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Fantastic result in 24h of Spa for Paul van Splunteren
Fourth place Paul van Splunteren in 24 Hours of Spa- Francorchamps: “A fantastic result!’
Spa-Francorchamps (B), July 26th 2009. Together with his teammates Paul van Splunteren has finished 4th in class in the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The team also finished 7th overall with their Porsche 997 GT3 RSR run by the Belgian ProSpeed Competition team. “We finished in front of the other ProSpeed Competition car, which was a factory effort driven by professional drivers, including two Porsche factory drivers. This performance, as a group of gentlemen drivers, meant we got compliments from everyone in the team”, says a very happy Van Splunteren. “This is a fantastic result!”
After a class victory in 2007 and a 2nd place in 2008 Paul van Splunteren had again entered himself in the 2009 edition of the famous 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. It goes without saying that the racing owner of Porsche Centre Eindhoven chose a Porsche as the weapon of choice. Together with fellow Dutchmen Raymond Coronel and Niek Hommerson and Belgian driver Louis Machiels the choice was made to drive a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR from the Belgian ProSpeed Competition team. This meant the four men would be competing in the very difficult GT2 class. Van Splunteren: “GT2 is the most competitive and highly contested class in this race, most of the cars in this class are run by very professional teams and driven by top level drivers.”
The team started the race weekend without any experience in the Porsche 997 GT3 RSR. Paul: “On top of that we lost a lot of driving time during the practice and qualifying sessions on Thursday because of heavy rainfall.” This meant the team would have to start the race from, as Paul van Splunteren called it, a ‘hopeless’ position.
But during the race their fortunes changed for the good. “Our strategy was: don’t make mistakes and slowly but steadily make our way forward”, says Paul. “And it worked out perfectly. Our Porsche ran like a Swiss watch for the entire 24 hours, we’ve had no problems whatsoever. And none of the drivers made mistakes either, we were a very well-balanced team and we all drove similar laptimes. This resulted in a 4th place in the GT2 class and we also were the 2nd Porsche team to cross the finish line. This has been a fantastic team effort.”
Paul van Splunteren and his teammates even managed to defeat the sister car in the team. The other Porsche 997 GT3 RSR from ProSpeed Competition was driven by Emmanual Collard and Richard Westbrook, the Porsche factory drivers who were leading the championship in the FIA GT2. They were assisted by top level drivers Darryl O’Young and Sean Edwards. Paul: “Westbrook has complimented us with our performance, he said we had driven an amazing race.”
Before the 24 hour race Paul van Splunteren had already competed in the Dutch GT4 Championship, the premier national class in Holland which was racing as support race to the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. Paul finished an impressive third with his Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven Porsche 997 GT4. But after the race it was determined that his car was 6 kilos too light and Paul was subsequently disqualified. “That was a huge disappointment for me”, says Paul looking back. “I felt that because of this I was entitled to a good result in the 24 hour race.”
Results 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps:
1. Mike Hezemans, Jos Menten, Anthony Kumpen and Kurt Mollekens (NL/NL/B/B), Corvette Z06, 532 laps; 2. Alessandro Pier Guidi, Stéphane Lemeret, Carl Rosenblad and Vincent Vosse (I/B/S/B), Maserati MC12, at 12 laps; 3. Marcel Fässler, Henri Moser, Alexander Margaritis and Marc Basseng (CH/CH/GR/D), Audi R8 LMS, at 16 laps; 4. (winner GT2 class) Toni Vilander, Gianmaria Bruni, Jaime Melo and Luis Perez Companc (SF/I/BR/ARG), Ferrari F430, at 20 laps; 7. (4th in GT2 class) Paul van Splunteren, Raymond Coronel, Niek Hommerson and Louis Machiels (NL/NL/NL/B), Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, at 33 laps; 9. (6th in GT2 class) Richard Westbrook, Emmanuel Collard, Darryl O’Young and Sean Edwards (GB/F/CHN/GB), Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, at 35 laps.
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