BMS Scuderia Italia was forced to retire its FIA GT Championship-leading car, driven by Matteo Bobbi, Thomas Biagi, Stefano Livio and Ettore Bonaldi, from the sixth round of the championship, the Spa 24-hours, due to an engine problem. The second car, of Luca Cappellari, Fabrizio Gollin, Lilian Bryner and Enzo Calderari, lay fifth overall, third in class at the six-hour mark, scoring three points towards the championship.

The team had endured a difficult two days following Biagi's accident during final qualifying on Friday. The team stayed up all night to repair the damage using spare parts borrowed from the number 21 Care Racing Ferrari 550 Maranello of Jean-Marc Gounon and Jerome Policand, which was therefore withdrawn from the event.

The two Ferrari 550 Maranellos ran competitively in the opening stages of the race, but the number 23 car made a number of unscheduled pit stops, first to check the engine data, and then two more stops as the front windscreen misted up, and the windscreen wiper stopped working. 

"We broke the left bank of the engine," said a disappointed Bobbi. "There is still a long way to go in the championship, and for our points situation, this is not a big problem. This was my first 24-hour race and it was very strange, starting a race that you have no idea if you will finish!"

Tiziano Minuti, team manager at BMS, was disappointed to have lost one of the two cars, but was pleased with the progress of the second Ferrari 550 Maranello. "We have softened the car up to cope with the wet weather," said Minuti. "Some of the drivers were having difficulty in these extremely wet conditions and the hard set-up, so we lost a little bit of time but the car is easier to drive now."

Heavy rain has set in over the Spa circuit, causing numerous accidents in the first quarter of the race, including those of Mike Hezemans, who crashed his Chrysler Viper at Eau Rouge, and Jamie Campbell-Walter, who rolled his Lister Storm at Raidillon. The race was led at the six-hour mark by the Freisinger Motorsport Porsche of Stephane Ortelli, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas, though the Larbre Competition Chrysler Viper of Christophe Bouchut, Vincent Vosse, Patrick Huisman and Sebastien Dumez has since taken the lead position.