GT World Challenge Europe
Countdown

Aston Martin survives Spa: Walkenhorst fights back, Comtoyou suffers heartbreak, Blackthorn reaches the flag

The CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa was always going to be one of the biggest tests of Aston Martin’s 2026 GT3 season. After Comtoyou Racing’s outright Endurance Cup victory at Paul Ricard, the frustration of Monza, and a strong Bronze Cup podium for Écurie Écosse Blackthorn, Spa arrived as the race that could either relaunch Aston Martin’s endurance momentum or underline just how unforgiving GT World Challenge Europe can be.

In the end, it did a bit of both.

Aston Martin did not repeat its famous 2024 Spa victory, and Comtoyou Racing endured a bruising race with all four of its Vantage entries not classified. But there were still important positives. The #34 natural elements by Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo delivered the best Aston Martin result of the race with seventh overall and seventh in Pro Cup, while Écurie Écosse Blackthorn completed its Spa 24 Hours debut and added another important chapter to its growing European GT story.

This was not a clean, straightforward Spa. It was a race shaped by extreme heat, early chaos, safety cars, changing conditions, attrition and the constant pressure of a 69-car GT3 field. The broadcast described the event as a modern 24-hour sprint rather than an old-style endurance race where simply reaching the end might be enough.

At the front, the race produced a remarkable winner. The #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R, shared by Ricardo Feller, Thomas Preining and Bastian Buus, won overall after starting from the pit lane following an engine change earlier in the event. Over 24 hours at Spa, that kind of setback should have removed a car from victory contention. Instead, Lionspeed drove a patient, fast and clean race, survived the attrition, and emerged as the car to beat in the final phase. Autoweek reported that the Lionspeed Porsche climbed through the field after its engine-change setback, with the #48 Mercedes-AMG finishing second and the #51 AF Corse Ferrari completing the podium.

Second place went to the #48 Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel. The Mercedes crew delivered the kind of consistent, disciplined endurance race that wins championships, even if it was not enough to beat the recovering Porsche to the flag. Completing the overall podium was the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Alessio Rovera, Tommaso Mosca and Nicklas Nielsen, which had shown strong pace but could not turn that speed into victory.

For Aston Martin, the lead result came from the #34 natural elements by Walkenhorst Motorsport Vantage AMR GT3 Evo. Jamie Day, Christian Krognes and Henrique Chaves finished seventh overall and seventh in Pro Cup, completing 541 laps and remaining on the lead lap. In a 24-hour race featuring a huge field, extreme pressure, changing conditions and repeated incidents, that was already a very credible result.

In context, it was much more than that.

The #34 Aston was caught up in the major first-lap accident at Pouhon. The broadcast described an Audi and the Walkenhorst Aston getting together at high speed, with several cars behind also caught up in the chaos. The Aston was launched, damaged and forced to limp back to the pits. At that point, the fact it was still moving was already being described as a small victory. Watch the crash that shaped Aston Martin’s Spa fightback. below this writing section.

That opening-lap incident changed how the #34’s entire race should be understood. This was not a quiet top-ten finish. It was a recovery drive from the first racing lap.

Walkenhorst’s response was decisive. Under the safety car, the team brought the car in, assessed the damage, carried out what work it could, and kept it on the lead lap. The broadcast later highlighted that the team used the yellow-flag periods intelligently, bringing the car in repeatedly without surrendering its position in the race.

From there, the #34 became one of the standout Aston Martin stories of the race. The car was not merely surviving. It was quick. At one point, the broadcast noted that the Aston had been badly involved in the first-lap accident, had made five pit stops, yet was already back up to seventh, on the lead lap and there “on merit”.

As the race developed, the same theme kept returning. The #34 had, in the words of the broadcast, “no business” still being in the race after the first-lap impact, yet it remained on the lead lap and became a genuine contender during parts of the race. During the final pit cycle, the Aston even briefly led the race on the road before making its final stop, another statistic that underlined how well Walkenhorst had recovered the situation.

Christian Krognes later summed up just how unlikely the recovery had been. He described the ratio between the size of the shunt and the damage sustained as “quite unbelievable”, saying the car had spun and almost flipped, yet had only suffered a punctured tyre and relatively minor cosmetic damage. He also credited the team’s strategy for bringing the car back onto the lead lap.

By the finish, the #34 Aston was seventh overall. Only eight cars finished on the lead lap, and the Walkenhorst Vantage was one of them. After what had happened on the opening lap, that was far more than a respectable result. It was one of Aston Martin’s best endurance racing recoveries of the season so far.

The most painful part of Aston Martin’s Spa weekend was Comtoyou Racing’s collapse.

The Belgian team arrived with the defending 2024 Spa-winning crew of Mattia Drudi, Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim in the #007 Vantage AMR GT3 Evo. That same trio had already won the 2026 Endurance Cup opener at Paul Ricard, making the #007 Aston Martin’s main Pro Cup reference point for the season. Spa showed flashes of that same potential, but the result slipped away.

After a difficult opening phase, the #007 began to work its way back into contention. Drudi was noted for putting the Aston into the top ten as the race moved into the evening, and the broadcast suggested that the front-engined cars, including the Aston Martin, appeared to benefit as the track temperature dropped.

As the race moved through the night and into the morning, Comtoyou looked increasingly dangerous. The broadcast described the team as having had a troubled day but rebounding strongly, with the Aston Martins “starting to come alive” and running fourth and sixth at one stage.

But Spa is often defined by the moment that gets away from you, and for the #007 that moment came at Raidillon. Thiim had a major incident while fighting around the top five, striking the barrier and damaging the front-left suspension. The later race summary confirmed that the #007 was put out of the race after Thiim’s spin and contact with the wall (see the video clip below). That made the #007 Aston the “what might have been” of Aston Martin’s race. The pace was there. The recovery was there. But at Spa, especially through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, one moment can end hours of work.

The other Comtoyou Aston Martins also failed to reach the classified finish. The #700 Pro-Am Vantage had shown early promise and led Pro-Am before an off and puncture dropped it down the order. The #21 Silver Cup Vantage was lost after Sébastien Baud’s heavy accident, with the race summary noting that Baud was okay but the car was not. The #11 Bronze Cup Vantage was also not classified, turning what had started as a major Aston Martin assault into a very difficult weekend for the Belgian squad.

Walkenhorst’s second Aston Martin, the #35 Silver Cup Vantage, was also not classified after completing only one lap. That left just two Aston Martins in the classified finishers: the #34 Walkenhorst Pro Cup car and the #56 Écurie Écosse Blackthorn Bronze Cup car.

For Fuel the Passion, Blackthorn’s Spa debut was always going to carry extra interest. The #56 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, driven by Jonny Adam, Romain Leroux, Giacomo Petrobelli and Lorcan Hanafin, finished 31st overall and sixth in Bronze Cup after completing 529 laps.

After the team’s Bronze Cup podium at Monza, Spa was a much bigger and more brutal test. It was also an important step in the team’s development. This is a programme still building itself in public, against some of the strongest GT3 opposition in the world. A podium at Monza showed the potential. A completed Spa 24 Hours debut showed the resilience.

Blackthorn’s race was not straightforward. There was an early penalty scare when the car was initially linked to an engine-change penalty, only for that penalty to be rescinded after clarification that the engine had not been changed. Later in the race, the Blackthorn Aston returned to the pits with a small front-left fire after part of the car had been dragging. The fire was dealt with quickly, but it was another reminder of how punishing Spa had become for machinery as well as drivers. Watch Blackthorn’s Spa pit-lane scare below this writing segment.

Blackthorn didn’t leave Spa with a podium, but finishing the race mattered. In a 24-hour event where several high-profile cars failed to reach the flag, bringing the Aston Martin home after 529 laps was a proper endurance racing achievement. It gave the team valuable experience, useful data and another important chapter in its GT World Challenge Europe programme.

The class winners again showed the depth of the competition Aston Martin was facing. ROWE Racing won Gold Cup with the #998 BMW M4 GT3 Evo, Rinaldi Racing won Silver Cup with the #45 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, Kessel Racing won Bronze Cup with the #74 Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, and JMR took Pro-Am honours with the #0 Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

For Aston Martin, the 2026 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa was therefore not a failure, but it was certainly a missed opportunity.

The #34 Walkenhorst result salvaged a strong overall finish and proved the Vantage AMR GT3 Evo could take a serious hit, stay alive, remain on the lead lap and still finish inside the top ten. The #007 Comtoyou car showed front-running pace before Thiim’s Raidillon accident ended its challenge. Blackthorn completed its first Spa 24 Hours, which is a meaningful milestone for the team. But Comtoyou’s wider race will feel like the one that got away, especially given its Paul Ricard victory and Aston Martin’s famous Spa win one year earlier.

The wider season picture remains alive, but Spa has changed the tone. Aston Martin’s GT World Challenge Europe campaign is no longer just about early victory and momentum. It is now about recovery, consistency and turning scattered highlights into a sustained championship challenge.

The next Endurance Cup round is the Nürburgring, and it now carries extra importance. Aston Martin has shown it can win outright, score in Bronze Cup and finish strongly at the hardest GT3 races. What it needs next is a cleaner weekend across more of its entries.

Spa proved again that the Vantage AMR GT3 Evo has the ingredients. The #007 showed the pace. The #34 showed the strength. Blackthorn showed the endurance. The challenge now is converting those ingredients into a complete Aston Martin result.