Zoom Higher up for Horag at Spa

After finishing third in class at the Italian Monza track 14 days ago, Horag Racing placed a strong second in the LMP2 class last Sunday in the Le Mans Series' 1,000 Kilometres of Spa race at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

The Porsche RS Spyder No.27 led the class for more than two hours of the race, which ended after 5:17:48 had elapsed and the overall winning Peugeot had circled the 7.003-km, 15-turn road course 143 times.

Horag Racing's No.27 finished on the same lap as the class winner, another Porsche RS Spyder fielded by Van Merksteijn Motorsport, as both completed 138 laps. What's more, the Horag team was only 10.387 seconds behind the class winner at the end.

Team Essex made it a Porsche RS Spyder class sweep. It was three laps behind the Horag No.27 at the checkered flag.

In its first four races, the brand-new Horag Porsche RS Spyder has been on the podium twice, in the top five three times, and never worst than sixth in class.

For the bulk of Sunday's race the LMP2 class battle was between the Van Merksteijn Porsche, the Horag Porsche and the Speedy Racing Team Lola Judd. The latter had difficulties around the 114-lap mark, opening the door for Team Essex to move up. There were 15 cars in the LMP2 class out of the 46 overall entries.

Fredy Lienhard of Niederteufen, Switzerland decided not to drive in this race due to back pain, so Jan Lammers of Katwyk, the Netherlands, and Belgium's Didier Theys of Scottsdale, Arizona, did all the driving Sunday.

Theys qualified fourth on Saturday in a session delayed by three red flags. He had to abort what would have been his fastest lap due to a red flag, but he still qualified with 2:06.955, just 0.606 of a second slower than third.

Lammers started the race, Theys drove in the middle and Lammers finished the event, which was held under warm and sunny conditions and attracted some 35,000 spectators. The car was very competitive throughout.

The class winner was a bit faster on Sunday, but being able to finish on the same lap, just 10 seconds behind in second place, was very satisfying for the Swiss team. Lammers set the No.27's fastest run on lap 117 with a time of 2:07.664, which at 197.478 kilometers per hour was the third-fastest race lap for the class.

As far as the official hourly reports go, the No.27 was third in class at the end of hour one, leading at the end of hour two, and second at the end of hours three, four and five. The Van Merksteijn Motorsport Porsche finished sixth overall; Horag Racing was seventh overall and Team Essex was eighth overall.

"We had a very good race," Theys said afterwards. "Fredy didn't want to take any chances with his back, so he decided to just watch this one."

"We were first for more than two hours. Jan started the race and had a good stint, then I got in and also had a good stint. Then Jan got in at the end too, and again, we had no problems. We had a good set-up. Neither Jan nor I had contact with anybody. It was a very nice and clean race for us, without any drama. The pit stops were perfect; everybody did a very good job," he added.

"The car that won was a little faster than we were, but we got second and it was a good fight in all the classes from the beginning until the end. Everybody is happy with the results," Theys concluded.

Horag Racing was fourth in the LMP2 point standings going into this race. Unofficially it is now third, just five points out of second and 11 out of first.

Horag Racing does not plan to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 14-15, so its next race will be at Germany's Nurburgring on August 15-17. The season finale is September 12-14 at Silverstone, England.

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