My racing summer started with the longest race on earth. The famous and crazy 25h VW Fun Cup at Spa. An incredibly long and tough race with no less than 120 cars on the grid.
The #2 DRM Autographe Fun Cup car would be mine for the weekend along with my fast teammates. Driving for the fastest team within the VW funcup meant we were aiming for nothing less than victory. I drove the same car during the Benelux open race at Zandvoort within the VW Fun Cup competition. At Zandvoort we showed great pace but due to a problem we only finished P4. This weekend we obviously wanted to rectify that with a win.
Our Thursday started promisingly with a P5 in practice. That P5 was a good result, but we were not focused on being the fastest in that session, but more on the long runs and how to manage traffic as efficiently as possible. Friday started off great with a P3 in qualifying despite it being so difficult to set a clear lap. The omens were starting to look better and better for a great weekend and a great result. Our second practice was more chaotic and it was extremely difficult to do a flawless lap without getting blocked somewhere. The result was only P21. Still nothing to worry about at this point, we knew as well as anyone that this would happen to anyone in the race and that our goals were still met.
On Saturday, you could feel the great atmosphere created by the fans. Together with the amazing fans, we were ready to make it a great 25 hours. The race started at 16:00 and one of my teammates took the start. The goal was to stay out of trouble in the opening phase of the race without being too cautious. A good start allowed us to overtake our rivals leading up to the first chicane at "les combes". While the 2 cars fighting for the lead collided on the first lap, we took advantage of it and thus seized our opportunity. P1 after the first lap was the most perfect opening lap we could have wished for. A strong stint with a number of incidents and badly timed safety cars caused us to fall back to P10. Not bad considering we still had more than 21 hours to go and a lot of time to make up for it. During a safety car period, we changed drivers and I jumped in the car. After 3 laps behind the safety car, it was time to race again. A good but spirited restart meant I went straight into battle. After just two laps, disaster struck for me and the team. A blow from behind on top of "eau rouge - raidillon" caused a huge crash in which 4 cars went hard into the wall, including me. Fortunately, I was able to walk away from the accident unscathed. For me, it was inevitable and there was nothing I could do about it. A shame to be eliminated so early in such a promising position. These things happen in motorsport, of course, but it always hurts.
After all, it was a promising race with a disappointing result. Hopefully, we can come back here next year to right this wrong and take the win here in this race.
