The safety barriers appear to be back together, and we have an hour before reaching halfway in the race. Mike Conway has set some purple sector times, fastest of all on track. The ACO plans to build new facilities at Le Mans as Toyta Gozzo Racing, ar looking at wholesale pit stops and driver changes. Nor much ncessary for cleaning the windscreen as the #7 Toyota pits from the lead of the motor race as there are somne raindrops on the circuit 1/4 of the way into the twelfth hour here, at Le Mans. Situation normal, it seems, for Toyota. Pit stop time for the #93 Brumos liveried Porsche with Bamber at the qwheel. Fuel and tires, and no driver change. Bamber will do a double stint. Mike Conway continues as the overall leader here, at Le Mans as well. Nothing has changed at the sharp end.
It is the graveyard shift, here at Le Mans. Toyota #7 in the lane now, for it's planned stop. There will be a driver change from Mike Conway over to Kamui Kobayashi, and there is a tear off coming off the windscreen. No tires, just fuel. 1,300 marshals are here, marshaling and officiating the race. 250,000 people have come to see this race. Sebastien Buemi is running in second place in the overall right now. There's fluid being chucked out of the #7 Toyota. This is not really a worry, except for Buemi, because his windscreen will be smeared with liquid of some kind. Thank goodness it isn't oil. Kamui Kobayashi bounds over the curbs.
The new season will start on September 1st, and it will be a four hour race, instead of a six hour race. In the Group C days, there were 360 kilometer sprint races, so as to not bore people. There were sprint races at Jarama, Norisring, Selangor in Malaysia, and others. Shah Alam in Malaysia was one of the hottest races in 1985, and there was a hot one in Suzuka, Japan with no rain at 99% humidity in the mid 1990s. Yellow flag at Indianapolis, the entrance to the turn at marshal post 25, but it was removed. The #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing car is in the pit lane. A scheduled pit stop. Mike Rockenfeller and Scott Dixon are fighting for fifth in LM GTE Pro. Ford GT vs. Corvette. One of the Porsche's passes the Spirit of Race Ferrari.
We pay tribute to Dr. Don Panoz, and also think of race commentator, Neville Hay, who has covered Le Mans for British television for many years. Another yellow flag at marshal post 20, Mulsanne corner. It's now been removed, a quick spin. We don't have access to live cameras on the corners right now. Just the onboard footage. Pit stop time for the #92 Porsche, and another yellow flag at Indianapolis. It may be the ARC Bratislava LMP2 car with Henning Enqvist at the wheel of it, and the car is stopped cold at Indianapolis at the moment as the marshals try to retrieve it. In replay, we see a big lockup for the Bratislava machine. Lock up into Indianapolis if you are taking the left hand part of the corner, too fast, and you're toast, walloping the tires. That car also spun at Mulsanne.
We now have slow zones to recover this stricken LMP2 machine. Henning Enqvist, from Stockholm, is aboard the Slovenian entry. Scott Dixon, the New Zealand IndyCar champion, is running very well. Dixon won race two for IndyCar on the street course at Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan, a couple weeks back. The lights flash green once more. Ford V6 vs. Chevrolet V8. There could be gravel on the road at marshal post 31, the Porsche Curves and/or the Ford Chicane. Slow Zones again, look. We have a safety car now, too. Correction. ARC Bratislava is Slovakian, not Slovenian. Had the same slip up there, as the British commentators on Eurosport/Motor Trend. Enqvist is still stopped on the road. He has the electronics on the car, but has no drive.
Pit stops are still to come. Toyota #7 continues to lead. It is very difficult to drive a sports car, slowly, because they are designed to go fast. It is game over for ARC Bratislava, run by Miro Konopka, one of the drivers on the team. We used to race endurance sports cars at Brno and Most, and now, there is the Slovakia Ring as well. Henning Enqvist is the youngest driver, the Bronze rated driver on the team. The cars come through the Ford chicane in slow motion. Toyota's remain at the top of the tree by two laps over Rebellion, SMP, and Rebellion. G-Drive leads LMP2. Porsche #92 leads LM GTE Pro and in GTE Am, the #85 Keating Motorsport Ford GT.
Poor old Enqvist just hit the wall again with the broken steering. We will see the hydrogen powered cars coming into the fold, next year. This is the Garage 56 car, with a hydrogen fuel system on it. It's a cup of water, and you can drink the water that comes out of the car. We are learning a lot more than we once knew about hydrogen fuel. The debate is electric vs. hydrogen. At Le Mans, hydrogen will be the futurte it seems. The ACO is really keen on having a hydrogen class by 2024. Five manufacturers are interested in hydrogen powered racing cars. These cars will be going for outright victory, and so, the ACO is optimistic. It will be some electric power, too.
Hydrogen refueling is easy. But there has to be a network of them. They drive like a normal car. The hydrogen is pressurized in fuel stacks, and the hydrogen combines with oxygen, producing water, and a chemical reaction to get electricity for electric motors. When you open the bonnet, there is a fuel stack in there. No pistons. No internal combustion. It drives electric motors in the car, and it is an electric car, with different fuel to convert energy to electricity. Hydrogen is water, the most plentiful element on the planet. The hydrogen is manufactured with ordinary water and cheap electricity. How safe is it, if it has a propensity to explode? Well, the safety aspects will be investigated and solved as we go green again at the halfway mark.
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