Belgian teams took class victories across all three DiSCA WEC categories at the 24 hours of Paul Ricard, held at DSCA Mechelen on 22nd/23rd June.
Track knowledge and preparation opportunities would always be a factor for the local participants in the 2024 DiSCA 24 hours, but a clean sweep across the filed is still something that the winning teams should feel deservedly proud of. These victories were not without challenge, the most close fought battle being in LMGT, where the winning margin was only seventeen laps at the chequered flag.
LMP1 was also contested during the early stages of the race with both the Pole Position and early race lead being taken by DTS2.0, who’s new Scaleauto Porsche 963 seemed to be the quickest car of the weekend. Bolstered by Ward Somers and Sander Martens, the best drivers of the Netherlands were as strong as any and able to both hold and gap the home effort of DSCA, driving the SV Workz Peugeot 9×8.
Ultimately, reliability niggles would hinder DTS with both a lighting failure and body damage pegging the team back into a position where the gap to the lead become unrecoverable. The Scaleauto 963 has seen the kind of issues in almost every race it’s participated in, and it’s speed does some to be accompanied by elements of fragility. Perhaps a care point for future Porsche campaigns.
LMP2 seemed like a one horse race for the most part, with home team DTM strolling away with he class lead exhibiting as much pace as the P1 category at times and achieving a notable third place overall. The real battle here looked to be between Slipsteam and Scuderia Viking for the podium positions, with the Amsterdam club emerging ahead come Sunday. Interestingly British team Exiles, composed mostly of reigning overall winners from the Rockingham club, showed a lack of pace during the early stages but had settled into their grove overnight and manage to edge ahead of Viking for the final podium position.
LMGT was poorly supported for the first time ever in a DiSCA 24 hours, with the allure of Hypercar and the new Slotit Oreca in LMP2 capturing the majority interest of the enter teams. However, this didn’t prevent the best race across the field occurring during the final hours between Racing4Belgium, a conglomerate of local racers, and Tamar Nelwan’s International effort.
For the first time since the inaugural race in 2012, it looked like the balance of which team won and which team finished second could be determined by the penalty box, as International Races were a matter of strikes away form a three minute trip to the penalty box, and even R4B were looking at two minutes for their next visit. With only handful of laps between them it looked like it could end in tears for one of these teams, but thankfully it didn’t transpire this way. Both Team Captains urged for caution from their Pilots, and with no further penalties awarded it was Racing4Belgium extending their lead into double figures and taking their NSR McLaren 720s to victory.
Meanwhile in LMP1, DSCA were clear at the front with DTS unassailably trailing in second position. Trailing them, however, in third place in category were British team Sports Carazing who’d shown strength and pace throughout the field. Carazing would bring the built-last-minute Lola Mazda to the podium after establishing themselves in the top order for most of the race, and even a failed Hall Effect sensor in the closing hour couldn’t relegate them from fourth place overall.
DSCA made it a double award ceremony by taking the Concours d’Elegance with the SV Workz Peugeot 9X8, in a field of compelling candidates. This is the third 24h Concours for the team in a row, who’ve firmly established themselves as an outfit to beat, in all aspects.
