We're headed for the final third of the 2020 Spa 24 Hours. We're gettig redy to go back to racing. The rosy glow of dawn is in the sky, just behind a myriad of gray clouds. Hwre comes the sunrise, just barely. As they thunder up the Kemmel straight, Nick Tandy is still third in line. Car #52 is penalized for speeding in the pit lane and same for the #107 Bentley. Daniel Serra is the car being penalized, the driver of #52. Matt Campbell in the pale blue and orange GPX Porsche is coming. Nick Tandy is there and the gulf car has Calado right up his exhaust. Calado has gone around Matt Campbell as daylight continues to sweep across the Belgian sky.
Drive through penalty for the #52 Ferrari. James Calado is a couple laps behind the leaders. It's a drying circuit and very greasy offline. Tandy just has to reel in Dennis "The Menace" Lind. All of the non stoppers, will be at a disadvantage unless they pit soon. Tandy is slightly quicker than lind. Tandy is pushing, pushing, pushing. Dennis Lind is going to pit in the next few laps. Nick Tandy is really pressing along right now. He has to be 80 kilograms heavier on fuel than does Dennis Lind. Goodness. Hadn't thought of that. Nick is chasing down the Lamborghini, and he has to book it to keep from being passed by James Calado. Ferrari #488 and Lamborghini #14 are up there. That's the Siedler/Grenier/Feller Lamborghini. We have not been hamstrung by heavy rain, accident, and boatloads of safety cars.
Ferrari #51 moves by the #107 Bentley that just had a penalty. Dennis Lind cuts a 2:58 and Nick Tandy a 2:53. He's still within striking distance of the leader of this motor race. Tandy is not ahead of Lind. That could be the sister Rowe Racing Porsche. Lind is the meat in the sandwich. You could've confused me as Daniel Serra has spun after serving a drive through penalty. He spun, somehow, coming out of Eau Rouge and Raidillon. He spun at the top of Eau Rouge and got away with that one. No mas. His heart rate had to be through the roof.
Dennis Lind has crashed! Game over for the #63! We will have a Full Course Yellow, but LKind does drive away. He went straight on and slammed the wall. That was a tank slapper. That car is totally destroyed. Game over. It is moving, but it is totally toasted. Th radiators are chucking coolant out and Lind is going off the road. Lind and company are out of the motor race. Lind understeers at the top of Raidillon. That could have been big. Lind almost went straight through the skidmarks the Ferrari #52 laid down. That was a hellacious tank slapper! We are going Full Course Yellow, now. Dennis Lind is crushed. He is sobbing his heart out. He wanted to win this race, so badly.
Spare a thought for Dennis Lind. Maybe next year will be his year. There is only one dry line to race on. We have seen two cars go off the road. Martin Tomczyk is OK after his accident. Dennis Lind is utterly inconsolable. Totally crushed emotionally. Nick Tandy is back in the lane for fuel and tires. Nick Tandy out of the car and into the car, is it Bamber or Vanthoor? GPX are in. Matt Campbell. Calado is in the lane too. Everyone knows that we're in the final third of the race. Fuel, tires, track position over and over. That's the key. It's Sunday morning. We have to have a half decent run wiothout another bloke binning it.
The Lamborghini is loaded onto the tow truck. It is junk. Now, James Calado stayed in the Ferrari. Maro Engel and Matt Campbell have stayed in their cars. We have seen another Rowe Racing car. The safety vehicles are out to recover the crashed cars, the Manitou crane and the safety trucks and vans. The ambulance is there as well. Tandy moved out behind Matty Campbell in the GPX car. We will head to safety car in a bit. Tandy had the fuel but the others didn't. Tandy came in on his own at the last round of stops. Something may have broken on Dennis Lind's Lamborghini. The car just snapped away from him.
The barriers are definitely being repaired as the remaining Audi's are in and out of the pit lane. Dennis Marschall has pitted. The tires are being repaired and put back in place. Christopher Haase has come in from second as well, a former winner of this race. Laurens Vanthoor is now in Porsche #98. Freddie Vervisch leads Christopher Haase. Audi #66 leads ahead of Audi #25 and/or James Calado in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari. Fluid on the curbs in Raidillon. The drivers come up to speed. Why do we have a safety car? Well, under Full Course Yellow, tires are cold and not up to pressure.
Some drivers are not in a safety car queue. Eddie Cheever will be a car or two ahead of Chris Goodwin, for the Pro Am lead. There are six cars between Cheever and Goodwin. Just over seven hours to go. Safety car will go back to the pit lane and we will be right back to racing. We're back to green flag action. We have not had a red flag at all, thank goodness. Fred Vervisch leads by 2.5 seconds over James Calado. 378 laps, 1,644 miles. Calado has had a very good night. Drive through penalty for the #3 K-PAX Bentley. It's actually a stop and go penalty for a refueling infringement. Fir long refueling, you have to have the hose connected for no longer than 40 seconds.
Jules Gounon won with Markus Winkelhock and Christopher Haase in 2017. Orange 1 FFF wanted a good result at Spa but they know how motorsport works and this is a sad deal for them and for Dennis Lind. Car #555 is still in this race, fighting for the podium. That is the car of Florian Latorre, Baptiste Moulin, Taylor Proto, and Hugo Chevalier. Dennis Lind made a mistake. Laurens Vantrhoor wants by Maro Engel out of Raidillon, on the Kemmel straight, into Les Combes and down the hill. Matty Campbell is behind Laurens Vanthoor who is chasing one of the Mercedes'. To the Piff Paff they come.Bentley #9 has Alvaro Parente at the wheel of it, behind Jules Gounon. Engel is stuck behind Parente.
Maro Engel is pushing ands he is off the road and now, Freddie Vervisch leads by six seconds over James Calado. Engel tries Vanthoor, look. They are level for fourth. Engel makes the move through Eau Rouge. Wow! Good morning, John Watson. Great, courageous pass. Again, we feel for Dennis Lind. The demarcation between dry and wet was definitely there. The race is coming alive. Just over seven hours left. An outstanding drive by that whole team at Orange 1 FFF. Dennis Lind will get over it but it is a terrible thing to let your team down.
Meanwhile, Laurens Vanthoor is chasing Maro Engel. Mercedes vs. Porsche. Vanthoor is quicker at certain parts of the track. Another car off the road at the top of Eau Rouge. Daniel Allemann has clobbered the right front. The whole right front, back to the front bulkhead is ripped away and there's mega damage to the rear of that car, too. Another Full Course Yellow and another one for the marker of doom to cross off. We are not getting laps and distance in. The Porsche is destroyed as well. The amount of debris is going to take a long time to clean up and that Porsche is junk. A GT3 car is going through Eau Rouge at 200 kilometers an hour, 125 miles an hour, at least. Uh oh. Alex MacDowall in the #78 leading Silver Cuip0 Lambo is off. An Aston rotates and the Porsche spins in sympathy, and ker-runch! The Aston Martin also spins at the top of Raidillon. There's loads of debris up there.
Daniel Allemann, the Swiss driver, and his team mates, are out of this race it seems. The track limits at that section are looked at cautiously. Track limits have been a bugaboo all weekend. The back of the Porsche is also smashed. The basic shell can be reconstituted, but that thing has had the suspension ripped off like the wishbone on a chicken to paraphrase Mr. John Watson's commentary. Barwell are out of this thing. It does not look too damaged bu they won't get that car back I don't think.
No comments:
Post a Comment