Historic Endurance: Danish Ginetta repeated pole position for the 3 Hours of Spa

It is well known, from experience, that an endurance race is not won at the first corner. Nevertheless, early on Saturday afternoon, none of the teams aspiring to victory wanted to miss the chance to secure a spot on the front row for the starting photo of the ninth edition of the 3 Hours of Spa – the opening round of the 2025 Iberian Historic Endurance season.

With the sun shining over the legendary Ardennes circuit, teams from all over the world contested the 45-minute qualifying session in the Spa Summer Classic programme, which set the starting grid for the longest race of the season. Despite its seven-kilometre length, the high number of cars and the varying paces within the field made it extremely difficult to complete a clean lap around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

In a qualifying session marked by several interruptions, the Danes Palle Pedersen and Alexander Weiss, at the wheel of the Ginetta G4R (H-1965), were the fastest, repeating the pole position they had achieved in the previous edition. On the front row of the grid, the small British GT would be joined by the Kuijl family’s Ford Capri RS2600 (H-1976) – driven by Wim, Tim and Dieter.

The second row was occupied by last year’s winner, Briton Ben Baker, who this year shares the wheel of the Lotus Elan 26R (H-1965) with compatriot and BTCC driver Rory Butcher, and by the Porsche 911 RS 2.8 of the duo Paul Daniels and Markus Palttala. The third row was ultimately shared by two Shelby Cobras: one driven by Charlie Martin and Robert Friedrichs, and the other by Alexander Kolb and Nico Verdonck.

The “top 10” of the qualifying session was completed by the Ford Escort Mk1 RS1600 of L. Christoforou and K. Michael, the AC Cobra 289 of Charles Firmenich and Benjamin Monnay, the Porsche 911 RS 3.0 of C. Prevel and M. Mitieus, and the TVR Tuscan – fitted with the popular Ford Essex V6 engine – of C. Kay and B. Caisly.

The three-hour Spa 3 Hour race was scheduled for the following day at 9:50 am (local time).