Romain Dumas also had a close moment. The Wright Motorsports team has had some right rear tire issues with the pressures on their Pirelli rubber. The #911 Porsche is two laps down to the race leader. Mercedes #75 is in the pit lane for a stop. If they drop 90 laps behind, they won't make the distance percentage limit. Keep clicking off the laps, and forget about lap times. It goes from thinking about, where do I finish?, it is, will I finish? Luca Stolz will get into the car on this stop. Mercedes have thought through everything, with details on their GT3 car. Audi #29 pits as well, clearing a tear off off of the windshield. Mercedes had a low pivot swing axle on the W196 Grand Prix car, which wasn't on their production cars, but back then it was win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
Dries Vanthoor has brought the #19 Audi R8 to pit lane for a scheduled stop which will be a clean one, with a delay as per the rules. 1:40.0, that's a joker stop. Right within a second of the delta. Holy smokes! Lewis Williamson has really done a sterling stint this time. He's been very impressive either on his own, or battling with the #8 Bentley Continental GT3. Nick Leventis in the sister car leads the Bronze category. That is the car he shares with David Fumanelli and Felipe Fraga of course. The GT4 leading Porsche Cayman of Derek DeBoer is in. GT4 has a five lug nut tire, allowing two rattle guns for their stops. They are allowed to let the lug nuts fall onto the ground. A good stop for Derek DeBoer, again, sharing with Sean Gibbons and Spencer Pumpelly, promoting Matt Fassnacht back to the lead in GT4 and Frank Gannett back to second in class. In fourth, James Sofronas moves past Tim Probert in the #65 Murillo Racing Mercedes AMG GT4 he shares with Justin Piscitelli and Jeff Mosing.
Lewis Williamson pits. Vautier is also in the lane on the next lap. He will be out of the car, and another driver will get into the car. Maximilian Buhk is that driver. Andy Soucek is now behind Lewis Williamson as Bryan Sellers in the #9 K-PAX Bentley takes the lead briefly before his pit stop. Markus Winkelhock is looking to get by Andy Soucek and he does. He has slightly fresher tires than Andy Soucek does. Winkelhock in his efforts, has to challenge the Bentley which has a higher straightaway speed than the Audi. He has a run, and is too premature to make it work. Soucek has to exercise patience. The Audi has more grip than the Bentley does, but the Bentley has the power.
Soucek just has to hit his marks, and exit his corners cleanly. Bryan Sellers pits the #9 K-PAX Bentley Continental GT3 from the lead. Soucek gets balked, and the Audi's pass him, and Soucek is off the road into the dust! Traffic out of The Corkscrew, and Soucek has a flat left rear tire, and he is not goiung to make it to the pit lane, and has to do a whole lap! If that tire totally delaminates, he will smash into a wall. The Bentley slammed into the right rear of the BMW, the M4 GT4. This is a full course yellow flag. The aerodynamics, rear diffuser, and brake lines will be torn up. The rear corner is dragging on the deck. He is now in the lane.
Is the car safe to race? There was some movement in the rear wheel, and also, a shade of bodywork damage on the left rear fender. One of the tie rod ends has maybe taken a hit. In multi-class sports car racing, these kinds of incidents are bound to happen. This was clearly an avoidable incident. Tim Pappas will have to get back into the #54 car. But, Jeroen Bleekemolen is currently at the wheel, and he spins the tires out of the lane. Why did he light it up? Jeroen, why did you try to do a burnout? Tim Pappas back in, too. Tim, be careful. He is on the rev limiter as well. The marshals will wave by the GT4 and TCR cars, to clear the road for GT3 cars.
The #22 Aston Martin pits. Jeroen Bleekemolen was just short on his stint. The car is not driving the way it was earlier. Tim Pappas will be given a short stint, and then, Jeroen Bleekemolen may get back into the car. If Kenny Habul wins, the title is his. So, Tim Pappas has to push in order to be in contention for the Bronze Cup. There is still a lot of grit and clag all over the road. The #87 Vital Speed Ferrari put in some great drives until they were involved in that crash earlier with the TCR Hyundai. We are back to green flag racing, this time! Three abreast down the order into the Andretti hairpin.
Potential argy bargy, as Markus Winkelhock has to pass Mikael Grenier, the Canadian. Maximilian Buhk in the sister car, he has to get on the wheel to help Tristan Vautier. Bentley is in the lane. This is a drive through penalty for the contact with the BMW M4 earlier. Christopher Mies wants by the Bentley, but no dice. The first generation Bentley also has good straight line speed. Adrien Tambay is defending around Maximilian Buhk and Tambay just dispenses with Buhk, taking him into the sand, offline. The #29 Land Motorsports Audi has worked their way back into contention. Lewis Williamson is finding speed.
The #175 car does not seem to have the outright pace to go after the #43 car. Christopher Mies is passing the #9 Bentley for position, and Adrien Tambay roughs up Alvaro Parente now at the wheel of the #9 Bentley Continental GT3, and poor old GMG has lost a tire, with James Sofronas at the wheel of the GT4 leading Audi R8 GT4... the left rear wheel departed the car, as the nut was not tightened down or something. Another local yellow. We were told full course yellow, but are still green. This will have to be a safety car. We are indeed under full course yellow. Pit lane does not close in IGTC competition. Keep back timing the race. Two hours and 12 minutes left. Christopher Mies lost a lot of spots, but he pitted, and that's why. So, it was a strategy call.
Land can make this race work on one more pit stop. Audi could win, on pit strategy because they won't beat Mercedes on pace. Markus Winkelhock is in the lane with many other cars. They have one more stop.Two more 65 minute stops. When the eight hours falls, don't risk having to do an extra lap if the clock hasn't run out. Again, the GT4 traffic may be waved around. Lewis Williamson pits. Maybe he's done a stop a lap too late. Strakka releases the car after a slow stop, that will nail them in terms of track position. Williamson will have to be in attack mode. In racing, think smart. Think fast, but also, think smart.
Curioser and curioser, as they say. We are going back to green. Wait until the control line before accelerating, as the #29 squeezes into the middle of the pack into turn one. It's an Audi 1-2 and they could steal Mercedes' thunder. Alex Riberas is third, and Robin Frijns is second. Things have definitely begun to happen in this motor race. Know when to react. Preparation + opportunity = luck.
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