2:18.828 for the #51 Ferrari.
The #51 Ferrari was running in third for most of this period, where they would finish, 12.938 seconds behind the winning #80, with the #48 Mercedes in between, just 0.650 ahead of the Ferrari.
The Mercedes in this period was quite a bit slower in the box plot graph than the other two, when 40% laps are considered. But, Auer, Stolz and Engel had just enough time in hand by the flag to take P2, although given another few laps and it's surely possible or even likely the Ferrari may have taken the position.
In conclusion, based on the #51 Ferrari's pace all race, without that catastrophic puncture with Nielsen in the car on lap 97... what could have been.
But thanks to it, we got an incredible story of pitlane to podium, top step no less. A great win which will likely go down in history as one of the great 24 hour race victories.
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