Through turn six, up to The Corkscrew, there's great compression. Adrien Tambay won't be easy meat for the Audi's. GT3 cars are very aero dependent. Raffaele Marciello is running 1:25.3 with everyone else in the 1:26 bracket, about a second faster than his competition. Haase makes a good run up the Rahal straightaway into the brake zone for The Corkscrew. Tambay tries to hold position and Haase, he holds the spot. Adrien Tambay has gone backwards, but Tambay is playing guard for Marciello. Vincent Abril is holding Raffaele Marciello at bay. He is working Abril over into turn three, and Marciello passes. But now, he has to go for Maximilian Buhk, and Buhk does not have the pace.
Marciello looks inside, and Buhk covers! Well, he runs wide off the road briefly, and still holds Buhk off. Ooh! Both of these guys get run off the road up the hill! There's dust coming out of Raffaele Marciello's wheels! That was a banzai move and a mistake. Tristan Vautier is up to the position he needs to be in over Marciello to win the championship. Audi runs 1-2, and they would be in contention for the manufacturer's championship. Alex Riberas is running very, very well. He had a brief stint with Ferrari and is now with Audi. Racing with the GT4 cars has allowed the Audi to move away. Bentley #8 is in the lane, and just completed service to replace a cut down tire. Maximilian Buhk has Alvaro Parente to deal with in the #9 K-PAX Bentley. Buhk is going for it, but has to realize discretion is the better part of valor. He can't mash the throttle quick enough, and now has Alex Riberas all over him. The dynamic of this motor race is changing. People are beginning to really go for it.
Christopher Haase had the quickest lap of all the leading cars, last time around. If Haase wins, Vautier or Marciello has to finish in the top six, or Audi will win the title. Buhk lunges by Parente in turn 11. Marciello's car is fading. Audi is in really good shape for the manufacturer's title. Right now, they don't care about the driver's title. The manufacturer's cup is job security. There is not a massive amount of straight line performance difference between GT4 and GT3, but, GT3 has the aero and the braking power. Vesko Kozarov is one of the blokes in GT4 who has the pace in the class at the moment. He is in the GT4 spec Audi R8. Raffaele Marciello is still trying to regroup. New tires and a clean windscreen will help.
Maximilian Buhk has no pressure at the moment. He just needs to crank out the laps. Raffaele Marciello has the race craft and the competitive drive, but he needs to be tempered a little bit. In GT4, Vesko Kozarov still leads, and he did extremely will in Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car, TCR. Ian Lacey is has taken over the Ginetta, and the second Murillo Racing Mercedes is third, the Mosing/Probert/Piscitell car. SunEnergy1 needs to keep the car on the road and keep reeling off the laps. Ryan Dalziel brings the #63 DXDT Racing Mercedes to the pit lane as Felipe Fraga still has the #42 Strakka Racing Mercedes, while Jeroen Bleekemolen is back at the wheel of the #54 Black Swan Racing Porsche 911 GT3R.
The #75 Mercedes is predicted to fall short of completing 70% race distance. Felipe Fraga is Kenny Habul's best friend right now. Off the road for Marciello! Yikes! He's struggling with the car. His windscreen is really dirty. He needs a clean windscreen. Take the tear off, off the screen on the pit stop. Audi has found the pace at the moment. Marciello wants to get that car to the lane in the next 20 minutes to clean the car up on the final stop. The windscreen is completely opaque. Dirk Werner in the #911 Wright Motorsports Porsche. Stolz has gone by Werner it seems. Charles Espenlaub in the lane with the #22 Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
Marciello has a close moment with Jade Buford sliding sideways in the GT4 Mustang! Yikes! Colton Herta went off the road in the sole remaining Hyundai I30N TCR. Christopher Haase has the lead still. When you put this car with the two WRT cars, the paint schemes resemble the American flag. Alone, the car is known as “the candy cane”. Audi is still in place for the manufacturers cup as we have mentioned a lot today. Audi is going for the hat trick on the manufacturers cup as Mercedes seems to be fading. Marciello will pit in a minute and a half of or so.
The drivers Championship could still go the way of Mercedes, but it is hard to say. Marciello is digging himself into a hole right now. New tires just can’t cut the deficit down. Raffaele Marciello needs a safety car as the Land Audi pits and Kelvin van der Linde will finish the race. Everyone is good on time and Marciello pits, the dust is on the inside of the car. The crewman is blowing dust out of the wheel rims and the radiators. They need to clean the windscreen. Maxi Buhk changes to Maro Engel.
Buhk was losing time to the Hyundai coming off pit lane but it wasn’t an issue. The danger is that new tires can be a false sense of security. Don’t push too hard or the car will swap ends. All of the championship contenders have done their final stops, and the last hour of the race and the season, is next.
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