Drive through penalty for disrespecting blue flags, for Johnny Mowlem in the Red River Ferrari. He was not opening the door wide enough for the cars that wanted to pass him. The #8 Toyota had damage from a scrum with one of the GT cars I believe. That damage has a knock on effect, for sure. Toyota #7 leads it's sister car, ahead of both of the Ginetta's. Alex Lynn will hand over the #97 Aston to Maxime Martin as the Ginetta also pits. Jordan King was in the wrong pit stall. Aim for the stick. Nope. Wrong stick, mate. Larry ten Voorde is now at the controls of the #57 Project 1 Porsche. We watch a replay of the pass between Porsche and Aston Martin, or the attempted pass rather, in GTE Pro. Speaking of GTE Pro, the scrap between Richard Lietz and Miguel Molina is under review by the stewards.
Toyota Gazoo Racing still run 1-2. It took less time than they expected for this to occur. Charlie Robertson admits the accident between he and Bruno Senna was a mea culpa on his part. Toyota #7 in the lane, look. It is scheduled service. United Autosports still leads LMP2 ahead of G-Drive, who have solved their tire problems, and Romain Rusinov is at the controls at the moment. New tires on the left and scrubbed tires on the right for the #7 machine. The sister car is in the lane as well. Brendon Hartly brings it in, and he will change over, to Kazuki Nakajima. Nakajima is taking his first stint. Ferrari #71 is also in pit lane for service.
Jose Maria Lopez is now in the #7 Toyota. "Pechito" is taking his first stint as well. Porsche #91 is in pit lane now as well. Richard Lietz will stay in th car for a double stint. They are going to only change left side tires at Porsche. All GTE Pro teams, and Am teams, are stretching their tire usage. A spot of bother for Aston Martin as Larry ten Voorde passes Paul Dalla Lana. Mike Wainwright is now in the lead in GTE Am. Motoaki Ishikawa is going to be involved in this scrum after coming out of the pit lane. Dalla Lana is going to gain an advantage, and will go inside ten Voorde like a rat up a drainpipe if ten Voorde makes a mistake.
For the GTE Am lead, Larry ten Voorde passes Mike Wainwright. Paul Dalla Lana is still in it. He is still the shark, chasing after two minnows. This is the first stint for as pro driver in the #57 car. The Goodyear tires have not gone as far off as was expected. Toyota continues running 1-2. Jose Maria Lopez leads this motor race. 38 points on offer, to the winner of this race, because of the longer distance. Points and a half on offer, here in Bahrain, as they will be at Sebring later in the season. The GTE Pro battle continues to simmer. A spin, look, for Gustavo Menezes at turn one. They are sixth in the overall at the moment.
He goes in the corner, and loses traction, fortunately not hitting anything. Back in GTE Pro, the battle is still hot and heavy. Kevin Estre continues to apply the blowtorch to Alessandro Pier Guidi. We have investigations by the stewards into both Ferrari's and both Porsche's in GTE Pro. Yikes! A whole mess of cars, look, as this scrap for GTE Pro is still raging! Wow! The Am Porsche, the Dempsey Proton Porsche just barely made it past the GTE Pro machines without crashing! Egad! Khaled al Qubaisi knew something was behind him, but he made it through without incident. Good onya' chap.
The Ferrari is mere millimeters away from the Porsche and the grunt of the flat six will reel in the Ferrari, maybe. The Ferrari has turbo power, the Porsche, is atmospheric. Filipe Albuquerque has lapped up to the fourth place car in the LMP2 division. They are having a great run, and to contrast, TDS and G-Drive, are having some real pear shaped races right now. Someone was coming into the pits, the Red River Sport Ferrari, but he didn't come in. Now, Paul Dalla Lana has done his full drive time and the #98 Aston Martin is in the lane for service. Not clear if it is Darren Turner or Ross Gunn who is getting into the car.
Kevin Estre is worrid about his tires and the engineer understands how hard it is. It is not hot outside. But, it is physically difficult and he has to preserve the tires, instead of pressing them to get the full performance. If you can't pass, look after the tires. Kevin Estre has in fact gone by Alessandro Pier Guidi. He had the opportunity with Bon Grimes in the Red River Sport car. Francois Perrodo is the next car on the shopping list of the GTE Pro blokes, and they do make the pass cleanly.
Porsche still lead from Ferrari and Aston Martin. The tire clag offline is getting worse as we have just over four hours to go. Jackie Chan DC Racing and Jota Sport are in the lane. Gabriel Aubry and Antonio Felix Da Costa are at the wheel of those respective automobiles. Da Costa is double stinting, and both of those guys are behind Filipe Albuquerque. G-Drive have recovered from earlier mishaps. Romain Rusinov is in the car. Nyck de Vries is way behind in the Racing Team Nederland car. Racing Team Nederland have had a good season, but they can't afford to give up any points. Great performances in individual races by many of the LMP2 teams. That trend continues. That is why this race is a cracker at the moment. A real sizzler.
The LMP2 teams have to deliver, and especially Racing Team Nederland. We have a spin, and the #70 car is it. Motoaki Ishikawa at the controls of the MR Racing machine. He locks the brakes and rotates the car. He was trying to not run into the back of the Racing Team Nederland machine, and Ishikawa is dinged by the stewards as well for ignoring blue flags. Porsche #92 is in the lead of GTE Pro. There is rain at turn 14 on the circuit. The track is now declared wet. The track is not soaking, but you can go ahead and use wet weather tires. There are tiny spots of rain, and it could indeed get heavier.
Race Director Edoardo Freitas has indeed made the announcement. If we get a deluge, this will really open the floodgates, no pun intended. Porsche #92 in the lane. He was very slow coming into the pit box. The dollies are out for the Porsche and poor old Kevin Estre goes into the garage. They might need a brake change on that car after the spin. They are changing tires, but they are going for brakes. There is something wrong on the left rear. It is a standard procedure to change brakes in the Spa 24 Hours, for the GT3 cars that have different brakes. However, in GTE, brakes are just not something to worry about. We saw the brake changes for the GT3 cars at Kyalami a few weeks back in the 9 hour race there.
We see fireworks for Bahrain National Day in the night sky. The Toyota tried to pass an LMP2 car but can't. Gabriel Aubry tries to pass by one of his fellow LMP2 competitors. Aubry slides the car as the tires are not hooked up. Game over for the #92 Porsche? No. They just need to continue making repairs. Michael Christensen stays in the car. Leave the floor alone. They will put new tires on, but will be three laps behind, and they need to salvage points for the World Championship. They are going to be knocked out of the points game in GTE Pro.
Khaled al Qubaisi loops and slams the #88 Dempsey Proton Porsche into the wall at the last corner on track and we will have a Full Course Yellow. He spins, and hits a sign. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow. Debris on driver's left at turn 14. Clean up debris, and replace bollards. It's housekeeping time here in Bahrain. The #88 car needs replacement of the front clip, and the floor. Thos are severe skid marks, as the marshals pick up the debris. Cooling and wiring, and more, will be replaced.
Under Full Course Yellow, you are limited on the road to 80 kilometers an hour, 50 miles an hour. Toyota #8 in the pit lane, and there were a couple cars that got caught out in the lane, who were due to be in when the Full Course Yellow came out. These are early stops for Toyota Gazoo Racing and for United Autosport. We are now 30 seconds away from going back to green flag racing. Driver change for #6. Mike Simpson is back into the car, and we are now back to green. Wherever you are on the track, you hit the gas pedal, immediately. Gianmaria Bruni believes he may have a puncture, but he is told that there is low pressure. Now, he has something broken on the car. Gianmaria Bruni says, "something is broken".
There might be a damaged damper in the suspension. It's down on the right front. The wheel is busted. Both cars have had trouble within laps of each other. What a disaster! They are getting a raw deal here, lads. The wheel is destroyed. The nut was sheared off with no retaining pins on it. That was a brand new set of tires, maybe. There's a loose exhaust or a loose clip for the floor of the car, the undertray or the diffuser. Porsche's race has fallen through the floor. No pun intended. They've resorted to the Birmingham screwdriver (the hammer), for fixing it, which means there is something broken on the car. Stay off the curbs. Don't cut over the sausage curb with the sharp edge on the inside.
Stay on the gray stuff, son. That's what it's there for. NormanNato puts Rebellion back into fourth, taking over from the #6 Ginetta. Porsche #91 is back on the pit lane. One of the horizontal strakes may be broken. There is a piece of something dangling off the back of the car as we look in replay. This is the newly redesigned 911 RSR. The fireworks and festivities for National Bahrain Day continues. Toyota runs 1-2. United Autosports leads LMP2.
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