A big roar from the crowd as Afanasiev is back in the race. Locals say this storm will be quick. Porsche may be back into this thing with less than two hours left. Josh Burdon is off the road, in the #35 Nissan GT-R. Why are these chaps going off the road under a safety car? That's puzzling, mate. We are still repairing the barriers, as the lightning keeps flashing while the pavement keeps on steaming. The Nissan has to be snatched up as we have said. Who is the bloke with the webbed feet? Ricky Collard, the Briton, knows about wet tracks. Richard Lietz, and Christopher Haase, are going for it. Audi have said all weekend, "we need rain!" Well, blokes, you have it now. Go for it. Nissan #35 is in the lane now. Now it fires up and accelerates away. No damage. Sergey Afanasiev has lost spots in the Silver Cup, and is a lap down. This is doing no good for Mercedes. Katsumasa Chiyo and Joao Paulo de Oliviera did not know what was going on.
Has it stopped raining? Yes. Is there still water on the road? Yes. So, good news, and bad news. We still have lightning out there, too. We shall have about six more minutes of the safety car. Don't throw yourself into the lion's pit with this wet road as we go through Leeukop again. Downhill through the Mine Shaft is going to be tough as there are diagonal rivers down there, and in Crocodile, too. Porsche, BMW, BMW the top three. We are still under the safety car. Kevin Estre is the first driver a lap down as we have 222 laps, 633 miles, on the board. The rain is coming down again, and we are going to keep running behind the safety car. It's tipping down with rain again, as another little squall comes down. There's nothing to do at the moment for the marshals really.
We shall be under the safety car, until this rain quits. We are just playing Follow My Leader right now. We're singing in the rain, like Gene Kelly right now. All weneed now is for the safety car to rotate. The Porsche safety car is on road tires, and the GT3 cars are treaded racing rain tires. The rain is tipping, pelting, hammering down. There's loads of rain as we watcha replay of the #29 Land Motorsport Audi in the lane. One hour and 45 minutes left. If you get some fuel now, you can short pit later before the end of this motor race. Top up the tank and you're gold. Now, the rain is getting heavy again.
This rain is like Spa Francorchamps a couple of years ago. Look at the shots there. Get Gene Kelly out there, to do "Singing In The Rain"! Come on, lads. You need a dinghy. Now, maybe people will be asking for a red flag. Let's see. Aquaplaning, no visibility, and it's impassible. The safety car is crawling, trying to get traction for itself through Sunset. Water gathers inside the semi cambered corners. What will Alain Adam, Race Director, do? Alain Adam is from Belgium, so he knows nasty weather from Spa Francorchamps for the 24 Hours. The rain continues to tip down as someone turned on ye old faucet. This will be a late finish. Is there anything that says we can call the race after 3/4 distance. We've done 81%. If the conditions get worse, we can call the race and declare a winner.
225 laps in the bag. 641 and 1/'4 miles done. The drivers are fearing losing control of their cars. Visibility and aquaplaning will be the issue. We are running at 60 kilometers an hour, 37 miles an hour. Maybe slower. The bow wave as the front splitter of the Porsche is acting like a surfboard, is incredible. It's churning water like crazy. If we red flag this motor race, and we could just have a seven and a half hours of Kyalami. It is not as heavy for the rain, but standing water is the fundamental issue, and so is visibility. Is visibility safe to race at high speed with rivers all over the circuit. Will there be a curfew? Will we have to stop the cars, shut the motors off, and say, "you win" to whoever is leading, and we all go home and hit the sack?
The rain has all but stopped. Points as of now. Maxi Goetz would take the title and Dennis Olsen would be given second. The fourth place driver, Maxi Goetz is Champion Elect. Visibility unchanged, as the rain is easing off little by little. Shades of the races at Sebring in the IMSA and FIA World Endurance Championships from earlier this year. Everyone is wondering what will happen. There is less rain down on pit lane. What is the visibility level? That is the biggest question about this situation. It is not raining, but there are still puddles on the road.
If we go racing the points situation could change. Maxi Goetz is the leader on 64 points. Porsche could provisionally win the manufacturer's cup over Mercedes by a single point. The ambient and track temps will be cooler. We won't be able to dry the track because of the cooler ambient temps. Porsche #9, leading the Silver Cup is in the lane and so is the #42 BMW M6 GT3 from Schnitzer, with Martin Tomczyk at the wheel of it. #42 has been taken over by Augusto Farfus. Lars Kern, a test and development driver for Porsche is saying that the rain is getting really bad. Also, these drivers will want coffee or hot chocolate, to get rid of the shivers. These GT3 cars leak like a sieve. We have an hour and a half left.
We are not running Japanese monsoon tires. We are running standard tread block tires that are used in America and Europe. The puddles in the pit lane are disappearing. The track is drying. Over the history, we had a regulation 6 hour race. In 1958, this race was at a track called Grand Central. It moved to Kyalami. More lightning and thunder is coming. The race might just be continued. It will take 15 minutes or so to clean the track up and then, give us a final hour to race to the flag. Everyonee agrees to continue. Step back. Take a deep breath, and don't worry. Nick Catsburg has gone to pit lane. Now, Maxi Goetz has gone to second. This might have swung the pendulum back to Mercedes for the manufacturers cup.
Through Leeukop they turn. Richard Lietz leads and will be the pioneer. But, if he goes too fast, he'll spin out. Take it easy, chaps. If you go too quick, it'll be over and out, done and dusted. We've been under yellow for almost an hour. No more rain is falling. We'll be at the end of hour eight in less than 20 minutes. We are not getting the bow waves of water like we were 15 minutes ago. Richard Lietz has a notional lead of 3.4 seconds. Lars Kern is driving the Silver Cup leading car, two laps behind the overall leader, and they want a class win. They are sitting pretty for a class win. More lightning, and more rain, and more thunder. I give up.
We can finish under the safety car, but the rain has surely returned. You can hear the thunder in the background! Boom! They go through Barbeque. Thunder and lightning more apparent. Another boomer. The drivers are complaining, legitimately, about aquaplaning. Nissan #35 has pitted and a couple other cars, too, just to reset the stint clock. An hour and 15 minutes now left to go. The teams are stressed about this as they are looking at weather radars. Alain Adam, Race Director, still has to make a decision. It would be very hard to run a team in a rainy race.
The track is not quite flooded, but almost. Yelmer Buurman will replace Maximilian Goetz in the Mercedes #10 and there's the #9 Porsche for Lechner Racing as well. The rain is getting worse, but it has eased off just a bit. The lightning and the thunder are still there. Good old rumbles of thunder everywhere. Boom! Bang! Crash! It would be much easier in the daytime, but you'd have a deluge just as much. In weather like this as a driver, you get disoriented. You can't find out where you are, and then, you hear other cars around you and you don't know who it is. Every lap and every mile counts with 70 minutes to go.
The proverbial damp squid has arrived. But, we will have a Porsche battle at the front. Nissan #18, and Porsche #911 are in the lane. Porsche #31 has had a charmed life, and the #20 car has been in it the whole time, much like they were when they won at the Spa 24 Hours. Richard Lietz, Matthieu Jaminet, Earl Bamber, Ricky Collard, Yelmer Buurman, Augusto Farfus, Nicky Catsburg, Christopher Haase, Edoardo Liberati, and Dirk Werner, are your top ten. The two leading Porsche's are in the lane. So is the Aston Martin. Short stop for #20 and same for #31. Earl Bamber goes to the lead followed by Augusto Farfus, and Yelmer Buurman.
This is evryone's last pit stop. We have one stint to go. Those who stopped earlier, have jumped ahead, leapfrogging the #20 car. Nick Tandy will finish the race in #31. We are headed for the final hour, and we have had the rain for an hour and a quarter now. More cars bail for the pit lane one last time. No pit exit lights, so marshals are waving flags to let the driver's know. Earl Bamber drops down the order. Augusto Farfus leads Yelmer Buurman. Mercedes #10 could be in the pound seats for the win. We can continue under the safety car if need be. One hour now left in the motor race.
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