Barwell Motorsport driver Alex MacDowall was cruelly robbed of a near-guaranteed Silver Cup class victory at the Total 24 Hours of Spa when his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO was caught in the aftermath of a multi-car accident with just seven hours to run.

Carlisle’s MacDowall and team-mates Frederik Schandorff and Patrick Kujala had performed very impressively around the challenging Spa-Francorchamps track for almost 17 hours in wet and dry, light and dark, since the beginning of the race on Saturday afternoon.

Having led their class almost from the start, Schandorff leaping from fifth to second on the opening lap alone, the Danish racer soon took the lead in the Silver Cup and through the various driver cycles the No.78 Lamborghini Huracan largely remained in charge.

Shortly before 7am local time on Sunday morning, though, when a couple of cars made contact as they entered Raidillon, MacDowall was caught-up in the aftermath as he tried to avoid the collision ahead. As he moved to the left, the No991 Porsche rolled back into his path and the damage ruled the Barwell car out on the spot.

Despite the huge disappointment after so much hard work and brilliant competitiveness, the Barwell trio do remain firmly in the fight for the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup Silver Cup title after re-taking the championship lead – having scored maximum points for leading at the six-hour mark and second placed points at the 12-hour juncture of the race.

“I’m disappointed to say the least," said MacDowall.

“We were doing well, we had the lead in the Silver Cup and it all looked good. I had a split-second decision to make, all I could see was smoke and a car spinning.

"It’s such a high-speed corner, and you’re so committed, you have a 50-50 decision to make. I went left where I thought the biggest gap was, but the car rolled back.

“It wasn’t a faultless race, we did have a couple of issues along the way, but we all kept our heads down and worked really hard. It was difficult during the night, especially with more night driving this year due to the time of year, but – if anything – it was easier to see where drier parts of the track were with the headlights.

"All of my stints were on slicks on a damp track, which was challenging.”