The windscreen wipers are beginning to be used, and it's getting quite slick on the road out there. The slippery surface flags are being shown. One of the Toyota's in the lane? Hmmm. Gustavo Menezes dives past the SMP! That was wild! Thomas Laurent is now in the #3 car and he was like the cork shooting out of the champagne bottle on the podium at the end of the race. Wow! We have rain, a cooling track, and some wicked racing in GTE Pro, still! Tandy vs. Tincknell. We are in busy mode, boys. Unreal! Nick Tandy committed out of the Porsche Curves. Good move. The Kessel Racing Ferrari is in the lane. Oh dear! The #3 Rebllion has lost it! He's smashed the front end of that car! It's double damage for Rebellion?! Oh my God! Kazuki Nakajima has brought the #8 Toyota to the lead of the motor race. A loss of grip has spun the #3 Rebellion around. Both Rebellion's are going to have to be serviced. The crews will have to be split. The whole nose and crash structure will have to be unbolted from the monocoque.
Pieces are falling off as the car is being repaired. In replay, we see, he snaps to the right, and... wallop! Bang! Straight into the barriers, front end, shattered! The marshals are doing everything they can to get the track cleaned up. Full of confidence in the wet, and then, the car is crunched. Bolt the nose box to the monocoque. That is what they are working on. Check the rear brakes. Check the alignment. Check the suspension. So, the #3 is back on track. Now, as we were trying to explain earlier, the all female team of Rahel Frey from Switzerland, Michelle Gatting from Denmark, and Italian Manuela Gostner, are running well.
Now, it was clearly just one Rebellion that had damage, not two. Modular bodywork, pioneered by Audi in 2000, made this possible. Take off the crumpled bodywork, and bish, bash, bosh, pin the new bodywork to the car, and continue. Grumpy Alonso drops the hammer and gets back after it. Into a slow zone again. You'll have time for two fish and a biscuit, or, well, bread and cheese for lunch or dinner. A Full Course Yellow has turned into a local yellow. A Slow Zone. Don't touch the barrier if you are standing behind it. The whiplash of the impact of the car, will take your thumbs and fingers off. The pace is really heating up.
If you aren't on the case headed for the Slow Zone, you're going to crunch into one of your competitors. You nevr know. It'll be bone dry on one side of the circuit, and also, on another side, it'll be pouring rain. The #17 car is back in the lane and so is the #34 Inter Europol Competition, the Polish LMP2 entry with Brits Nigel Moore and James Winslow, and Polish driver, Jakub Smiechowski. This has become a series of different races. It's amazingly tough out there for the drivers. The amateur drivers have the professionals whizzing by them at a tremendous clip with nearly seven and a half hours on the board.
The lights are flaring because it is getting darker and darker. BMW has just been way off the mark in FIA WEC and they are not having a good race again here at Le Mans, so, they will focus on Formula E. The GTE Pro cars accelerate and it seems we are back to full speed racing. Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche. Alessandro Pier Guidi being chased hard by Antonio Garcia. Through Indianapolis, this is the worst space to get glare on your windscreen with all the bugs. The Slow Zones are still there. Every time you go through a slow zone, the tires cool off. That's really dodgy. This is a non stop express train. Thtough the Dunlop Curves, and Nick Tandy wants to dust that Corvette, look. He wants to get the slipstream onto the Mulsanne, and well, the Corvette with it's V8, has the grunt. Davide Rigon in the pit lane for scheduled service. Everyone is back on the road. Tandy, flashing the lights, trying to go by the Corvette!
The rhythm is starting to settle in once again. Move, please, as the lights are flashing everywhere in the GTE Pro freight train. Near contact into Mulsanne! Egad! That is magnificent stuff! Toyota are still running 1-2. You haven't missed anything in the lead, as they make their way through the traffic. The #8 car has found it's legs, and is trying to claw its way back. Toyota has given the drivers permission to race. The #31 Dragonspeed Oreca has pitted. Anthony Davidson is a great driver, and he'll make something happen in LMP2. Jose Maria Lopez has made his move on Kazuki Nakajima. #7 might just pull away from the sister car. Maybe for Toyota, one of them has a hybrid system issue. Nakajima is not letting himself get away from Lopez.
They pass by the High Class Racing LMP2 car with Anders Fjordbach at the wheel. That's 400 extra horsepower with four wheel drive. Toyota and Aston Martin will again, be a part of the Hypercar idea in a couple years time. Ho Pin Tung pits the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing car. The slow zone is lifted. Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Garcia are flying in GTE Pro. Andre Negrao, in the lane. The Brazilian is in the lane, and a new nose for the #36. One Toyota stopped under yellow, and another, stopped under green flag conditions. That is why #8 has found it's legs, and then, has run out of steam somewhat, and become a pedal car. Yellow flag at marshal post #20 at Mulsanne corner.
This race is so, so exciting. The whole team become your family. It's a whole week in one place. You win, you lose, together. It's a true team effort. Toyota #8 is in the lane, and grumpy face waits his turn. Kazuki Nakajima is going to stay with it and keep putting the welly down. Mazda won this race in 1991, and they wanted to buy a hotel for a six year program of racing, but after winning, they realized, "hey! We can sell the hotel!" Tee hee! Seventeen hours to go yet. It's a classic picture, the headlights piercing the evening twilight. It's not quite the gloom yet, but it's the evening twilight at the very least. OK. Quit calling Alonso "grumpy face". It's only teasing. It's only a joke. Alonso is a great driver. He is a perfectionist obviously, which a race car driver, has to be, sometimes.
Andre Negrao continues to run really well in LMP2 as the darkness, the gloom, gathers. There's a weather front coming in from the west. Fingers crossed it won't move in. Driving in the night is a bear. But, driving in the night, in the rain, is a living nightmare. Lighter fuel loads even on old tirews, allow you to go fast. Low fuel for Lopez. He is in the lane, or check that, he's made his pit stop. Full tanks for Lopez. Will Mike Conway's fastest lap fall? It might at night, because the cooler air has a denser charge to gain more power. More oxygen for the fuel mixture, and more punch. These LED lights are amazing. They are much better than lights for a road car as the SMP car is in the lane.
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