The boldly camouflaged #77 Lamborghini arrived at the Spa 24 Hour event among the favourites for a strong result in the Gold class with Sam lining up alongside his ELMS teammate, Ahmad Al Harthy, and Barwell’s GT World Challenge Europe regulars Alex MacDowall and factory driver Sandy Mitchell. Indeed, pace in the early sessions was extremely strong, and the drivers made an early statement as they combined in a closely fought qualifying to take pole position.

The race started in warm and sunny conditions and, despite a mammoth 66 cars on the grid, the opening laps were completed with no incidents throughout the field. Sandy took the start, holding the class lead and moving up the overall order before the first of the bad luck was dealt. A rear puncture at a high-speed point out on the circuit meant the #77 had to carefully recover to the pits, but all early gained ground was immediately lost, dropping to the back of the class field.

A series of punctures in quick succession then followed for competitors across the field during the subsequent laps, throwing the race into temporary chaos as the grid approached the planned first pitstop but, this did enable the Barwell entry to regain some lost ground during several Full Course Yellow periods that followed. With the Huracan GT3 Evo serviced and back on track, the driver line-up continued to recover positions, successfully moving up the field before another puncture temporarily knocked them back once again.

An incident-filled opening half of the race and careful strategy calls enabled the #77 to regain some further lost ground, before a red flag temporarily halted the race during the 10^th hour. Restarting the race holding P5, all drivers continued to push throughout the early hours and Sam took over driving responsibilities as the sun started to rise. He showed strong pace during his stint to move up to P4 and closing down the final podium spot before handing over to Ahmad for a routine stop at the 15-hour mark.

A technical issue shortly after returning to the track would prove to be the final straw for the team and, with the car not able to return to the pitlane, they were forced to retire from the race, bringing the weekend to an end just before three-quarters distance.