TOP FIVE FINISH IN SWELTERING SPA!
Ben Tuck continued his very busy and hot summer of success last weekend when he and his co-drivers of the Al Manar Racing by Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 competed in the biggest GT3 only race of the year – the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa, the jewel in the crown of the GT World Challenge Europe season. After 24 extremely tough and sweltering hours the four-man crew of Ben Tuck, Al Faisal Al Zubair, Jens Klingmann and Neil Verhagen passed the chequered flag in fifth place in the Gold class.
Lining up alongside a record breaking 74 other cars with a mixture of three and four person crews, the Al Manar Racing by Team WRT crew had high hopes going into the race this year after a successful start to their 2025 campaign.
However, although baking under stifling hot conditions, the Ardennes region inevitably threw in a weather event to change things up. During combined qualifying, where the first drivers from the four person crews took to the track to contribute their personal qualifying times to a combined average, heavy rain disrupted the session bringing out multiple Red Flags.
This meant that Al Zubair was only able log a single rain affected lap in treacherous conditions, harming the eventual combined qualifying time in comparison with the three person crews who were able sit out the first qualifying session. Despite this, following the three remaining dry sessions, the crew of the #777 BMW claimed ninth spot in class for the race.
The race got underway at 4:30pm on Saturday afternoon with BMW Factory driver Jens Klingmann taking the first stint. In what was to mark a regular pattern, the first of multiple Full Course Yellow flag (FCY) periods was triggered after just four laps with Klingmann sitting two places up in seventh. Tuck took over for his first stint after 23 laps, rejoining in ninth place and quickly rising to fourth position when a series of FCY and Safety Car periods hampered his progress further. After three back-to-back stints, Ben was up to second place in the Gold class and pitted in the early evening for the crews second BMW Factory driver, Neil Verhagen to take over.
As the evening wore on with only a slight reduction in temperature, Verhagen, Al Faisal and Klingmann shared the driving, stabilising their race position at around sixth in class, and negotiating several FCY and Safety Car periods, which mixed up the options and kept the Al Manar by Team WRT strategists thinking. Tuck was allocated the brutal early morning to dawn stints, which he smoothly drove taking a further position to claim fifth in class, which was to remain in a steady and well executed race throughout the following day until Ben next got behind the wheel at lunchtime for the final three stints to the flag.
During this final segment of the race, Ben steadily closed the long gap to fourth position, hungry for a podium result. Across the next three pitstops, Ben yo-yo’ed between fourth and fifth position as the pitstop strategies interleaved, but after the final pitstop it was just too far a stretch to close the final gap before the checkered flag fell, and Ben claimed fifth in class and 20th overall out of 75 starters and 51 finishers.
In such hot conditions, Ben was grateful to have finished the race, which claimed 24 cars:
“P5 in Gold Cup Class after an extremely tough 24 hours is something to be proud of. We didn’t quite have the pace for the podium, but that doesn’t take away from the team effort that made it happen! Thank you to everyone at WRT and Al Manar Racing for their efforts, not only during the race but during the intense build up to the event as well.”
Ben is enjoying his busiest season yet. In the last three weeks he has competed across two continents in three top level endurance racing events, two of them the biggest 24-hour events of the season and made his debut in the US-based IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. And across all three he has not finished outside the points, even leading on his IMSA debut at one stage. This appearance in the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa marks his second visit to the world renowned race after making his debut last year.
Ben next races in the European Le Mans Series at Imola on 6th July 2025.
