Aston Martin Vantage takes multiple class victories in 2025 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa

• Aston Martin Vantage GT3 wins Gold and Silver Cup classes and a Pro-Am podium in the 2025 24 Hours of Spa – a record for the British manufacturer
• Verstappen.com Racing delivers its first victory as an Aston Martin partner team on its 24 hours race debut
• Verstappen.com Racing drivers Thiery Vermeulen, Harry King and Chris Lulham place ninth overall as top Aston Martin finisher
• Walkenhorst Racing rebounds from bruising week to achieve dominant Silver Class victory with #35 Vantage
• Beechdean Motorsport finishes second in fierce battle for Pro-Am supremacy
• Heartbreak for 2024 overall winners Comtoyou Racing after another sparkling run for the #007 Pro Class car

29 June 2025, Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium: Aston Martin recorded two class victories in the 77^th running of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on Sunday, in front of 128,000 spectators, as Vantage achieved an unprecedented level of success in the famous Belgian endurance classic. The British ultra-luxury high performance brand, which won the race outright in 2024 with its Vantage GT3, added to its legacy of glory at the venue with victories in the Gold and Silver Cup classes and runner-up in the Pro-Am division; the best collective result for the Wings in the GT3-era of the event.

Partner team Verstappen Racing, and its drivers Thierry Vermeulen (NED), Harry King (GBR) and Chris Lulham (GBR) delivered a brilliant debut 24-hour race performance with their Aston Martin Vantage GT3 finishing ninth overall, ahead of several Pro Class contenders, and overcoming a fierce challenge from a rival McLaren in the second half of the race to win the Gold Cup Class.

The victory, taken from the class pole position, was emphatic and marked the team’s first with Aston Martin in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Vermeulen, who took the lead of the class in the final 10 minutes as the McLaren he was racing suffered a puncture. “For sure a lot of preparation went into it, learning the car, and plenty of testing, and I think the car has been in a very good window, with good support from Aston Martin, so a very big thanks to them. Then of course my teammates, the team… it’s a long race and very demanding. I think we have learned so much and I hope we can come back next year, because with some fine-tuning on some minor things for sure we can do even better. We’re very proud of everyone and I’m super happy that I had the privilege to be here and to achieve this.”

Having led comfortably through the first half of the race and climbed as high as second overall in the early hours of the morning, Verstappen.com Racing came under pressure from the McLaren after a Full Course Yellow at an inopportune moment compromised the team’s track position on Sunday morning. But Vermeulen and Lulham produced robust stints to keep the Vantage just ahead of the curve, while their teammate King unleashed one of the overtakes of the race to secure the class lead in the 22^nd hour. The McLaren came back at them in the final pit stops however, regaining track position and so Vermeulen pressed hard, never more than two seconds away and was in the prime position to take advantage when his rival hit trouble in the final stages.

Walkenhorst Motorsport dominated the second half of the Silver Class, with its #35 Vantage GT3 finishing 14th overall. It was a just reward for the German team which had absorbed its fair share of adversity over the past week, with several accidents putting its engineers under pressure in the run-up to the event and the preceding ADAC Ravenol 24h Nürburgring. One of those accidents eliminated the #34 Pro Class car, driven by works drivers Henrique Chaves (POR), David Pittard (GBR) and Christian Krognes (NOR), after a crash in Super Pole on Friday.

For the victorious Silver Cup driver and former Aston Martin Racing Driver Academy graduate Romain Leroux (FRA), who shared the car with 2025 Academy candidates Oliver Söderström and Mateo Villagomez, the victory was even sweeter having been shunted into retirement from a podium position in last year’s race.

“I think it is the perfect gift back to the team, it’s definitely not been the easiest week,” said Leroux. “We had a lot of pace in the Pro car so to lose it even before the race began was very tough. The team bounced back very well, we didn’t lose focus, and we showed the pace the car had and us as drivers gave the team back the result they deserved.”

In a hotly-contested Pro-Am class, Beechdean Motorsport followed up its British GT Silver-Am Class victory at the same venue last week with an outstanding second place for Andrew Howard, Ross Gunn, Valentin Hasse-Clot and Anthony McIntosh – making his Spa 24 Hours debut in this year’s event.

The #100 Beechdean Motorsport car led the class comfortably for several periods of the race but lost track position into the morning, whereby its two works drivers aided by Howard and McIntosh staged a phenomenal charge, in searing heat, in the late stages to finish less than 25 seconds behind the winner.

Comtoyou Racing, which recorded Aston Martin’s magnificent win in 2024 returned with the same works driver line-up of former FIA WEC GT champions Marco Sørensen (DEN), Nicki Thiim (DEN) and 2023 GT World Challenge Sprint Cup title-winner Mattia Drudi (ITA). The trio, and their #007 Vantage GT3, qualified eighth overall and were a key factor in the first third of the race. Moving into third position after midnight in a race where the top ten was rarely separated by more than 10 seconds through the night, Drudi had begun to exert significant pressure on the leading Mercedes duo when he encountered a technical issue that sidelined the car. It was a sad end to the Italian’s 24-hour triple header (24 Hours of Le Mans, Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps) with Aston Martin.

 Adam Carter, Head of Endurance Motorsport, said: “To win multiple classes of the 24 Hours of Spa, with different partner teams, and come close to recording a triple, is a huge testament to the quality of the teams we choose to work with. Moreover, it is the perfect demonstration of the pace, adaptability and compliance of the Vantage GT3 to triumph in one of the world’s most demanding endurance races on earth. Congratulations to Verstappen.com Racing and to Walkenhorst Motorsport on outstanding performances and to Beechdean Motorsport for its hard fought second place in Pro-Am.”

The GT World Challenge Europe moves to Misano, in Italy, on 18-20 July, for the next round of its Sprint Cup where Aston Martin will be represented by Comtoyou Racing and Walkenhorst Motorsport. The next round of the Endurance Cup takes place at the Nürburgring on 29-31 August.