The 2018-2019 FIA World Endurance Championship "super season" has begun it's second half. We are ready to race the 6 Hours of Shanghai at Shanghai International Circuit in Shanghai, China.
Jackie Chan, actor turned race car team owner, this is his home. There is a welcome party for the drivers at the Jackie Chan Film Gallery. This track has 16 corners folded into 3.4 miles (5.146 kilometers). We are set to see quite the fight in the LM GTE Pro division. Qualifying, track position, and tire degradation/preservation, are going to be crucial. The weather will be a major thing. It's going to rain here in Shanghai, just as it did last time out at Fuji. Drivers from Ford, BMW, Porsche, and Aston Martin in LM GTE Pro are all confident. Sunday morning, dawns wet, but the fans are out in force, here in China to see some wheel to wheel sports car racing action.
People were very excited to se the drivers, especially Fernando Alonso, two-time Formula 1 World Champion. The driver's autograph session was packed with fans, and lots of fun. One of the driver's asks a fan, in French, "do you have any sunglasses?" "Avez-vous des lunettes de soleil?" The weather didn't dampen anyone's spirits. But, in the race it will be a different story. The rain is teeming down even during pre-race activities. The flag wavers, the oil drum drummers, they are all here, contributing to the pageantry before the beginning of the event.
In LM GTE Am, the #98 Aston Martin Vantage of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy, and Matthias Lauda have scored their first pole of the season. Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner are also here in a single Chevrolet Corvette C-7-R-, car #64. But, at the sharp end of GTE Pro, it's the Ford GT #66 with Olivier Pla at the wheel of it, who put the car on pole, sharing with Stefan Mucke. Mucke says Ford wants to keep the car on the road, and score as many points as possible in today's motor race. Jackie Chan DC Racing qualifies 1-2 in LMP2 and on the pole is their #38 entry for Gabriel Aubry, Ho-Pin Tung, and Monagasque Stephane Richelmi.
Ho-Pin Tung says endurance sports car racing is taking off in popularity in China, thanks to this race, and also to the Asian Le Mans Series. Meanwhile, in LMP1, Rebellion Racing won the battle of the non-hybrid LMP1 cars. Andre Lotterer, Bruno Senna, and Neel Jani, will start third on the grid. However, even in the dry, and much less so in the wet, the Rebellion's just could not stop the Toyota juggernaut. Pole position went to the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid, the winners last time out at Fuji in Japan, Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez. They hope to close the gap on their championship leading team mates in car #8, Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi, and Kazuki Nakajima. That's easier said than done, especially with the weather in this race we have ahead of us.
This will be a race of survival, according to Jose Maria Lopez. The rain is still tipping down. The race will be started behind the safety car, per the radio directive of Race Director, Edoardo Freitas. Green lights, green flag, and we've started the 6 Hours of Shanghai, behind the safety car. This will be an endurance test for everyone, for the driver's, the teams, the marshals, and also race control, trying to keep everyone safe out on this absolutely drenched circuit. It was wet in Free Practice, but this, the rain we are seeing now, is practically a monsoon. Even with preheated tires, it is impossible to keep heat in the tires, and it's deja vu all over again for Rebellion racing! Thomas Laurent, spins in the wet, and... ker-runch! He's clobbered the wall! Just the exact same thing that happened to Gustavo Menezes a month ago at Fuji! Can you believe it?!
The rain is so bad now, this race has to be stopped. Race Control has no other choice. Now, this could be good news for Rebellion. Thomas Laurent manages to get the car back to pit lane. The mechanics can not physically work on the car, but they can go through and suss out what they need to do to rebuild it. Rebellion team manager Bart Hayden says that Thomas Laurent did nothing wrong. The car just got away from him when he accelerated in these wet conditions. The damage seen by the team is not as bad as how you, the fans, saw this on television. So, they can fix it, but again, under a red flag, per the rules, the team cannot touch the car.
It's not just Bart Hayden and company who are trying to plan their next move. Race Control is in the same boat, pardon the pun, because you'd need a boat as wet as this circuit is at the moment. The rain will continue for quite a while. Do we stop the race? Do we run slowly behind the safety car? These are the questions Race Control is trying to answer. FIA WEC boss Gerard Neveu makes the decision that the teams can change tires, onto full wets. Drivers return to their cars with almost a full hour elapsed on the clock. Resume the race behind the safety car, still in original grid order, nose to tail. Keep the heat in these rain tires. They will not turn to jelly, it'll be worse. If they drop one or two degrees out of their temperature range for operation, the driver's will be driving on wooden wheels, just like driving a horse & buggy.
Rebellion got a jolly lucky break with the red flag. They have completely rebuilt the #3 Thomas Laurent, Gustavo Menezes, Mathias Beche car, and have lost just a single lap to the field. So, they are still in contention. The safety car heads for pit lane. We are about to go back to green here in Shanghai. Jose Maria Lopez leads as we are an hour and 15 minutes on clock time, into this motor race. In the spray behind, is Sebastien Buemi and everyone else. The #7 team are desperate to win. The LM GTE Pro battle is heating up right before our eyes, between Aston Martin and Porsche! Porsche struggled in the rain at Fuji, last time out. There's also a change of leadership in LMP2. Car #37 takes the lead away from the pole sitting team mates in #38. Count the all-Malaysian squad of Jazeman Jaafar, Weiron Tan, and Nabil Jeffri as LMP2 leaders.
Down through turns two and three they go, fighting for grip in these wet conditions. We're still drenched here in Shanghai. The water isn't going anyplace. Rebellion #3 is clawing it's way through the field. Let's check back in with the LM GTE Pro battle. Olivier Pla continues to lead in class. So, it's Ford, BMW, Aston Martin, and Porsche, four makes in the top four in GTE Pro. Recall at Fuji, the front engine GTE cars, so the BMW and the Aston Martin, they went on really well. But here in China, Olivier Pla in the mid engine Ford GT, is leading in class as we have run on aggregate time, only an hour and 18 minutes.
Through the hairpin goes the two Toyota's, and Jose Maria Lopez is being pressurized here by Sebastien Buemi. Buemi is upset with his team mate, hollering to them on the radio, "Jose is too slow! Get him out of the way!" Kevin Estre, meanwhile, is booking it. He's going like a scalded cat in these conditions, already moving ahead of the Aston Martin into third in class, and he's got the BMW M8 GTE in his cross hairs. Martin Tomczyk is the man at the wheel of BMW #81, the German sharing with Dutchman Nicky Catsburg. But, Kevin Estre holds off the challenge from Tomczyk. Whatever Porsche AG have done to this car since Fuji, it's working in spades. Estre is sharing with his season-long team mate, Michael Christensen, while the sister #91 Porsche is in the hands of Italy's Gianmaria Bruni and the Austrian, Richard Lietz as always.
The trailing cars disappear through the spray and gloom, look. These conditions are only just able to be raced in. It's a 1-2 for Jackie Chan DC Racing with Jazeman Jaafar barely leading Stephane Richelmi in the sister car. The two Jackie Chan cars are going to be hot and bothered shortly, howevwer, by the #31 DragonSpeed Oreca of Anthony Davidson. Both teams are running Oreca 07s. But Anthony Davidson is going like gangbusters even in the rain, sharing with Mexico's Roberto Gonzalez and Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado. The Jackie Chan cars are on Dunlop rubber. So, there's a chassis battle and a tire war here in LMP2 so far.
Davidson, surprisingly, is reeling in the LMP2 polesitter hand over fist even in this atrocious weather. Don't hit the curbs in these conditions. That will just make things worse and make traction more difficult to find. Deary me, we have a car spun off the road. Tom Dillman has looped the #4 ByKolles ENSO CLM with the Nissan motor. He shares that car with with British drivers James Rossiter and Oliver Webb. Dillman, is French. Oh yes. That's classic in the rain. Dillman takes his turn on the whirligig and then, restarts the motor and is back into the race. Rivers of water are streaming across the road in places, and Jose Maria Lopez finds one of these rivers, and goes wide under braking!
Sebastien Buemi simply leaves the door open for his team mate to play right through. Meanwhile, in LMP2, Anthony Davidson squeezes around Jazeman Jaafar for the class lead. Davidson was unsure of the car when he first joined the team at Silverstone back in August, but he really enjoys racing these LMP2 machines. In LMP1 meanwhile, Stephane Sarrazin goes inside Neel Jani for third spot in the overall. Sarrazin is once again sharing the SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 AER with Russian drivers Egor Orudzhev and Matevos Isaakyan. Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov, and Jenson Button share the sister car of course, car #11. Sarrazin must have more grip than Jani, although the Rebellion looks more forgiving to drive than the BR does. Jenson Button in the sister car for BR is closing up, fast.
The Rebellion had the edge in the dry, but more aerodynamics, just a bit more, maybe putting the BR01 at the top of the tree in this battle. Button is flying and so is Stephane Sarrazin. Oh dear! Olivier Pla is off the road at turn one, in the gravel trap! The Frenchman has his hands full, ladies and gentlemen. Cars are spinning off the circuit, everywhere! The Alpine is off and so is the LM GTE Am #98 Aston Martin! Nico Lapierre gets punted off the road and bounds across the gravel trap as the safety car has indeed been dispatched. The safety car is actually out, because of the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Salih Yoluc has beached that car in the gravel. The Turkish driver is again sharing with Irishman Charlie Eastwood, and Briton Jonny Adam.
The safety car is out, to rescue the TF Sport car. Jose Maria Lopez is complaining of a lack of downforce, a lack of grip in the Toyota, and his crew chief says he'll have to tough it out for the time being. We watch a replay of Olivier Pla's spin, on board with Kevin Estre in the #92 factory Porsche 911 RSR. Estre was trying to hold his line on the inside, Pla was to his outside, and zonk. They made contact, spinning Pla off the road. This leaves Porsche Motorsport boss Frank Steffen Waliser shaking his head. The stewards will need to look at that incident as we see Salih Yoluc going off the road another time. Correction, Yoluc is now back in the race for TF Sport.
We have yet another spinner as Motoaki Ishikawa puts the #70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 GTE off the road, the car he shares with Eddie Cheever III. and Olivier Berretta. Sebastien Buemi wonders about fuel saving at Toyota, as we have the safety car back on track another time as the rain gets heavier an hour and 37 minutes into the motor race. The rain and standing water are getting worse and we will red flag this race. WEC boss Gerard Neveu says the wetness and humidity aren't a concern. The trouble is the level of water on the track itself and the heavy rain that continues to fall. When there's water on the track but none falling from the sky, it's fine to race. But, the soaked track and more rain falling, turns the speedway into a skating rink.
There is no chance for evacuation of water and there are rivers. The cars are aquaplaning everywhere. With three hours and six minutes to go, the safety car comes back in, and we are back to racing in Shanghai after the delay. With a slew of LMP1 pit stops, Stephane Sarrazin finds himself leading this race. Right behind Sarrazin is Renger van der Zande in the #10 DragonSpeed BR1 Gibson. The Dutchman is sharing with Ben Hanley, and also, Australian James Allen. Quite the battle is going on there, as it is in LM GTE Pro between BMW and Aston Martin, with the Ferrari also getting a look in. This is the #71 AF Corse 488 GTE Ferrari, Sam Bird at the wheel of it, the Englishman sharing with Italian Davide Rigon. This is the usual pairing we expect to see in this car and they are doing a fine job in the wet here in Shanghai.
Have Ferrari found some type of competitive advantage in the wet? Bird is right on top of Martin Tomczyk at the wheel of the #81 BMW M8 GTE for Team MTEK. The second place GTE Am Ferrari, car #54 is also in this fight. That's the car for Italian's Giancarlo Fisichella (former Formula 1 driver), his countryman Francesco Castellaci, and Switzerland's Thomas Flohr. Matthias Lauda has gotten around the Ferrari and so has the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR shared by the dynamic trio of Aussie Matt Campbell, Christian Ried of Germany, and Julien Andlauer of France. Something happened to Castellaci in the Ferrari, but we don't know quite what, as Andy Priaulx takes quite the ride, spinning out of the final corner.
Priaulx is a passenger, losing grip on the wet track, sliding backwards into the gravel, but fortunately not hitting anything. The safety car is back out as the marshals rescue Priaulx. Now, we've reached half distance, three hours down, three remaining. Interestingly, the top three who have not pitted yet, are all GTE Pro cars, ahead of the LMP1 machines! Porsche leads over Aston Martin and Ferrari. They have yet to pit, but the order is bound to change once these blokes at the front hit the lane for service. The GTE Pro machines have not been lapped. We check in with LM GTE Am and in 20th overall, leading the class is the Porsche for Team Project 1, in the hands of Patrick Long, Jorg Bergmeister, and Egidio Perfetti. If this race has to be red flagged and stopped now, what a result this would be!
The Salih Yoluc Aston Martin, and the Rebellion, are the only cars not on the lead lap at the moment. The safety car is coming in now. Bruno Senna is fourth in the queue behind the safety car as we get ready to race. He is behind the aforementioned GTE Pro cars. We are green again, halfway home. Sam Bird goes around Maxime Martin to turn one and here come Bruno Senna and Fernando Alonso! Alonso deploys all the traction, and the four wheel drive of the Toyota is giving Alonso an advantage. Estre leads Senna. Will Fernando Alonso pass them both before Senna gets by the Porsche? Aha. He passes the Porsche and Bruno Senna goes to second. So, Toyota and Alonso lead as Jenson Button is still closing on the Rebellion.
The SMP car has more front end grip and he's made it to second overall. He led at Fuji last time out. Can he lead here in Shanghai? Senna has no answer for Button as Fernando Alonso consolidates his lead. A good battle is heating up in GTE Pro as Tommy Milner in the Corvette has his hands full with the sister Porsche, Richard Lietz at the wheel of it. This is the battle for fifth place in class in LM GTE Pro. This is the first race for Corvette in the WEC that is not the 24 Hours of Le Mans, since they ran at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, in 2014. This is also the first single car entry for Corvette since the American Le Mans Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2002.
James Calado gets around the Corvette. This is their first time in Shanghai at this circuit and they are not used to running on wet tires in this configuration it seems. Kevin Estre has the #92 Porsche 911 RSR in the lane. Michael Christensen takes over the car. Uh oh. Trouble for our earlier race leader in LMP2. Weiron Tan has beached the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing machine in the gravel trap. Tan drifts out onto the super polished tarmac on the outside of the track and slides his way into the gravel as easy as you please. Two hours and 40 minutes remaining, and there's a battle for third spot between Bruno Senna and Kamui Kobayashi. Both Toyota's are carving their way back through the field.
Will we need a safety car to rescue Weiron Tan? Aston Martin run 1-2 in LM GTE Pro. The best result for the new Aston Martin Vantage GTE has been a fourth place. They led in the wet at Fuji, but they are determined to not make that mistake again. Clearwater Racing with their #61 Ferrari 488 GTE leads in LM GTE Am. The car being shared by it's regular driver lineup of Matt Griffin from Ireland, Keita Sawa from Japan, and Malaysia's Weng Sun Mok. But, this is the last time this trio of drivers will run together. After Shanghai, Weng Sun Mok will no longer drive. They will have a different lineup at the next event, when we get to Sebring for race six in the "Super Season". More details of that event to come, after this race ends.
Jenson Button is under pressure from Kamui Kobayashi in the Toyota. Kobayashi has extra traction, but Button, the 2009 Formula 1 champion, isn't giving up without a fight. The weekend before this race, to boot, Button won his first title in Super GT in Japan. Kobayashi takes second. Another Toyota/SMP battle as Fernando Alonso runs wide onto the wet part offline trying to pass Stephane Sarrazin. Fernando Alonso now has the race lead in the championship leading Toyota, as Rebellion #1 comes to pit lane for service. Two and a half hours left, and a driver change as Bruno Senna gives way to Andre Lotterer. Senna only just made it back to the lane. We see in replay, he's trying to pass the factory Aston Martin, and wallop! The Aston barges him off the road.
Pick the bones out of this, in the gloom, and we have Patrick Lindsey in the Project 1 Porsche trying to fend off a challenge from Eddie Cheever III. in the MR Racing Ferrari. Cheever is putting the welly down, the Italian born American and son of Eddie Cheever who is the 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner, and who ran Group C with Jaguar back in the '80s. You'll hear more about that, soon, on the blog. We will be delving into the wonders of Group C in the not too distant future. More trouble for the #4 ByKolles CLM with the Nissan engine. Tom Dillman climbs out of the car. The cockpit is either misted up, or is filled with noxious smoke. Dillman has abandoned ship, but this will bring out the safety car, chaps.
Corvette vs. Aston Martin again, but its an Am class Aston while the Corvette is in GTE Pro, and Tommy Milner has handed the wheel of it, over to Oliver Gavin, the Englishman from Yardley Hastings who has been a Corvette factory driver for many years. Tommy Milner says that this must be the oddest race he's driven in his whole life. The track, according to Milner, is drying up and becoming more consistent. Uh oh. Another safety car has been dispatched. James Allen has gone off the road in the #10 DragonSpeed BR01. So, he, along with Ben Hanley and Renger van der Zande have had a fraught race thus far.
The Porsche 911 safety car has neutralized the field. Swift work by the gravel trap tractor man. James Allen is now back on terra firma. With the safety car out, and two hours and five minutes left, it is indeed pit stop time. Toyota is in the lane with car #7. But they are not changed to full wet tires. They're going with Michelin intermediates. Kamui Kobayashi stays behind the wheel. But now, the sister car #8 is also in. It's full wet tires for the #8 squad. But trouble for #8. They've miss timed the stop, and so, they have to wait for the entire crocodile to move by behind the safety car before they can join back in the race!
The #8 Toyota has just lost gobs of time. Not good. We are back to racing now, with just less than two hours to go, and still in the wet weather. The rain will ease up but it won't quit. We saw the crocodile behind the safety car bunching the field. The Toyota is passing cars right, left, and center. Aston Martin leads, and it is the #97 car with Alex Lynn at the controls, having taken over from Maxime Martin who started the car. Martin says the start of the race was tricky, but the conditions have gotten better since and the track is fully driveable. Francois Perodo in the #28 TDS Racing Oreca has spun and he was actually tagged by the second Aston Martin, the second factory car, of Nicki Thiim! Yikes!
Mikhail Aleshin has his hands full with Fernando Alonso. Alonso passes him, and that remarkable traction from the four wheel drive system on the Toyota does the job. Stefan Mucke, meanwhile gets passed by the second factory MTEK BMW M8 GTE, the #82 with Tom Blomqvist at the wheel of it. The Brit is sharing as usual with Antonio Felix da Costa of Portugal. The wet conditions, as they did at Fuji last time, suit the BMW M8 with the front engine configuration on that car, with it's turbocharged 4.0 liter V8. Ferrari on Ferrari for seventh and eighth spot. Both AF Corse cars are wheel to wheel. It's James Calado vs. Davide Rigon. Ford are definitely on the back foot, look. Stefan Mucke gets passed by the #91 Porsche with Austria's Richard Lietz at the wheel of it. Then comes the sister #92 Porsche. As the track dries, the 911 RSR's are finding more pace.
Ferrari are still having a good old scrap for seventh. All on the line for them at AF Corse is personal pride, really. Calado has the preferred line into the corner and squeezes past Rigon, but the battle will continue. Fresh Michelin tires await Ford #66 in the lane. Fuel and tires only for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing U.K. Aston Martin run 1-2 in LM GTE Pro. Alex Lynn leads Nikki Thiim. Richard Lietz is hounding Tom Blomqvist who's tires might be fading. Oliver Gavin drifts wide onto the wet pavement and goes into the spin cycle! What is that? Triple toe leap and double salchow? Hmmm. That's a 9.6 from the Russian judge. Meanwhile, Blomqvist in the BMW still holds third, and Lietz is getting impatient.
Lietz is wasting good tires, so he just says, "OK, Tom. That's it. I'm going by." Now, he has to make the advantage stick. But, there's action right here, look. Blomqvist is not rolling over and playing dead. The BMW has great top end speed. He pulls out from the slipstream, and he will pass. Aston Martin continues 1-2 in GTE Pro. BMW still holds the edge over Porsche. Lietz is trying everything to get by Blomqvist, but Blomqvist holds on. Around goes the race leading Toyota to throw a further spanner in the works in this scrap for GTE Pro. The #10 DragonSpeed car is also holding up the proceedings here, look. Blomqvist goes back around, but gets snookered in the final corner, making a slight error, allowing the Porsche man to pounce. Lietz has to force Blomqvist wide, weaving across the road. One move is all you're allowed. Antonio Felix da Costa on the radio, no doubt saying, "go on, Tom! Get him!" The Porsche has the advantage in the tight stuff, the twisty corners. So, he might just run away ahead of the BMW here.
Gianmaria Bruni, Lietz's team mate says the conditions are ideal for Porsche at this stage of the race. #38 pits from the lead in LMP2. Ho Pin Tung out, Gabriel Aubry, in. They are going back out on intermediate tires. Quite the aggressive strategy for the LMP2 leader. Yellow flags on track as the Porsche/BMW scrap still simmers away. #92 passes #82. This is a change of places for fourth in LM GTE Pro, and the Ferrari also upsets the BMW's apple cart. The BMW is too wide with a handful of opposite lock. Gabriel Aubry runs wide onto the AstroTurf and the gravel. Is it game over for Jackie Chan DC Racing? No. Aubry just barely gets back on the road after his agricultural racing there. The #31 DragonSpeed LMP2 leader is in the lane, as Pastor Maldonado hands the car to Roberto Gonzalez.
They are on full wet tires, not intermediates, gambling on it getting wetter out there, but they have no wiper on the windscreen. Headed for the final hour of the race, the Toyota is in for it's penultimate stop, but the pit crew seems to be looking for damage someplace on the car. They led the championship coming into this race, and they don't need a bad result. They are still on full wet tires. Toyota #7 retakes the lead from the sister car. They have a big lead after the earlier shemozzle with the safety car for the #8, but #7 runs wide as well. Egad! You can't keep doing that. The gathering gloom, with an hour left. The #17 SMP LMP1 car is in the lane. Egor Orudzhev stays in the car and gets full service.
Julien Andlauer leads LM GTE Am in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR sharing with Christian Ried and Matt Campbell. Porsche is dominant in GTE Am with both Dempsey Proton cars and the Project 1 car at the head of the field. Vitaly Petrov will take the #11 SMP Racing BR1 to the flag. Jenson Button says it was pretty scary to drive the BR in the wet. There's lots of aquaplaning out there. You float when the tires touch the rivers of water out there. Andre Lotterer, according to his chief mechanic, will stay in the #1 Rebellion for the rest of the race. The #38 car is in the lane for service as well. It's all happening thick and fast here at Shanghai as we close in on the end of this motor race.
40+ minutes to go, Jackie Chan rolls the dice on intermediate tires. Roberto Gonzalez inherits the race lead in LMP2 but they still need to pit. The later they stop, the shorter their fuel fill will be which means they could need a splash and dash so they don't risk running dry out on the circuit. The Ferrari 488 GTE is up to third in LM GTE Pro, being hounded by the Porsche. It's #71 vs. #92. #91, pardon me. Richard Lietz passes. Gabriel Aubry spins. Were the intermediate tires one gamble too much? Keep it on the track, and crunch! There was contact somewhere on that #38 machine tipping him into the spin. Porsche are catching Aston Martin in GTE Pro, but the two greenish yellow, chartreuse cars, are still ahead. Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn, though, are having a hard time keeping temperature in their tires. The Porsche is catching them hand over fist. Aston wants a win, they want a 1-2. But, Richard Lietz is bound and determine to spoil their party here.
Lietz makes an inside pass and makes it work. He goes outside, cuts underneath, and has front end bite, making the pass. Final stop for the #8 Toyota as #7 did so the previous lap. It's raining harder. But, the tires were not ready for #8! So, advantage to their sister car. Oh no! A huge debris field as the #17 SMP LMP1 car has shunted, big time! Matevos Isaakyan has compromised the BR in a huge way, and thankfully has done so just at pit in, so he can get there and the crew can fix the damged car. He must have spun and clouted the wall. We saw the aftermath of the incident. We have a safety car on the road, and it's without any doubt, game over for the #17 machine. What a tough break for SMP. "I was just a passenger", Matevos Isaakyan motions with his hands.
Mike Conway for Toyota in LMP1, Gabriel Aubry for Jackie Chan DC Racing, Marco Sorensen for Aston Martin Racing, and Matt Campbell for Dempsey Proton are the class leaders with 20 minutes to go. Will the race end under yellow? No. This will be a short safety car. We go green again in Shanghai, and it's a six and a half minute sprint, at night, here in Shanghai, to the finish. Andre Lotterer wants by Vitaly Petrov. The chase is on, and it's intense. Lotterer gets balked by the GTE Am leader! Five minutes to go, and the Aston Martin passes the Rebellion. Lotterer has zero traction. The Aston Martin has left him for dead.
Mike Conway leads. He can't make any mistakes. If he goes off the road, it's over. It's Conway vs. Kazuki Nakajima in #8. This could be a 1-2 or a disaster. You can see absolutely nil in the gloom. Michael Christensen battles Maxime Martin for third in GTE Pro with 90 seconds left in this race! Martin drifts wide and the Porsche makes the pass. Can the Aston come back? Yes. The Porsche goes right by the Aston. Can the Aston go back by? It's the final lap. The Porsche is far enough in front to gain a podium. Dark and wet, it's time for the checkers in Shanghai,. It's on to the checkers between the two Toyota's. The #7 car wins! Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez win it, for the second race in a row.
Marco Sorensen and Nikki Thiim have to be on top of the world right now, claiming the first win for the new 2018 spec Aston Martin Vantage. In LM GTE Am, another win for Dempsey Proton and Porsche with the #77 of Matt Campbell, Christian Ried, and Julien Andlauer, victorious!
Let's look at the class winners.
Overall/LMP1: #7 Conway/Kobayashi/Lopez Toyota TS050
LMP2: #38 Tung/Aubry/Richelmi Oreca 07 Gibson
LM GTE Pro: #95 Sorensen/Thiim Aston Martin Vantage
LM GTE Am: #77 Campbell/Ried/Andlauer Porsche 911 RSR
Congratulations, as Jackie Chan Racing wins at home, for the first time! It's a Porsche 1-2-3 in GTE Am. Just three races now remain in the "super season". The first of the three 2019 races, will be the inaugural 1,000 Miles of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida, on Friday, March 15th, 2019, supporting the 67th renewal of the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring. Spray the champagne. You deserve it. There is now less than a win between the top two in the championship. The history and tradition of Sebring, awaits. #RespectTheBumps. We'll see you, from the orange groves of central Florida, in March, for a gigantic weekend of sports car racing action. So long, for now, everyone.
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