The #19 GEAR Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 is back in the motor race after spending a spell behind the wall. Christina Nielsen is at the controls. The car had possibly been retired, but now, it's back into the motor race on an outlap. Now, we've got a problem with the aforementioned car! The GRT Grasser #19 Lamborghini is back on track, but, not for long. The car is on fire! There's flames from the engine bay as it's on the apron. There's clouds of billowing, noxious smoke inside that car as well! Christina Nielsen thankfully bails out. She unplugs all the things she needs to and this will be a Full Course Yellow. She's turned off the electrical system, released the fire extinguisher and she walks away from that smoldering Lamborghini which will go no further. Game over, most definitely so.
The engine is on fire. The fire crews show up to extinguish the blaze as we are under our fifth Full Course Yellow. The firemen hit the car with the extinguishers as we have begun another hour of racing. How did this develop? Smoke plumes out the back of the car and Nielsen realizes it is inded on fire. Look at the red orange flames licking from around the bonnet and the smoke is pouring out of the car. She didn't quite bail out of the car. She just calmly exited and got the fire bottles engaged and everything else. Being a champion is not only about driving the car, it is also about handling emergencies on the track. We watch from the onboard camera, as she shortcuts the chicane and the brakes probably are not working and brake fluid is exceptionally flammable. The flames and the smoke were coming into the cockpit and then, it became engulfed in dense, black, impenetrable smoke as our onboard camera, melts.
The fire is now out. The engine cover has been melted and the car is covered in extinguisher fluid or powder. No one likies to see fire in a race car and the fire is out now. That car had troubles with oiling from the start of the motor race to be honest. Was that an oil related fire? The car was in the pit lane for a few hours, at least three hours to repair and on the outlap, the car goes ahead and goes bang. We've got several cars that are staying on the circuit but we also have a number of pit callers, look. The lane is about to get very busy. What we have is the #77 Mazda pitting, but the #6 Acura, throws the dummy! He did a total fake as if he was going to pit and then trundled right back onto the circuit.
They might get dinged by the stewards. Fuel only for Mazda #77. Now, the #81 DragonSpeed LMP2 car was set to pit but since no other LMP2 cars were going to hit the lane, they decided against doing the stop on this particular lap. Juan Pablo Montoya was supposed to blend in at the tale end of the longest line, but didn't do so. We welcome back Jeremy Shaw to the radio broadcast. Pit lane open for Prototypes, but very few takers. Loic Duval isn't going to give up the lead of the motor race. That'd be a foolish thing to do. The pits are now open for Prototypes. Mazda #55, Cadillac #5 and more are in. Juan Montoya didn't throw the dummy. He came in but the team probably hollered on the radio, "no! Don't come in yet!"
You can drive through a closed pit lane, but you cannot stop without earning a penalty. The #10 Cadillac did not pit, and the #5 car came in. Now, the #10 car will be in between other cars, still as the overall leader. Loic Duval has gotten out of the #5 Cadillac, handing the car to Joao Barbosa as the two Porsche GTLM cars are in the lane together and so is the #24 BMW. The track is getting dirtier and greasier according to Loic Duval after his latest stint. He ran 85 laps over four stints, a quadruple stint. That was indeed an iron man stint, but he kept the car in contention. Keep pushing because you don't know the end of the story. If someone else has a drama, you could be in the pound seats.
Speaking of the pound seats, the yellow has assisted the #31 Whelen Cadillac. They are back on track now and they might get pointed by the leader and the safety car. Loic Duval only did three stints. Not four. Tired brain, even after sleeping. Acura #57 is in the lane as Trent Hindman is out of the car and A.J. Allmendinger takes over. Long, green flag running has been necessitating double stinting tires. Many of the Michelin tire techs have been up all night. Double stinting left side tires has been the norm in DPi as well as using one set during practice and qualifying. In GTD, they are single stinting. The #10 leading Cadillac has made another pit stop. A slight difference for the tires for DPi. GTLM is working with the WEC spec tire that has been in the WEC since they began their season in September.
Again, Michelin has a hand in the convergence of sports car racing that we spoke of so much last night. Michelin supplies both the WeatherTech Championship and the Michelin Pilot Challenge as well as the WEC for the upcoming "Super Sebring" weekend. Michelin has learned how to send the signal of the supply chain from France. We are back to green flag racing and looking maybe for a lap record distance in the next four and a half hours. Joao Barbosa leads the motor race and there's a penalty for pit lane speeding, a drive through for the #8 Tower Motorsport by Starworks LMP2 car. Ryan Briscoe is back on the lead lap running in fourth in the overall and he's close to getting back onto the lead lap in this motor race.
Apparently, blowing the red light at the end of the pit lane won't make a dent in the chances that the #10 Cadillac could still win this motor race. Into the Bus Stop, drivers ride the curbs. Porsche ands BMW have been fighting all night and the BMW M8 GTE has verymuch been the meat in a Porsche sandwich. Matthieu Jaminet, also known as "Jam Jam" is in the car. Fred Makowiecki is in third, and then Nicky Catsburg and Daniel Serra are still on the lead lap for Corvette and Ferrari. Serra got the wave by to get back on the lead lap. Put your sunglasses on ladies and gentlemen. It's going to be bright out there. We continue to talk Michelin tires and have Sarah Robinson, from the company.
Robinson says the complexity of Sebring with IMSA and WEC is a major factor. Wet tires, dry tires. Be prepared for any conditions. At Daytona they have 12,000 or so tires, and for Sebring, well, we don't even want to think of those numbers. Jeepers creepers! We've not run a wet race lap this weekend. If we run a lot of the season in the rain, we'd still have enough tires from Michelin. Optimize the tires and make sure the supply chain is up and running. Still, we have the four way GTLM battle in liner stern. Porsche, BMW, Porsche, Corvette. It'sno slam dunk to drive past the Porsche. We've got a slow car on the apron. It's an Acura. It was crawling out of turns five and six.
Matthieu Jaminet defends against the BMW. He wants no traffic through NASCAR turns three and four. The BMW is down below the yellow line, for the lead. That is a no no in NASCAR. But will the marshals in IMSA say anything? I think the double yellows apply just for NASCAR. Speaking of NASCAR, rubbing is racing and we've got argy bargy between the Porsche and the BMW. The slow Acura is still in the race. The Ferrari is further back in the train, or farther in terms of distance rather than time. Oh my. Jaminet comes all the way 'round the outside. That was close! The BMW left room and didn't push him onto the grass.
Jaminet's line was compromised. Wonderful racing! The BMW had an unscheduled brake change during the overnight hours. Laurens Vanthoor was harrying Chaz Mostert the whole time. Meanwhile, the #10 Cadillac has moved up to third in the sandwich between both Mazda's. #77 is second. #55 is fourth or so. The #55 Mazda has lost pace gradually. Does car #77 have anything left in the locker to challenge the leaders? Not at this stage, as we've got exactly four and a half hours left to race before this Rolex 24, the 58th renewal, is done and dusted. Joao Barbosa has put 3.5 seconds between himself and the Mazda. GTLM is really heating up, as we can see on the track.
Last year at Sebring, Michelin used 16,000 tires for the doubleheader and we're going to do that again in March for the FIA WEC and IMSA. Loads of people at Michelin have been designing and supplying the tires, studying this whole weekend, evaluating the tires. We continue to watch the battle between the Mazda and Ryan Briscoe. In the Michelin Pilot Challenge race on Friday, there were tire issues. The troubles with the GT4 cars had to do with tire pressures and the TCR field was also looked at. Again, stay tuned for coverage of that Michelin Pilot event. It's coming. Get the solutions, control costs, and make sure with spec tires, there are no unfair advantages.
Support the paddock and optimize the engineering. We've got more bother for the Lamborghini's, and this is the slow #47 PPM (Precision Performance Motorsports) car. The car didn't sound right. It's revving up and jerking out of gear. This team at PPM with Brandon Gdovic, Eric Lux, Mark Kvamme, and Jonathan Hoggard, they've had a litany of bother throughout this motor race and it's compounding itself at the moment. #47 is stopped again. Recall the trouble for the #74 Mercedes and that we have seen in strife, also had electrical issues. Hoggard is at the wheel of the Lamborghini right now. He is trying to recycle the systems, but the track is now once again under Full Course Yellow.
Hoggard won the Aston Martin Autosport Young Driver Award. He finished second in British Formula 3 last year and won the Sunoco Challenge so he could drive at the Rolex 24. The car was punted off the road by the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin which caused that car's demise and it was game over for that automobile early last night. We are into the sixth Full Course Yellow of the race and half of them have come in the last hour and a half. Before this yellow, the gap between Joao Barbosa and Olivier Pla grew, but now it will be negated due to the yellow. Mazda #77 is faster than #55 but they are not faster than the Cadillac DPi's right now.
Many cars are coming around to the tail end of the pack in this short yellow. Lamborghini's led GTD at the most recent restart. Both #44 and #48 were leading, but on the last restart, the #88 WRT Speedstar Audi, the Canadian run car along with the Belgian WRT team, with Dries Vanthoor at the wheel of it, was edging away from everybody else. Four GT Daytona cars are on the lead lap. A lap down are #96, #57, #54, and #63. Bill Auberlen was able to sneak by A.J. Allmendinger. Then we have the Black Swan Porsche and the Scuderia Corsa Ferrari. Kyle Busch in AVS Lexus #14 is also back there. Since 7:51 A.M. we've had three Full Course Yellows, at 9:22 A.M. Green was out for almost eight hours of this motor race, earlier. We're halfway through a stint for the DPi cars.
DragonSpeed are ready to accept the #81 LMP2 car. DragonSpeed leads LMP2. Not sure who is driving right now. Ah. Henrik Hedman is at the wheel of it. DragonSpeed botched their pit stop and served a penalty for that. Check that. They didn't botch anything. They were avoiding making a mistake. We've got five GTLM cars on the lead lap. #24, #912, #911, #3, and #25 I believe. John Edwards is in the #24. Daniel Serra was trapped in traffic before the yellow. Serra cannot pass the GTD cars and take up places in the order with the other GTLM runners. DPi and LMP2 are a prototype class and the GTLM and GTD cars are all bunched together.
So, the safety car is now in the lane, and the green flag is out. The leading #5 Cadillac rockets away. The #31 Cadillac was running a block for the #5? Wait. That's a spot of confusion. A spot of bother. The #5 car hit the afterburners and he had a huge lead! Did Joao Barbosa jump the start? An LMP2 car, Simon Trummer, is trying to get by Nicky Catsburg in Corvette #3. Joao Barbosa had four seconds on Olivier Pla. The #31 Cadillac was behind the wall for more service and they've lost seven or eight laps and are now 11 laps down, running second on the road ahead of Olivier Pla. Not sure who is driving #31 at the moment even though this is the car and team yours truly is following in the motor race.
Ryan Lewis for the #18 Era Motorsports LMP2 team did triple stints during the night and will get back into the car soon for a morning stint. He is confident in the car and it has had great reliability. He, and his team mates Kyle Tilley, Nicolas Minassian and Dwight Merriman are still running really well. Ryan Lewis says his race this year at Daytona has had a lot of green flag running and the traffic has not been so busy although he's freaked out about the GT field trying to do him in, but Lewis is fine although the challenge has indeed been there for him. Sometimes at 5AM, a driver will be like, "good grief! I've had enough of this!" But Ryan Lewis is enjoying himself. He is from Hartfordshire in England and ran for BAR1 Motorsports in Prototype Challenge in 2016. He was also in Prototype Challenge in 2011 and drove in the American Le Mans Series.
Corey Lewis has made a move on Dries Vanthoor in GTD. The #44 Lamborghini is third and the #16 Porsche is the final GTD car on the lead lap. That's the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. Anthony Imperato was driving, and has now handed the car to Patrick Long. Long is a ways behind, in GT Daytona, however. He is thankfully on the lead lap. Dries Vanthoor is just 7/10ths of a second behind Corey Lewis in the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo. In seventh spot in class, A.J. Allmendinger in the #57 Heinricher Racing Acura NSX GT3. Ryan Briscoe has passed Olivier Pla and we are back to a Cadillac 1-2.
Joao Barbosa leads Ryan Briscoe. 683 laps, 2,431 miles, have been run to this point. Joao Barbosa just clocked a lap at 1:35.7 and has been running in that bracket as he has made a move on Ryan Briscoe. Juan Pablo Montoya is at the wheel of the #6 Acura in fifth in the overall, two laps behind. Nicky Catsburg and Fred Makowiecki battle for third in GTLM. Porsche vs. Corvette. All of these blokes in GTLM are in a queue. The Ferrari seems to drive better in the cooler conditions compared to some of the other cars like the Corvette, or maybe even the Porsche. The conditions are playing into the favor of the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE. It's in the high 50s Fahrenheit, around 57 degrees Fahrenheit which makes it almost 14 degrees Celsius.
My conversion tells me, subtract 32 degrees from the current ambient temperature and then, multiply that by the fraction 5/9ths. Yours truly had to use a converter to make that work. Can't do this kind of complex maths during a motor race. So, Mr. Hindhaugh, I'm in agreement with you, mate. That's just too much for us racing diehards. Blue skies outside, but it won't get much warmer than 60 degrees. I've learned Daytona Beach is the coldest place in Florida. Joao Barbosa may have jumped the restart, but no indication that race control wants to send him to the sin bin for an error, yet. Ryan Briscoe is indeed second. Cadillac, Cadillac, Mazda, Mazda, Acura, Cadillac.
The other two Cadillac's are the #85 JDC-Miller "Banana Boat", the yellow Cadillac in the hands of Tristan Vautier, and the one yours truly is keeping tabs on, the #31 Whelen Cadillac, the red and white car for Action Express. Leading LMP2, the #81 DragonSpeed Oreca, Harrison Newey at the wheel of it. Harrison Newey had a one lap lead, but it's evaporated and gone down to 15 seconds. Newey is just ahead of Simon Trummer in the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car. Side by side stuff through the kink and a lead change in GTLM between Matthieu Jaminet and John Edwards! He's a sitting duck, and has Fred Makowiecki and Nicky Catsburg all over him.
Edwards, with the prodigious power of that BMW M8, he doesn't have to bring some more power but the team mayhave to bring some more tires to put on that car, because the prodigious oomph of that twin turbo BMW V8 is absolutely eating up the tires and who knows, but those Michelins could come off that BMW in the shape of cubes after this stint! Edwards is leading through the kink and down into the International Horseshoe, Jaminet sees his chance and takes it! "Jam Jam", deep on the brakes! He's outside! This is a short track stock car race, ladies and gentlemen! Jaminet stays right with Edwards! The BMW couldn't turn in. Jaminet moves past in turn five, but thank goodness there was zero contact!
This is ideally, non contact racing. Sports car racing is generally, a gentlemen's and gentlewomen's sport. Jaminet had the track position and into the GTLM lead he went. This kind of motor racing, when you think you are two or three corners ahead and if I can stay there, and get better drive off the corner, I might dust him. Pit stop for Mazda #77 from third spot. Fuel, tires, and a driver change, Oliver Jarvis is in the car now. The BMW sandwiches a GTD car between it and the third place Porsche of Fred Makowiecki as Nicky Catsburg and Daniel Serra, keep a watching brief. Serra is 2.9 seconds in-arrears. Catsburg tries to advance on the [Porsche. No dice. Fred Makowiecki slams the door in Nicky Catsburg's face!
The Corvette and Ferrari work their way back to the sharp end of GTLM as the sister #55 Mazda is in the lane for service. Corvette has the one bullet, and Doug Fehan as well as Nicky Catsburg are aware that they want the watch. The #4 sister car is indeed out of the motor race. We'll be smarter when we leave today than when we showed up, learning about the new car. A quotew from Mr. Fehan. "By all appearances, it's a competitive piece." He, like everybody else awaits the final two hours when the gloves come off and things really start to happen. Well, maybe it's not a boxing match, as I've stated sports car racing is gentlemanly. However, the pressure cooker will be turned up another notch, another set of degrees.
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