The competition at the Spa 24 Hours of 2026 has been completely dominated by Ferrari, which has reflected its strength in the superpole held on Friday. With four Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo vehicles occupying the top eight places, the #51 of AF Corse achieved a prominent pole position thanks to the excellent performance of Alessio Rovera.
Rovera dominated all four elimination phases, signing the best time in the last round with a clocking of 2m18.330s, surpassing the #58 of Garage 59 driven by Tom Fleming by nearly half a second. His performance also secured Fleming the leading position in the Gold Cup class.
The second row of the grid will be occupied by the #50 of AF Corse, driven by Arthur Leclerc, and the #3 of Verstappen Mercedes, which secured the last spot in the superpole thanks to Jules Gounon.
After the session, Rovera commented on the difficult track conditions: “We didn’t expect such little grip; I slid a lot. In the end, I tried to make as few laps as possible to preserve the tires for the decisive phase.” This new rule means that all elimination sessions must use the same tires.
The superpole run
During superpole 3, eight vehicles faced off to secure a place in the final round. While Rovera set an impressive time, an intense struggle occurred in the background. Ariel Levi in the #66 of Attempto Audi was the standout, barely managing to squeeze into the top four before being eliminated in the last phases.
In Gounon’s case, he made a blistering lap in the final seconds, surpassing the Ferrari #71 and placing his Mercedes in the final superpole. The pole of the Bronze class went to the #74 of Kessel Ferrari, which demonstrated its strength with Dennis Marschall.
Among the surprises of the day, Lucas Auer in the #48 of GetSpeed Mercedes could not advance and will start the race from the fourth row.
Classes and eliminations
The second segment was unfavorable for McLaren, with three vehicles eliminated, including the #59 of Marvin Kirchhofer, who could not make it into the top eight. The vehicles from Ford and Porsche followed a similar fate, remaining outside the competition.
In the first phase, both the BMW and Aston Martin were eliminated on a lap, and with the extreme heat of the track, only the Mercedes-AMG vehicles performed well.
Upcoming tests
After this intense superpole session, the teams will return to the track later this afternoon for a final 30-minute practice. The race will start this Saturday at 16:30 hours, under extreme heat conditions, although a cold front may bring storms to the area.
The starting grid is as follows:
- AF-Corse-Ferrari #51 (Rovera/Mosca/Nielsen)
- Garage-59-McLaren #58 (Fleming/Prette/Goethe)
- AF-Corse-Ferrari #50 (Wadoux/Leclerc/Gelael)
- Verstappen-Mercedes #3 (Juncadella/Lulham/Gounon)
- Selected-Car-Ferrari #71 (Laursen/Ebdrup/Birch/Schandorff)
- Attempto-Audi #66 (Kastelic/Levi/Ögaard/Mazzola)
- Kessel-Ferrari #74 (Blattner/Tuck/Jaubert/Marschall)
- GetSpeed-Mercedes #48 (Auer/Stolz/Engel)
- Garage-59-McLaren #59 (Loake/MacDonald/Kirchhöfer)
- Attempto-Audi #99 (Pereira/Frassineti/Aka)
- GetSpeed-Mercedes #6 (Bartone/Panis/Gazeau/Basz)
- HRT-Ford #64 (Maini/Scherer/Drouet)
- Rinaldi-Ferrari #45 (Duran/Medler/Balzan/Perel)
- RJN-McLaren #23 (Brichacek/Fitz-Simon/Lynn/B. Dörr)
- Optimum-McLaren #5 (Owega/D. Rappange/Oliveira/Porter)
- Lionspeed-Porsche #80 (Feller/Preining/Buus)
- Boutsen-VDS-Porsche #2 (Schuring/Boccolacci/Picariello)
- WRT-BMW #32 (van der Linde/Pepper/Weerts)
- Schumacher-CLRT-Porsche #22 (Güven/Campbell/Makowiecki)
- Grasser-Lamborghini #63 (Perera/Paul/Bortolotti)
- Rowe-BMW #98 (Farfus/Dennis/Marciello)
- Greystone-McLaren #44 (Meakin/Kelly/Pintos/Rattican)
- WRT-BMW #46 (Rossi/Harper/Hesse)
- Comtoyou-Aston-Martin #7 (Drudi/Sorensen/Thiim)
- Walkenhorst-Aston-Martin #34 (Day/Krognes/Chaves)
- Optimum-McLaren #4 (Smalley/Tomlinson/H. George/Del Sarte)
- Motopark-Mercedes #20 (Revesz/Mansell/Mettler/Andrade)
- Boutsen-VDS-Porsche #10 (Magnus/Knutsson/Ghiretti)
- Rowe-BMW #998 (de Wilde/Tramnitz/Klingmann)
- Sainteloc-Audi #25 (Perez Companc/Cheli/Klymenko/Legeret)
- AF-Corse-Ferrari #52 (Braschi/Machiels/Zagazeta/Stadsbader)
- Rutronik-Lamborghini #96 (Engstler/Mapelli/Niederhauser)
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_0cf5059c53a56ccf7a3340882fa9668e09e1145a