•    Excellent win for Allay Racing’s Emil Hellberg in Spa-Francorchamps opener
•    Safety car interrupted race leads to delayed pit-stops and great finish
•    Maxim Dirickx takes 3pt championship lead into final race with P2
•    Linus Hellberg joins his brother on the overall podium with strong third place
•    Season finale at 17.20 local time today – watch LIVE at Creventic Motorsports TV

Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (4 September 2026):
Sweden’s Emil Hellberg raced to his second Prototype Cup Europe race victory of the season during the first encounter at Spa-Francorchamps this afternoon, a well-judged drive from the Swede in the No.48 Allay Racing Ligier JS P325.

In a contest which fell under Safety Car conditions early on, and didn’t resume until there were only around 20 minutes to go, Hellberg made the most of his opportunity to take victory by just over two seconds from the No.3 Aust Motorsport Ligier of Maxim Dirickx and Nigel Moore. Third position was taken by Emil’s brother Linus Hellberg in the No.43 Ligier, his first outright podium in the series.

“It was a good race, I am super happy”, said winner Emil Hellberg, “They made it a little bit easy with the Safety Car in the beginning, but as soon as the barrier was fixed it was just flat out trying to get it! It was so much fun, just a great race.”

By finishing in second place overall, Dirickx – who also claimed the Junior victory – has provisionally moved back into the lead of the outright championship by just three points from chief rival Valentino Catalano, who finished fourth with team-mate Danny Soufi in the No.11 GMS Team Ligier.

Following two formation laps on an all-but fully dry track the race began and pole-qualifier Mattis Pluschkell did just hold the lead on the inside to La Source, but on the run down to Eau Rouge the No.8 BWT Mücke Motorsport Duqueine D09 was eaten up by Catalano and Dirickx.

Then, at Raidillon, Torsten Kratz went into the tyre barriers on the right-hand side in the Larea GT1 Racing Duqueine which brought out the Safety Car. Kratz was thankfully unharmed, although barrier repairs were required and these continued into the final half hour. 

Racing resumed with 26 minutes to go, officials having pushed on the opening of the pit-stop window, with Catalano leading a top six of Dirickx, Pluschkell, Emil Hellberg, Linus Hellberg and Mads Kjelde Larsen in the No.18 BWT Mücke car.

Pluschkell again suffered with top speed at the resumption, and he was passed by both Hellbergs, although the BWT Mücke driver did hit back to take fourth from Linus out of Les Combes. At the end of the lap, though, the No.43 Allay Racing Ligier re-passed Pluschkell’s car and at the front, Catalano had opened a lead of 1.4 seconds on the first lap back at racing speed and continued to pull clear.

The pits opened with 21 minutes to run and at his first opportunity the leader dived into pitlane to hand over the No.11 GMS Team car to Soufi, so too Dirickx headed to his pit box to give the No.3 Aust car to Moore. Emil Hellberg moved into the lead on track and pitted the next time around. 

Pluschkell, meanwhile, handed the No.8 Duqueine to Tobias Bille Clausen and the crew did trey to conduct some work on the engine sensors while the car was in the pit box. The race order settled with around 11 minutes left on the clock and Emil Hellberg led his brother by 3.7 seconds, Moore was third and right on the tail of the second of the Allay Racing Ligiers.

Soufi was a further two seconds adrift, but news came through of a penalty for the No.11 Ligier linked to an infringement at the pit-stop. In short, he would need to run through a penalty area at Turn Seven on two occasions before the end of the race – costing just shy of 10 seconds.

Moore didn’t waste any time in taking second place and with just eight minutes to go the gap to leader Emil Hellberg stood at four seconds. Moore did eat further into the Swede’s advantage before the finish but Hellberg held on to claim his brilliant second victory of the season. 

Moore was a very strong second and the result helped team-mate Dirickx move back into the points lead with one race to go a single point. Linus Hellberg finished a terrific third with Soufi fourth, while Markus Pommer took the flag fifth in the No.18 Duqueine and Theo Micouris rounded out the top six in the No.74 Team Virage Ligier shared with Dominique Bastien.

The decisive final race of the 2026 Prototype Cup Europe season is scheduled to begin at 17.20 local time today. Watch LIVE at Creventic Motorsports TV via YouTube – links to the live stream and live timing are available at www.prototype-cup-europe.com