The sixth race of the 2017 World GT Series was held in Spa-Francorchamps on June 8th. Before the race, Nico Barclay was in third position in the Drivers’ Championship behind Risto Kappet and Chris Shepherd. The gap to second-placed Shepherd was just 12 points. Thomas Hinss gained one place in the last race and was now sixth in the championship. In the Team’s Championship, STAX Racing was second behind EVAL Simracing and in front of Epic Racing.

On raceday, Thomas Hinss asked the team if he could miss this race as he had an important appointment the following weekend and time difference means he has to race in the middle of the night. Of course we understand that real life always comes first, however due to the short notice we weren’t able to sign a replacement driver for this round. This meant that Nico had to defend STAX Racing’s second place in the Constructor’s Championship against the two Epic Racing Bentleys alone, as Geoffrey Fournier made his first appearance for the English team.

Nico qualified third behind Risto Kappet and Chris Shepherd in a field of just seven starters. At the start, Nico attacked Chris going into La Source but was unable to overtake the Epic Racing driver. However, he was able to use Chris’ slipstream on the Kemmel Straight and overtook him on the outside going into Les Combes. In the following laps, he was able to defend second place from Shepherd while following Risto Kappet. However, the Peruvian was not happy with the balance of his Porsche 991 GT3-R. He later told the team that the car was very understeery and he had to pit on lap 11 since he could make the tyres last for only about 20 minutes. He rejoined the race in fifth position, behind Geoffrey Fournier and Rauno Muru and infront of Mark Fuller. Muru pitted the next lap and Nico set out to close the gap to Geoffrey. In the following laps he was up to 2.5 seconds faster than Geoffrey and on lap 17, after the Frenchman made a small mistake and went wide in Pouhon, he overtook the Epic Racing driver. Eight laps later he finished the race in third position behind Risto Kappet and Chris Shepherd.

Just seven drivers started the Belgian GT Cup race.

Nico was able to overtake Chris on the outside going into Les Combes.

In the first few laps, Nico had to defend from the Epic Racing driver…

… after that, the race settled down a bit.

After gaining up to 2.5 seconds (!) per lap on Geoffrey, Nico was able to overtake the Epic Racing driver in Pouhon.

With two races to go, Nico is still 3rd in the Championship behind Risto Kappet and Chris Shepherd. Since Thomas did not start in this race, he lost two positions in the Championship and is now in eight place. In the Team’s Championship, STAX Racing is second in the standings, just seven points ahead of Epic Racing. The next round of the 2017 World GT Series will be held in Brands Hatch on June 22th, 2017.

Below, you can find the results of both the qualifying and the race of the Belgian GT Cup race.

QualifyingRace

Pos	Driver	Nat	Team	Time/Gap	S1	S2	S3	Laps
1	Risto Kappet		EVAL	02:20.788	40.416	62.722	37.650	3
2	Chris Shepherd		Epic Racing	+ 1.213	40.337	63.535	38.130	7
3	Nico Barclay		STAX	+ 2.679	41.095	63.655	38.718	5
4	Geoffrey Fournier		Epic Racing	+ 2.741	41.387	63.757	38.386	6
5	Mark Fuller		ST Racing	+ 2.923	41.041	64.141	38.529	7
6	Rauno Muru		TTF	+ 3.646	40.938	65.198	38.299	6
7	Bret Metcalf		TTF	+ 5.625	41.434	65.930	39.049	5

Pos	Driver	Nat	Team	Laps	Time/Gap	Pits	Grid	Diff	Points
1	Risto Kappet		EVAL	25	01:00:19.552	0	1	+0	25
2	Chris Shepherd		Epic Racing	25	+ 7.204	0	2	+0	20
3	Nico Barclay		STAX	25	+ 23.568	1	3	+0	16
4	Geoffrey Fournier		Epic Racing	25	+ 67.319	0	4	+0	13
5	Rauno Muru		TTF	25	+ 73.803	1	6	+1	11
6	Bret Metcalf		TTF	25	+ 111.815	0	7	+1	10
7	Mark Fuller		ST Racing	25	+ 113.408	1	5	-2	9

Italics indicate Fastest Laps