Winners at Spa
Qualifying saw a great battle between Alain Berg and Rodolfo Gonzales to see Rodolfo set the fastest time by .1 of a second getting the team P1 for Race 1 and P2 for race two.
Race one saw Rodolfo get a great start from pole, holding off the mightily powerful GT3 cars through turn one. However at the exit of T1 Le Source hairpin damage was sustained to the Praga when the no 111 BMW M6 oversteered wide into Rodolfo.
This caused handling issues, manageable to the end of the race, however the impact dislodged a turbo hose meaning the car lost its overall edge in performance over the GT3 cars who held a huge straight line speed advantage.
Traffic on the in-lap to the pits handed over advantage to the No 614 Norma of Alain Berg during the pit stops, a pre start refuel penalty was applied to the Idola car meaning our stop was longer.
Will Stowell took over at this point and maintained as much pace as possible however could not match the pace of the GT3 cars due to damage from the lap 1 incident and dropped to P4 overall and P2 in class.
Race 2 saw Will start his first rolling start in a European series in P2 on the grid, with damage and power issues repaired, expectation was high.
After a great start, Will took the lead and held off a challenge from two BMW M6 and Bentley Continental GT3 cars into turn 1. Leading up through Eau-Rouge the Praga lost one position in sector 1 due to the fast charging No 107 BMW M6.
By the end of the first lap, Will dispatched the BMW and started to build his lead, setting the fastest lap of the race before handover to Rodolfo once the pit window opened.
The Idola team executed another great driver change and refuel and after the pit stop phase he held a 15 second advantage over the P2 Bentley. Two full course yellow flags and traffic saw the gap drop to 5 seconds at one point, however Rodolfo continued to match his lap time targets to bring the car over the line with a 13 second lead at the finish line securing Rodolfo and Wills first European series win as a pairing.
