Porsche, Porsche, Audi, Audi. Audi and Porsche are going to be a mere point apart. The championship will go down to the finale in Bahrain. Sebastien Buemi mentions he has lost the lexan cover over the headlight. Brendon Hartley sets another fastest lap. Porsche AG wants the points. Porsche will try to get close enough with #17 to tell #18 to slow the pace down, to try catching up for a 1-2 finish, more than likely, here at Mount Fuji. Toyota has stayed in contention, for the most part, in their home race. Albeit, with only one bullet in the gun.
#77 is in the lane. Marco Seefried will be relieved by Patrick Long. #77 is on slick tires. Mathias Lauda is the next car in line. Matt Howson stays aboard the #47 car in LMP2. Richard Bradley has not driven that car yet. The #26 G Drive Ligier of Julien Canal is also running well. It is still slippery offline. In LMP2, 1:40 is the norm for lap times here at Fuji Speedway. Julien Canal has done really well stepping up to the Prototype ranks.
Tires for the Larbre Competition Corvette. GT cars in FIA WEC, do not have intermediate tires. Patrick Long is behind the wheel of the #77 Porsche. Marc Lieb and the #18 Porsche will need a couple more stops. An hour and 45 minutes left to run. Some sparks are coming from underneath the car. Brendon Hartley goes around the Strakka prototype in the hands of Danny Watts. Meanwhile, #8 is in the lane, and the Porsche's might be in, too. Loic Duval takes over the Audi. Audi has put slicks on the #8.
#17 passes the pit lane. Marc Lieb is on a charge. Andre Lotterer is now third in the #7 Audi. Brendon Hartley says he hears a ticking noise in the car. I something loose inside the Porsche? Audi runs fifth. One more stop will be expected for Audi #8. The ticking sound heard in the Porsche is not slowing down Brendon Hartley at all. Sebastien Buemi runs a 1:30.2 in the sole remaining Toyota. Loic Duval is now running in the 1:29 bracket.
It gets dark early here in Japan. We might run the last half hour of this race in twilight. Andre Lotterer moves into the 1:29 lap time range now. The #2 Toyota of Mike Conway goes off the road slightly. He had a worse incident at Circuit of the Americas last time out. Toyota #1 pits. They have not broken into the top four yet, though. G Drive leads KCMG in LMP2. Richard Bradley might take over the car for the last hour and fifteen minutes of this event.
Trouble for #1. Whoops. Spin for Sebastien Buemi. The Toyota and the Audi have been close on their pit cycles. Romain Rusinov and Richard Bradley both need to put their time in. The hybrid drive on the Porsche is still having some issues. #47 is in the lane. Richard Bradley is in, and gets new tires. But, there was a problem. Marc Lieb pits the #18 Porsche from the lead. Neel Jani will take over the car. Brendon Hartley will take the overall lead of the motor race. Audi #7 is in the lane, too.
The #18 car came off intermediate tires and the crew put new slicks on the car. The rain could be close. It is getting very dark, down towards the valley, here at Mount Fuji. Brendon Hartley is in the lane, from the lead. Hartley out. Timo Bernhard, in. Tires at the ready. The Super GT lap record, has been matched, here at Mount Fuji, by Brendon Hartley. We have a shade over an hour remaining in this race. Someone is stopped. Not sure who. Richard Bradley is closing up on Romain Rusinov. Ah. One of the Rebellion cars is not running properly.
A new lap record set by Benoit Treluyer. Wow! How quick can these cars and drivers go? These cars are amazing. Oh dear. One of the Prototypes is off the road. Can't tell which one. Ah. It is the #13 Rebellion R-One. Daniel Abt is at the wheel. He's back on the road. Abt goes into the garage. It could be game over. The privateer teams need to be given more of an opportunity. Something has to happen, with private teams and the new LMP2 cars in 2017 with 600 horsepower, that are more or less, spec cars.
Daniel Abt had an electrical issue causing the car to be stuck in top gear... 7th gear. They've been eating spark plugs, too. LMP1 privateers want to design, build, and run their own cars. By 2017, with the new LMP2 regs, you cannot do that. #72 is in the lane. They are in a disaster scenario after having a bad race today. It is sad to think that greatly committed teams like Rebellion could lose an opportunity to race. The dark clouds are lowering. The clouds are boiling up from the valley floor. The track record was just smashed by Benoit Treluyer in drying conditions.
Paul Dalla Lana pits the #98 Aston Martin V8 Vantage in LM GTE Am. Davide Rigon pits the #71 Ferrari, and Davide Rigon will take over, headed for the finish. Benoit Treluyer sets new fast lap at 1:26.104. Both AF Corse cars have now pitted. Oh no. The #95 Aston Martin V8 Vantage of Marco Sorensen has spun. Oh dear. The #95 Aston Martin has water spilling from the front splitter. Another of the Aston Martin's (#96) is in the lane.
Everyone has fuel to go to the end of the race. Richard Bradley is catching Romain Rusinov in LMP2. Neel Jani leads Timo Bernhard in the overall, with just over an hour left.
No comments:
Post a Comment