• Thomas Preining, Ricardo Feller and Bastian Buus win world’s biggest GT3 race
• No. 80 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo makes up 65 positions after pit lane start
• Bronze Cup entry completes glorious day for Lionspeed GPs first podium at Spa 24

Lionspeed GP has won the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. In a memorable edition of the world’s biggest GT3 race, impacted by record temperatures amidst a European heatwave, the team converted a pit lane start after an engine change into a resounding victory on endurance racing’s biggest stage.

The No. 80 Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, driven by Porsche stars Bastian Buus (DEN), Ricardo Feller (CHE) and Thomas Preining, entered the event as a contender for overall victory after a promising, yet unrewarding, opening phase of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS season. This included an early retirement after a strong showing at Paul Ricard, victory at Brands Hatch and a multi-car incident at Monza.

The mint-liveried Porsche appeared to receive another setback when Free Practice 1 on Thursday revealed an engine issue, possibly related to Wednesday’s traditional parade into Spa city center. The team was forced to change the engine on the No. 80 car, which by regulations resulted in a pit lane start. After the start the No. 80 car steadily climbed up the ranks through a combination of impressive pace and flawless execution and good strategy.

In lap 361 the the iconic mint #80 Porsche claimed the lead of the race for the first time through a perfectly executed undercut, which it would ultimately carry through to victory in a tight closing phase of the race. After 541 laps, Preining crossed the line first to claim a historic win, which was made possible through the support of Potentia, a North American-based developer of next-generation industrial and AI infrastructure. The win marked Lionspeed GP’s first overall victory in one of endurance racings’ four grandslam races. Lionspeeds‘ landmark win at 24 Hours of Spa also marked the end to the Stuttgart marques‘ drought dating back to 2020 in the Ardennes.

Thomas Preining: „It feels great. In the end it’s everybody’s dream to win one of the big 24 hour-races, or even multiple. But let’s start with one, I thought, and it didn’t come easily. I’ve tried many times here. I’ve tried many times at Nordschleife, at Daytona, Le Mans, and it just wasn’t happening for me. I’m super glad we got the job done this in the first attempt with Lionspeed. It’s really special, not only because it’s my first 24-hour win but also because of this whole group of people. We didn’t have an easy run, with the whole build up to this race. Then obviously, the engine penalties and starting from the pits did not contribute to general positivity. But in the end, this is what creates team spirit. I believe that even if times are tough, you still stand together and stay positive and keep believing, which I think we all did, even if it seemed far away at some point. We always knew what we were capable of. It’s redemption for the team uncanning efforts, to be crowned winners at the biggest race after all that happened coming up to this win.“

Lionspeed GP team principal Patrick Kolb added: “I don’t have many words. It’s simply incredible. After all of the setbacks which we had since the beginning of the year, when we decided to do this program, many early on saw the potential. We knew we had the speed, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get a result apart from the second race at Brands Hatch. Even that was obviously still overshadowed by the Race 1 result. There’s no better place to win it than at Spa. This puts Lionspeed on the map around the globe.”

In addition to the overall victory for the No. 80 car, the sister No. 89 Porsche 911 GT3 R celebrated a strong showing in its first Spa24h as this combination. The car, entered into the Bronze Cup and supported by long-time partners Manorhaven, Abacus Global Management, Staloc and Beyond Capital Partners, had a strong lineup as team principal Kolb (GER) was joined by Bashar Mardini (CAN), Alex Fontana (CHE) and Axcil Jefferies (ZWE). The car, decked out in a special Art Car livery by Berlin-based artist Luis West, completed a strong race to third in the Bronze Cup category, giving the team the class podium it was denied twelve months ago.