BMS Ferrari wins Spa 24hrs

A year after the quartet finished second Lilian Bryner, Enzo Calderari, Fabrizio Gollin and Luca Cappellari took their 550 Maranello to victory. They had a virtually troublefree race, allowing Bryner to become the first woman to win a major 24 hour event outright.

They eventually won by just a lap from the 575 Maranello of the rival GPC team driven by hard trying former Ferrari F1 star Mika Salo, who shared duties with Philippe Peter, Vincent Vosse and Fabio Babini. This car led much of the race during a superb battle through the night, until being delayed around Sunday lunchtime.

Third place and N-GT honours went to last year's winner's Freisinger Motorsport, with Stephane Ortelli, Emmanuel Collard and Romain Dumas aboard the works-backed GT3-RSR. The team's sister cars were fourth and fifth, all three having survived problems.

Schnitzer's pair BMW M3 GTRs worked their way up the leaderboard in the early stages and looked set to be contenders for victory until both cars hit trouble. Andy Priaulx's entry eventually retired at half distance, while Hans Stuck, Jorg Muller and Dirk Muller had to settle for sixth.

The second Scuderia Italia entry ran eat the front early on, but finish seventh after suffering frontal damage. Mike Jordan, David Jones and Godfrey Jones were were best placed Brits in eighth with theier JWR Porsche.

Local hero Eric van de Poele established an early lead with Konrad Motorsport's Saleen S7, but the car ran out of fuel with Michael Bartels at the wheel in the fourth hour. Indeed all five Saleens were out by half way.