8 Hours of Portimao: Hour 3

Over the course of this stint, Conway has been 3/10ths of a second faster each lap.  Ferdinand Habsburg and Team WRT lead LMP2 still.  Toyota’s are quick in the twisty bits while the Alpine is fast on the straight.  The Alpine just cut the fastest final sector time of the race on the previous lap.  Ryan Briscoe has been dinged with a ten second penalty.  Wayne Boyd was bang on schedule for his pit stop for United Autosports. 

Jota and Sean Gelael cycle to the lead in LMP2.  Charles Milesi is now driving the WRT car.  Wayne Boyd sharing the United Autosport car with Phil Hanson and Fabio Scherer.  We are less than two and a half hours into the race out of eight.  Andre Negrao hits the pit lane and the Toyota’s resume in the lead of this motor race.  Dennis Andersen and Louis Deletraz remain in their respective cars while Job van Uitert, he gets into the Racing Team Nederland automobile.

Alpine has physically less fuel going into the car.  Juan Pablo Montoya takes over from Henrik Hedman at DragonSpeed.  The D’Station Aston Martin is slow and Satoshi Hoshino pulls off the road.  Maybe that car has boiled the engine.  The engine has overheated.  It stalls and the radiator was the culprit for the car after the contact with the beleaguered Glickenhaus in it’s first race.  Now, the car can be recovered to safety.  Game over for triple seven.  Pit stops for both Jota Sport cars, the #38 and the #28.  Wayne Boyd could take the lead here and he does. 

Roberto Gonzalez is back into the car after Anthony Davidson did his first stint.  We see double yellows at turn nine at the top fo the hill while the marshals work to clear Hoshino san out of the way.  Game over, in the gravel trap.  Thank you very much.  Good night.  Game over.  No drive today for Andrew Watson.  Mike Conway leading Brendon Hartley.  94 laps on the board.  United Autosports leads LMP2 and is fourth overall, as the Glickenhaus is being repaired, the clutch still not working, two and a half hours completed and a long, long way to go.  Are we there yet?

We are going through the order in LMP2.  Scott Andrews chases Augusto Farfus in GTE Am.  Aston Martin vs. Ferrari.  Dylan Pereira being lapped by both Roberto Lacorte and Giancarlo Fisichella in GTE Am.  That car is struggling for stint long pace.  Giancarlo Fisichella moves past Roberto Lacorte like a rat up a drainpipe.  Giancarlo Fisichella is the new GTE Am leader.  In LM GTE Pro, Neel Jani in the Porsche is the meat in a Ferrari sandwich.  AF Corse have leapfrogged Porsche.  Neel Jani has a final warning for track limits. 

Brendon Hartley is told to keep the pace up, and he surely can do that.  He is showing he is quicker than teammate Mike Conway.  There’s a general lack of respect for blue flags and for trackj limits.  Egidio Perfetti is chasing Michelle Gatting in GTE Am.  She is also racing Ferrari Challenge and that has helped with her general pace.  Car #31 will have a drive through penalty for disrespecting blue flags, according to Edoardo Freitas.  InterEuropol Competition will move up, with Louis Deletraz at the wheel of it.  Deletraz, ironically, drives for WRT in the European Le Mans Series. 

#77 has damage.  Proton Competition is racing a WeatherTech liveried Porsche in IMSA and European Le Mans Series and one of those rear bumpers has gone onto the car.  Jaxon Evans got to drive the car and so did Christian Ried, but no drive today for Matty Campbell.  Tatiana Calderon is scrapping with Mathias Beche.  Richard Mille Racing #1 vs. RealTeam Racing #70.  Roberto Gonzalez pens his hands and Job van Uitert moves past.  Another drive through penalty for Charles Milesi and WRT.  They have had a fraught motor race today.

Dylan Pereira moves past Ben Barker in LM GTE Am.  Aston Martin vs. Porsche, using Roberto Gonzalez and Job van Uitert as picks.  Blind, tight corners, sweepers and more, over the brow again, and downhill again.  Algarve has some great corners.  It is very entertaining to watch a race here.  Drive through penalty for no respect of blue flags for Dylan Pereira.  The blue flag penalties are being overly applied or so it seems.

Alessandro Pier Guidi is warned about abusing track limits.  Meantime, passing, everywhere as RealTeam chases the Richard Mille team.  104 laps now completed by the leaders.  One car out of the race for good.  D’Station, and, Dempsey Proton.  Pit stop time for Fred Makowiecki in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19.  Glickenhaus will be back on track in a half an hour.  The temperatures will plummet like a stone into the evening hours.  Whoa!  A scrap for second in LMP2 as Charles Milesi moves past Louis Deletraz.  That was hairy!  Milesi has the fire in his belly.

Deletraz was on the dirty line.  Toyota are ready for a pit stop while Mike Conway is warned for track limits.  Brendon Hartley takes over the lead.  Conway stops a lap earlier than his teammate.  Fuel and tires.  No driver change.  Probably no tires either.  Mike Conway is doing a double stint, as Brendon Hartley takes the lead, and then he will pit.  An early bath for Proton Porsche.  They are out.  The rear tires are really being worn out on the last corner.  The tires are being completely crucified by the loads in the last turn.

Sofia Floersch will take over the #1 Richard Mille Oreca.  Brendon Hartley in the lane from the lead of the motor race.  This will be tight indeed.  Mike Conway was leading, and he might get it back but the Alpine is there.  Fuel only for Toyota #8 and a new drinks bottle for Brendon Hartley.  The difference for the new Toyota Hypercar, you can hear the engine fire up instead of electric motors with instantaneous power and torque.  Brendon Hartley’s in lap has overcut the #7 as the Toyota’s are in their 100^th World Championship sports car race over 40+ years even before Group C in the 1980s.

Porsche #88 is in the lane and Julien Andlauer of France takes over the wheel.  Tatiana Calderon spins all on her own, dropping the wheel onto the curbs.  She kept her eyes open and checked for an incoming car.  She’s jolly lucky she didn’t get beached.  Dominique Bastien has run 48 laps in his stints as Job van Uitert has argy bargy with Louis Deletraz I believe.  Alpine are four seconds quicker in the lane.  Porsche #92, Neel Jani, got squeezed.  #1 in the lane.  Sophia Floersch is replacing Tatiana Calderon.

The Glickenhaus is back on track.  Sophia Floersch will do a double stint.  Louis Deletraz has lost time and had a penalty for abusing track limits.  Dylan Pereira is in the lane as Wayne Boyd leads the LMP2 class at United Autosport.  The Glickenhaus is back on track with a new clutch.  They will have to look at the clutch and the gearbox before the next races.  There is not a whole lot with the setup of the Glickenhaus they can chage before the 24 Hours of Le Mans in August.  The car is homologated.  You can apply for performance and reliability.  Romain Dumas at the controls.

The Glickenhaus has not been built for serviceability.  Audi, they were able to build a feature of reliability and serviceability into their cars.  The Audi team engineered their replacement parts and laid them out at Joest Racing right in the same place, all the time.  Hour three in the bag.