Into the pit lane for the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. They are nowhere near the Michelin Endurance Cup. Patrick Long is in the lan and Toni Vilander in the WeatherTech Scuderia Corsa Ferrari will need to get to the lane. Gosh. This is wild stuff. Yes. Ben Keating is in a Porsche with Jeroen Bleekemolen and Felipe Fraga for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 22 cars in GTE Am for that race which, again, we will be bringing you wall to wall coverage from in two weeks. We've reached the three hour mark in this motor race. Juan Montoya leads over Olivier Pla over Filipe Albuquerque, Jonathan Bomarito, Ricky Taylor, and Tristan Vautier.
In GTLM it's BMW, BMW, Porsche, Corvette, I think. GTD has the #48 Lamborghini, the #86 Acura, the #12 Lexus, the #63 Ferrari, the #14 Lexus as well. Acura #6 in the lane. We've begun the next hour of this motor race right here on Endurance... The Sports Car Racing Blog. Dane Cameron is into the #6 Acura and no driver change for #7. Cadillac #5 is in and Tristan Vautier stays at the wheel. Interim points for Michelin Endurance Cup, which has the Petit Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring still to run. The #10 Cadillac leads in DPi over the #5 Cadillac followed by the #77 Mazda tied for second followed by the #6 Acura Team Penske car.
In GTLM, the #24 BMW led the points one ahead of Porsche and will extend their lead. The #912 Porsche is next followed by the #911 in the same order. #911 is closing in on their team car. We will have to analyze the GTD points separately, as the #57 Acura is having more woes and out of the GTLM lead, Nick Tandy is in the lane after an hour. Fred Makowiecki is back into the car. More tape onto the front end of the car and he has a clean windscreen as well. Then comes Jesse Krohn in the #24 BMW and John Edwards takes over. Nick Tandy is running very well at this moment, bang on an hour's worth of driving. There's two more stops before the end of the race for these particular GTLM cars.
Meanwhile, the battle continues as Connor De Philippi has yet to stop nor has the #912 Porsche, Laurens Vanthoor at the wheel of it, and the #3 Corvette of Jordan Taylor is also due a stop. He fell down behind the #912 machine and is struggling on used tires. His tires have to be pretty greasy, although he's on a different compound and can't adapt yet, to this specific tire compound. GTLM is the only class that has a choice of three different compounds. Everyone else has one standardized compound and one only. It's green and pleasant in Georgia with two hours and 50 minutes left on the board.
This race has been moved down to Georgia from Watkins Glen due to the bad situation with the Coronavirus pandemic in New York. After this, we have the Petit Le Mans also here at Road Atlanta and the 12 Hours of Sebring at the end of the year. Tune in next Wednesday on September 9th at 2PM Eastern Time on IMSA.com for the IMSA State of the Series, announcing the 2021 schedules and more. Don't miss it if you are a fan of sports car racing. Look for some notes on that on the blog. But now, we are focusing on the final half of this race. We've got the duration of a standard IMSA race still to go.
Porsche will be in the pound seats on fuel it looks like at least over the Corvette boys. Meantime, Olivier Pla has reset fast lap at 1:09.698. He is third, and Dane Cameron leads this motor race by seven seconds over Renger van der Zande. Olivier Pla is right on his gearbox. This is getting spicy, or so it appears. Filipe Albuquerque is still in it and Jonathan Bomarito is coming up as well. Game over for the #85 JDC-Miller "Banana Boat" Cadillac. Poor old Matheus Leist and Stephen Simpson will be gutted. Corey Lewis continues to lead in GTD in the #48 Lamborghini ahead of Matt McMurry in the #86 Acura. Spencer Pumpelly is next in the #44 GRT Magnus Lamborghini.
Unscheduled pit work for the #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19. Nope. Nope. It's a scheduled stop but there's unscheduled maintenance. Time for a brake pad change on the front. A whole front brake change as the tires are also going on for Laurens Vanthoor. They are losing some time it appears. Car still on the air jacks, losing heaps of time. Brake changes in a six hour race are not necessary. If this were the Rolex 24, its fine. But not in this race. Seems like it's game over for #912. He's out of contention. Ah. They looked at the rear brakes and are changing them. They had tire clag in the brakes.
You just don't change brakes in a six hour race. It never happens in a World Endurance race which is the same length. Not too good. Something was cut out of the brakes with some tin snips. You only do one brake change in a 12 hour race for a GT3 race at Bathurst in Australia or in the 12 Hours of Sebring at the end of this year. Ugh. Not good for the Porsche crew as Fred Makowiecki takes over the GTLM class lead in the sister Porsche ahead of BMW #25. Corvette #4 is just barely on the lead lap, hanging by a thread it appears.
A couple hours from now, the track temp will be optimal. It is starting to cool, although the air temp is coming up. The track temps are just starting to come down by 1-2 degrees, maybe three.; It's cooler on the track figuring for Celsius measurements. Lets not go there. Too many calculations for yours truly to do. The #4 Corvette C8.R of Tommy Milner is just ahead of Fred Makowiecki by a small margin. The #4 car had that puncture earlier on in this motor race. Dane Cameron leads the motor race by five seconds over the #10 and #77. #10 will hit the pit lane in a couple laps.
Just two and a half hours left on the board, but there's lots of racing left. We've had two hours and ten minutes of green flag running which is good for these longer enduranc races. The performance of the cars changes quite often. It's been a good race thus far. The top five are separated by ten seconds or so. It's been a while since we have had a Full Course Yellow. We are on lap 159. 159 laps, 404 miles. Laurens Vanthoor has a vibration in the #912 Porsche. There's debris or damage or something under that car and so Porsche are having a fraught race and the brake change hasn't worked out as a solution. The #911 had the bonnet problem earlier.
Into the lane, Spencer Pumpelly for the #44 GRT Mangus Lamborghini. Pumpelly missed his marks coming to the lane. They've rolled the car back and changed the tires. Fuel and a new drink bottle for Pumpelly. So, the Flex Box (Flexi Box) car is running well. Fuel and tires only for Renger van der Zande in the #10 Cadillac. New Michelin tires. 30 laps, and 36 minutes on this latest fuel stint. Porsche #912 have compounded their woes and are penalized for too many men over the wall working on the car! Ugh! That'll rub salt in their wounds, sixth and last, caboose on the field in GTLM led by Fred Makowiecki in the sister Porsche, adding insult to injury. Oy!
Bruno Spengler in the #25 BMW is closing in, look, on Fred Makowiecki. Spengler is going faster than his competition. The Canadian driver is bish bash boshing it and making hay while the sun shines pursuing Porsche. Era Motorsports and the #18 LMP2 car is also bish bash boshing it as Colin Braun has cut a new fastest lap. Can't remember the lap time. 1:11.204 I think. Super to have Colin Braun back. Gabriel Aubry set the record last year at 1:11.867. Patrick Kelly is back in the class leading #52 car taking over for Scott Huffaker. He hasn't raced a lot, but last year he was racing Formula Ford and the Formula Ford Festival at Silverstone in England. Scott will think he's on holiday bish bash boshing it around this track in LMP2 compared to a Formula Ford single seater. He is a Brit.
Side by side stuff for the lead as Dane Cameron is trying to rebuff Olivier Pla. Juan Montoya put him on the grass earlier. He's pushing, pushing, pushing, locking up the left front Michelin tire. They work their way past Ben Keating through turn five and into six. Filipe Albuquerque is 2.5 seconds behind. He's coming as well, look. Albuquerque has nothing between himself and these two cars! To the pit lane comes the Acura and the Cadillac #31. Olivier Pla is in the lead now. We've got some debris dangling off the #11 Lamborghini. Pipo Derani is into the #31 car as the sister Acura pits with no driver change.
The damage for the Lamborghini #11 was on an out lap. Hmmm. That's odd. Mazda #77 and Cadillac #31 have done a lap less this stint, for Olivier Pla and now Pipo Derani has taken over the Whelen Cadillac. Patrick Kelly locks the brakes and he got spooked by the leaders. I don't blame him. It's really tight here and Olivier Pla reassumes the lead of this motor race. #77 leads and Tristan Nunez is stretching out the rubber band. 4.4 seconds, and the #31 Cadillac is making up time on the #6 Acura while the #10 Cadillac for WTR has lost about 11 seconds. Nunez is cooking at 1:10.6 and Sebastien Bourdais is finding speed at a 1:10 dead. We've run now, 173 laps, 439 miles.
Again, we've been under green for something like two and a half hours. Meantime, the #11 "grumpy penguin" Lamborghini is going from bad to worse. They've been dinged with two straight drive through penalties, 11th in GT Daytona and the #57 MSR Acura team ripped the rest of the bonnet off the car and abandoned having the bits and bobs on there. Oy, again! 1:09.893 for Tristan Nunez in the Mazda! The Flying Floridian! Yikes! He's eking out loads of time on Dane Cameron and Pipo Derani is reeling in Dane Cameron but has more work to do to try to get to Nunez in the leading Mazda.
The #85 JDC-Miller Cadillac is out of this motor race but the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 of Bill Auberlen is continuing to bish bash bosh it out there and catching up. Pipo Derani is catching the AScura and Renger van der Zande and Jonathan Bomarito are also pushing. Tristan Nunez is cooking right now, cooking with jet fuel perhaps. Matt McMurry is reeling in Corey Lewis in GT Daytona. His father, Chris used to race in American Le Mans Series. Patrick Long is next up in the #16 Wright Motorsport Porsche followed by Cooper MacNeil and Daniel Morad. That's the Ferrari and the second Lexus.
GTLM is simmering as Fred Makowiecki continues to hold at bay, the one and only Bruno Spengler at the controls of the BMW M8 GTE. John Edwards is third, 4.5 seconds behind his BMW team mate, and 16 seconds behind are the two Corvette's of Jordan Taylor and Tommy Milner. Laurens Vanthoor is behind the eight ball and well out of the picture. Mazda Motorsports and Tristan Nunez lead Dane Cameron and Pipo Derani followed by Jonathan Bomarito. So, Multimatic Mazda, Penske Acura, Action Express Cadillac, Multimatic Mazda, Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac. After four hours, this is a pure motor race we've got on our hands, chaps, but old Tristan Nunez is continuing to eke out the gap.
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