Saturday, March 17, 2018

12 Hours of Sebring: Hour 10

The scrap in GT Le Mans, continues to heat up between Ferrari and Porsche.  Toni Vilander vs. Patrick Pilet.  Pilet is really pushing, trying to catch Toni Vilander.  Pilet is coming, and fast.  Mike Conway continues to trail Nicolas Lapierre in the overall, and Madison Snow in the #48 Lamborghini for Paul Miller Racing, still leads GT Daytona.  In 1967, Bruce McLaren and Mario Andretti were challenged by Jim Hall's Chapparal's, but the Chapparal's had problems, and Mario and the late, great McLaren, won.  Pilet is drag racin the Ferrari down thr straight, and he makes the pass on Toni Vilander.  Acura #86 is in the lane, for their last driver change of this motor race.  Execute on the stop.  No mistakes.  The #93 sister car comes in as well, after they had that huge wreck with Lawson Aschenbach at the wheel of it.

The #10 and #90 Cadillac's are in pit lane.  No need for water on this car.  Just fuel and a driver change.  Cirvette #4 is also in the pit lane.  Of course, there is no wheel spin allowed on pit lane excit in the FIA World Endurance Championship.  The #67 Ford GT may have a door open.  Oh!  There's ahuge crash for the #90 Cadillac in turn 17.  Oh my!  We are under full course yellow.  #90 was just in the pit lane.  The car is stopped cold and has big damage to the front end.  We were just talking about how trouble free their race has been going.  This mirrors thje incident for Sebastian Saavedra from earlier on in this race.

Was Mazda trying to stretch their fuel mileage?  If so, without this full course caution, it would have been very difficult to do.  How did this accident for the #90 car, happen?  Tristan Vautier walks away from this massive smash into the wall.  Tristan Vautier ran wide in the clag and the outside of the car dragged towards the wall, and, crash!  Our pole sitting car is now on the rollback truck, haded for parc ferme and the garage.  McMurry was trying to turn, and the car wouldn't nturn.  Tgat was on Tristan Vautier's out lap.  The car wouldn'tg turn.  No headlights on the #55 Mazda, leading this race.  They need those lights to work per the rules.

Mazda is now in the lane.  We are back to green, and Mazda has their headlight problem solved.  Harry Tincknell is now fourth in the overall.  Mike Conway has the #31 Cadillac in the lead, but, Pippo Derani has now taken the lead.  He can find speed quicker than anyone else.  Will Derani equal his triumph here at Sebring from 2016?  He has taken off like a scalded cat.  It is now, pitch, everywhere.  After their early issues, Alex Brundle and company, have brought the car to fifth in the overall.  Dirk Mueller in the #66 Ford GT has stopped on the road.  So, we have a full course yellow once again. 

The Ford GT will be moved, and we'll be ready to go back to racing, very soon.  To this point, 304 laps, 1,137 miles have been completed.  We are back to green flag racing.  Pippo Derani begins to stretch his lead.  Harry Tincknell is fighting with Renger van der Zande.  van der Zande was focused, but now, Tincknell takes off like a rocket ship!  You cannot afford to be delayed.  Tinknell made the pass on Derani into Kristensen corner.  Mazds led night practice on Thursday night.  Tristan Nunez is fifth in the queue but is laps down from the leaders.  Meanwhile, the #33 Mercedes AMG GT3 of Luca Stolz is running down the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 with Paul Miller at the wheel of it.

The Mercedes is the defending champion of this race.  Now, the #58 Wright Motorsports Porsche is up to fourth, with Matthieu Jaminet at the wheel of it, making his first start here at Sebring.  The battle in GTLM is heating up, and the top six Prototypes are all on the same lap, working the 307th circuit of this race.  We are getting down to the nitty gritty, and the final hour of this classic once around the clock odyssey.  The margin between Sellers and Stolz is just 2/10ths of a second.  Both GT classes need one more stop.  Prototypes will need a full stop, plus a splash and dash.  The Land Motorsports Audi might have faded, blended headlights.  Somewhere between white and amber.  GTD cars are suopposed to have yellow headlight gels.

We watch a replay of the #90 car from a sranding camera in the pit lane.  That's a massive accident. 

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