You sure remember the Black Falcon Mercedes SLS GT3 we showed you pictures of here and a video here. Well, now we have the results of its memorable race at Spa 24 hours.
For those of you who don’t know, this car is a tribute to the legendary Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 AMG aka the Red Pig, which won the Spa race 40 years ago. The SLS is therefore painted in the same livery and sports the same decals and graphics.
Driven by Kenneth Heyer/Thomas Jäger/Stéphane Lémeret, the 2011 Red Pig finished third, 10 laps behind the winners. After a total race distance of 545 laps and 3,817 kilometres, this is a gap of only 70 kilometres. Seven gullwing cars based on the production Mercedes SLS AMG which had all been entered by private teams had started the race. The fastest qualifiers with the gullwing car in ninth place.
The results of the Mercedes-AMG customer teams in detail:
Black Falcon, start no. 35, Kenneth Heyer/Thomas Jäger/Stéphane Lémeret: 19th on the grid. Despite a few smaller incidents during the opening stages, the car improved continuously with consistent and fast lap times and finished the race on the podium in third position.
Team Preci-Spark, start no. 90, David Jones/Godfrey Jones/Mike Jordan: Grid position 26. The British twins with their partner moved up 19 positions and came home seventh, ending up second in the Pro-Am class. The Jones brothers’ car was the first SLS AMG GT3 which had been delieved to customers in March.
Black Falcon, start no. 38, Andrii Lebed/Bret Curtis/Peter van der Kolk/Jeroen van der Heuve: Grid position 40. The second Black Falcon SLS AMG GT3 finished the race in 12th place.
KRK-Racing Team Holland, start no. 16, Raf Vanthoor/Marius Ritkes/Bernhard van Oranje/Dennis Retera: No ranking in qualifying following an accident. After repairing the gullwing car, the Belgian team moved up from the back of the field to 16th at the chequered flag.
Graff Racing, start no. 55, Phillippe Haezebrouck/Massimo Vignali/Mike Parisy/Gilles Vennelet: Ninth on the grid and best gullwing car in qualifying. They retired after 367 laps.
Graff Racing, start no. 54, Olivier Panis/Eric Debard/Grégoire Demoustier/Nicolas Lapierre: 18th in qualifying. The team with former Formula One and McLaren Mercedes test driver Olivier Panis stopped after 364 laps.
KRK-Racing Team Holland, start no. 15, Mike Hezemenas/Anthony Kumpen/Koen Wauters: Position 12 in Qualifying. The faster of the two KRK SLS AMG GT3s retired after 151 laps due to an accident.
