Valentino Rossi and the VR46 WRT Audi squad are still running in a gruelling 24 Hours of Spa endurance race that at one stage saw the MotoGP legend circulating on the fringes of the top three.
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However, his hopes of a landmark result on his 24 Hours of Spa GT debut look to have been scuppered after a collision with a sister Audi just beyond the half-way point in the race.
As the time of writing – with 17 hours of racing completed and 7 more to go – the car Rossi shares with Nico Muller and Frederic Vervisch is circulating in 17th position, two laps off the lead.
While the current standing is only a minor improvement on the car’s position during the first three hours when it featured well outside the top twenty, the #46 Audi was played right back into the race in spectacular fashion thanks to some savvy strategy calls.
After a long Full Course Yellow and Safety Car pulled the car back up to the pack, on the restart a series of incidents in the bunched up field prompted a second FCY. When the same thing happened on the second restart, a third FCY was quickly called.
During this time, the #46 Audi was able to pit before its rivals, allowing it to leapfrog fistfulls of cars when they eventually stopped with Rossi – who was only 29th when he began a mammoth first stint in the car – finding himself just a few seconds off the lead in fourth.
It was a top five position the team held for an extended period but when Rossi suffered a spin during his night-time stint at Pif-Paf – causing his own FCY – it rejoined the race outside the top ten.
Worse was to follow later on though when Muller rear-ended the sister #32 Audi, which had braked suddenly to avoid a slow-moving McLaren ahead.
Hitting the car hard enough to put it out of the race, Muller nursed the car back to the pits for repairs. It has now rejoined but its targets have been revised down to a top ten result.
The #46 @audisport Team WRT has made it back to the pits. Sadly, the #32 @followWRT Audi’s race is over and the car is being recovered. #Spa24h #FanatecGT #GTWorldChEu #IGTC @TotalEnergies @fanatec @AWS @Pirelli @CrowdStrike pic.twitter.com/fhvJyC826G
— TotalEnergies 24Hours of Spa (@24HoursofSpa) July 31, 2022
Regardless, Rossi – who may have now completed his driving duties for the race – has enjoyed his 24-hour debut so far, not least because it has enabled for substantial mileage at the wheel of the Audi in which to gain experience.
“It’s a great race, it’s fantastic. It’s very long considering that we have another nine hours to go… it’s a long, long way. But it’s good, it’s nice to understand the car and racing in the night is fantastic.
Asked how he fared getting some rest between stints, he replied: “I slept, the problem is waking up…”
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