Hadrien David has given Akkodis ASP Team the perfect opportunity to quickly bounce back from a troubled start to the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign by producing a stellar lap to grab the LMGT3 class pole position at Spa-Francorchamps today (8 May).
The #78 Lexus RC F – which secured its maiden pole in FIA WEC competition at the same circuit last year – narrowly snuck through the first phase of the qualifying session, with local hero Tom Van Rompuy advancing to Hyperpole by the margin of just 0.067 seconds.
Series rookie David – the reigning Michelin Le Mans Cup LMP3 class champion, who turned heads by qualifying on the front row for the curtain-raising contest at Imola last month – then continued to impress as he outpaced all of his rivals in Hyperpole.
The result marked Lexus’ third pole position in LMGT3 – all three achieved by the #78 – as David improved upon Akkodis’ 2025 benchmark at Spa by more than a second.
That delivered a welcome fillip for the French outfit, which suffered disappointment at Imola as both cars dropped out of contention from strong positions within a lap of each other. Those early-season woes then continued into free practice in Belgium, as Van Rompuy lost a wheel in FP2 and the sister #87 car found itself confined to the garage for a while during FP3 – but in Hyperpole, everything finally came together.
“I love Spa!” enthused David. “I had pole here in Formula 4, the Formula Regional European Championship, LMP3 last year and now LMGT3. I’m lucky to be part of Akkodis, who gave me a great car and I knew we were going to be quite strong this weekend. This is a team effort, and I have great engineers and team-mates – and with Tom [Van Rompuy] getting our car into Hyperpole, that gave me a shot!”
Lexus at one point looked likely to lock out the front row, with Clemens Schmid building upon Petru Umbrărescu’s pace-setting effort from the first part of the session but ultimately finding himself obliged to settle for fourth.
In-between the two Akkodis entries on the grid will be the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage – Zacharie Robichon missing out on pole by just under two tenths-of-a-second – and the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang, courtesy of a competitive run from Ben Tuck.
At the other end of the order in the 18-strong field, a number of fancied runners fell at the first hurdle, including all three podium-finishers from Imola – the #69 Team WRT BMW, #33 TF Sport Corvette and #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche – as well as Garage 59’s pair of McLarens, with the #10 720S Evo having taken pole in Italy and the #58 topping the timesheets earlier in the day in Belgium in FP3.
The TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps – round two of the season – will get underway at 14:00 CEST tomorrow (Saturday, 9 May).
Check out the full qualifying times.
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