The Viper is definitely in the garage right now. Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen, sharing, with Marc Miller. You want the victories in these long races. But, you have to think of how the championship will play out. The #27 Dream Racing Lamborghini is going to extend this yellow flag. Lawrence DeGeorge and Cedric Sbirrazuolli, share the driving chores. Fox Sports' Justin Bell, got to drive a Ferrari 488 in the town of Sebring, through the orange groves. What a fun experience! We continue under yellow, but, not for long. A restart is imminent.
Dane Cameron pitted. The other leaders, stayed out. The weather is coming. We're back to green as Olivier Pla gets the jump. Pippo Derani and Mikhail Goikhberg almost crashed into each other. The DeltaWing splits the two Corvette's. The rain is coming. Luis Felipe Derani stays with Christian Fittipaldi. The LMP2 cars are much lighter than the Daytona Prototypes are. Dirk Werner passes Antonio Garcia for second place in GT Le Mans. The Ferrari's are showing pace. Both the Risi Competizione machine and the Scuderia Corsa car. Tommy Milner gets chopped by Dirk Werner through turn 17.
John Edwards tries outside the Corvette's in turns five and six. Daniel Serra wants Edwards! Giancarlo Fisichella wiggles. The Corvette's defend, too. This is wild. Corvette's vs. BMW's, vs. Ferrari's. Get track position, before the rain moves in. Dane Cameron is now mired in the GTLM pack. He messed up on a fuel stop. When will the rain hit? Open your pit window options. Fittipaldi, Goossens, and Jordan Taylor, are all running well. Taylor has taken over the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette Prototype, from Rubens Barrichello. Barrichello is part of a four driver lineup.
They had to cover all their bases. Last year, it was a struggle for the physicality of the race track. Ooh! A spin for Marc Drumwright in the #20 Prototype Challenge entry. That is the BAR1 Motorsports Entry. Now, the Corvette's are going hammer and tongs right away! Garcia and Milner are battling and John Edwards is there, to pounce. Side note on car #20... the drivers are Johnny Mowlem, Tomy Drissi, Marc Drumwright, and Don Yount. Dirk Werner still leads GT Le Mans in the #25 BMW M6 GT. The Corvette's do have setups that are the same as last year. Same with Porsche. BMW, Ford, and Ferrari, are learning how their new cars handle.
The rain is coming, as we see the two Honda powered cars leading. The rain is beginning to come down, right now. On the old concrete runways, puddling will happen. No risks will be taken. Driving on slicks in the rain is like driving on ice. Alex Job Racing brings both cars in, and the #60 Ligier Honda is in, from the lead. Oswaldo Negri Jr. will take over from Olivier Pla. Car #5 did not pit. Christian Fittipaldi at the controls. We've got rain on half of this speedway, as Marc Goossens is trying to pass Ozz Negri. Goossens goes wide and almost runs into the side of a Ferrari.
Dirk Werner is passed for the lead in GTLM by Tommy Milner. Car #50, the Highway To Help Riley Dinan BMW, pits. On slicks, the lap times are in the 2:04-2:05 range. Dominik Farnbacher is in the new Alegra Motorsports Riley Dinan BMW. Slick tires are the order of the day here, right now. James French in the #38 Performance Tech Prototype Challenge car. We have a single Aston Martin in GT Daytona, for the factory Gulf car. The #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini is running well, and the #6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 is up to third, with Robin Liddell at the controls, which started last in class due to a mechanical problem.
From the Le Mans curve to the Ulmann straight, the dampness changes. Tiptoe around and maybe you'll get some good performance in the dry. Side by side stuff between Negri and Derani! But these blokes are now farther down the field. A spin for another of the Prototype machines. GT cars and teams are getting wet tires set for pit stops. Because of heat this week, oil hasn seeped up through the concrete. The spinner, is the #70 Mazda Prototype, of Keiko Ihara. She was close to not recovering, but did, after her spin. Rain is surely in the cards now.
MSR has wet tires but with a dry setup. There has been no running on the wet tire in wet conditions, until now. It's a shorter tire. Jonathan Bomarito is in the sister #55 Mazda Prototype and is running well. Bomarito shares with Tristan Nunez and Spencer Pigot, while Keiko Ihara shares the #70 Mazda with Joel Miller, Tom Long, and Ben Devlin. The rain, is here. It's a skating rink, and the #11 Change Racing Lamborghini loses it, nearly collects the Corvette, and ker-runch! Townsend Bell, is into the tires.
We have another lake in Florida lake country. It's a deluge. Jon Bennett in the #54 Core Autosport Prototype Challenge car spun out. Change Racing is also running a second car for Corey Lewis and Spencer Pumpelly. Christian Fittipaldi, Robert Alon, Tommy Milner, and Madison Snow, are the class leaders. The rain has stopped. But the track is wet. If the pits are closed, you can only do emergency service. Changing tires, is not emergency service. The track may be drying, but there's more coming. It's a real gamble.
If there is puddling, Michelin has an advantage, because they can develop a specific wet tire. Continental Tire has to compromise for the Prototype, Prototype Challenge, and GT Daytona cars. Giancarlo Fisichella leads GTLM over the two Corvette's and the Porsche's. They were very potent at Petit Le Mans, in the rain, last fall. The Porsche's might come to the front. The GTLM teams are learning the new aero packages, especially in wet conditions. The #2 ESM HPD hits pit lane. Dominik Farnbacher in the Alegra Motorsports car is also pitting. ESM will also do a driver change.
We have a restart, in our future, here at Sebring. Jan Magnussen is the next driver into the #3 Corvette C-7-R-, and changed to wet tires. This is the first time rain has been seen at Sebring, since 1998, according to Sebring historian, Ken Breslauer. The #98 Aston Martin V8 Vantage pits, with Mathias Lauda at the wheel, sharing with Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy, and Richie Stanaway. We go back to green, and the visibility is awful. Penalties will be assessed if cars pitted while the pit lane was closed. The #33 Viper had a half shaft problem. Four Corvette Prototype's lead the Mike Shank Racing Ligier Honda.
The top five overall are running with no traffic. Who has the pace? No fewer than nine cars have been held in pit lane, in their own pit boxes. Normally, you go to the end of the lane. But all the penalties are individual. Nick Tandy is catching the Corvette. Dirk Werner ran the red light at the end of pit lane. He is being held for an extra minute, and he will lose a lap. #25 is still in the box. Tandy is a second and a half quicker than Tommy Milner for the GTLM lead. Milner runs a 2:19.9, Tandy a 2:18.3. The Ford's are running fast in the wet, and so are the Ford's. Tandy tries the outside and backs off to grt around the lapped cars.
The rain is only going to get worse. Watch out for the painted curbs that take away even more grip. Tandy is pushing the Corvette. Tandy cane go to the throttle sooner than Milner can. Milner takes him in deep. Dirk Mueller in the Ford is also pushing hard. A brief yellow, for the #68 Ferrari 488 is off the road, and is now on the back of the tow truck. The visibility and standing water are going to be an issue. The concrete runway pads are where the standing water will be. Many cars run a heater to try to defog the windshield.n In a closed cockpit car, in the old days, you'd use a squeegee with a rag on the end.
Nick Tandy is the rainmeister. The Porsche's put the power down and are stable. It's wet, but little standing water, here at Sebring. Very different conditions compared to Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, last fall. These are wet/dry conditions. At Sebring, you have high speed corners, heavy braking zones, and transitional corners. The Mazda's have been very quick, here at Sebring, in the dry. What will they do, in the rain? Over the next few hours, there might be some lighter showers and it will dry out.
We are back to green! Christian Fittipaldi and Dane Cameron now lead. One bloke has a clear track right now. Tandy flies right by the Ligier Honda of Oswaldo Negri Jr. Being the leader, you are the person who has to deal with light and also, where the water is on the circuit. Stephen Simpson leads Prototype Challenge while Mario Farnbacher leads GT Daytona for Alex Job Racing at the present time. Cooper MacNeil in the sister Alex Job Racing Porsche is tenth in GT Daytona. We continue to send wishes to Alex Job's wife Holly, who is still ill. The Mario Farnbacher, Alex Riberas, and Ian James, is running well.
Even though they don't race at Sebring anymore, Audi ships their cars and team, to Sebring, to test. John Potter is currently in the #44 Magnus Racing Audi R8. He is sharing with the hired guns, Andy Lally and Marco Seefried, who are both fast drivers. Richard Westbrook in the Ford does not have the visibility. But the car and the tires are working well. More rain coming along the Florida coast. Watch out for turn seven (the hairpin), turn ten, turn thirteen, and turn seventeen, Sunset Bend. You can play with how the windshield wiper works into the overall aero of the car, to a point.
Go easy, and be smooth, in the rain. Don't push. The Porsche's view is clear, with no spray. As the rain is coming down, look for standing water. It's kind of like being an off road racer or a rally racer, trying to read the surface. It's changing. It goes from good grip, to no grip. The Gas Monkey Viper returns to the race. Ben Keating has had some bad luck here at Sebring. Can his team come back? We have another issue which brings out a full course yellow. Could it be one of the leaders? Christian Fittipaldi and Dane Cameron still lead.
Why the yellow is out, is unknown. Car off in turn ten. Turn ten is sharp right hand corner, out of the hairpin and the Fangio chicanes. More showers are on the way in the next half hour to 45 minutes. It might dry out. But, that could be much later on, towards the end of this race. One of the Ford GT's may be off the road. It is the #66 machine. He's off and into the tire wall. Dirk Mueller can't see, and, obviously... what happens? Spin, and ker-rash! Mueller does not turn, was off the gas, and he whacks the wall.
We are nearly at the end of the second hour of this race, chaps. Too much lightning. We are going to be under a red flag right now. We watch Oswaldo Negri Jr. and some of the other drivers, just sitting there, waiting for the red flag to end. A massive line of storms is coming. It's going to bucket down with rain, and we might be able to have the weather cooperate, later on.
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