24 Hours of Spa Hour 17

The gap now is 40 seconds between the #90 Mad Panda Mercedes and the #159 Garage 59 Aston Martin.  Everywhere you look on the circuit is full of debris and rubber clag all over the place.  More rain may come at the end of the motor race.  We shall see.  We are now looking at the #32 WRT Audi and are about to hear from WRT team boss Vincent Vosse.  Vosse says with eight hours left, nothing is certain.  The strategy will play a major part in the race.  He acknowledges how quick the Ferrari and the Aston Martin are, even though Audi has had a race that has been clean and gone according to plan.  Vincent Vosse is a man to keep his cards close to his chest.  But you know that the team has an air of confidence.

We will soon be reaching the last quarter of this race.  54^th to second, by the #32 Audi, playing the strategy game.  Now then, Race Director Alain Adam announces yet another drive through penalty for track limits abuse.  That is for the #99 Attempto Racing Audi.  We’ve seen this car get pinged for track limits abuse earlier in the race and you would have heard calls for that if you were with us yesterday.  We are also watching the #911 Herberth Motorsports Porsche, currently in the hands of Turkish driver Antares Au.  Manuel Lauck, the German, at the wheel of the #166 Haegeli By T2 Racing Porsche also had a spin in the final corner.

That automobile, the berries and custard special, has had a fraught race so far.  Manuel Lauck was tagged by another driver who was diving for the pit lane to serve a penalty.  That was in fact Florian Scholze.  I shall check and see which car he’s driving.  It’s been a long night.  So, Nicklas Nielsen continues in the race lead.  Nielsen turns his way up through Les Combes.  This team is owned by former Ferrari GT racer Andrea Piccini.  Ferrari, they have been quick here at the Spa 24 Hours before but have always been fragile.  But, they lead at six hours.  Ka ching.  More points in the bank.  They led at the 12 hour mark, at halfway.  Ka ching.  More points in the bank.  Can they take it all the way?

John Wartique, the Belgian, speaking of Ferrari, but another team (AF Corse), still leads Pro-Am Cup aboard the #52 car.  If Ferrari were to win today, that would make the Tifosi happy!  The German marques have dominated this motor race now for the better part of a decade, and maybe it is time for another brand and another nation to stand atop the podium and score the big trophy, the Coupe du Roi.  We shall see in less than eight hours.  Wartique and company have spun out and had other small issues.  The driver’s side mirror is gone.  Ferrari has been doing well in this race thus far.

Ah.  Another drive through penalty for, you guessed it, abuse of track limits.  This time it is the #38 Jota Sport McLaren, a car we saw in contention earlier, in the overnight hours as dawn was coming.  It is a Ferrari benefit in the Pro-Am class with both Miguel Molina and Eddie Cheever III. Still in the fight in the class.  The #38 has had several penalties throughout this race.  Everyone is driving at the limit.  Well, well.  The penalty was just cancelled.  Very interesting.  Maybe that will disappear from the record.  Race Control will now move on to penalize the #911 Porsche.  Antares Au runs 32^nd in the overall.

Poor old Rob Bell and company, they were on the bubble, and thankfully the Race Director has changed his mind.  We are seeing two cars now, that have incurred the most track limit penalties in this race.  Franco Colapinto at the wheel of the #30 WRT Audi and Ivan Jacoma in the #23 Huber Motorsport Porsche.  Miguel Molina, the vastly experienced Spaniard now runs second in the Pro-Am class in the AF Corse Ferrari #53, the sister car.  Molina drives through Pouhon corner.  Molina sharing with Ducan Cameron, Rino Mastronardi, and Matt Griffin. 

This whole team, all four drivers, are quick in Ferrari’s.  Next up in Pro-Am is the #66 Audi, the Pro-Am Audi Sport Team Attempto Audi R8.  That shows Christopher Mies at the controls, but it may have a transponder glitch and we may be seeing a different driver in that automobile right now.  Eddie Cheever is up next in the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari.  Cheever turns into Campus and goes up through Stavelot, feathering the throttle through Paul Frere Curve, and into Blanchimont.  Directly behind the #93 Ferrari which slides through the awkward final corner, it is the #70 Inception Racing McLaren.  Nicklas Nielsen continues in the lead.  Alessandro Pier Guidi has done some real he man stints.

He says that they have been collecting the points and continuing to push.  Pier Guidi is ready to go for another double stint coming up in a half an hour.  There’s still a really long way to go, and things can still change.  They are just playing the points game and seeing what will happen.  They are here to win the race.  We are still a long, long way to the checkers.  You’ve cracked the first half of the race but are deep in the middle of the second half.  The leading Ferrari, turning out of the La Source hairpin, has now run 373 laps, 1,623 miles.  Tires at the ready for a pit stop for the #93 Sky Tempesta Ferrari.  Everything is looking good for Iron Lynx.  He leads the motor race now by 17.7 seconds over Dries Vanthoor in the #32 WRT Audi.

Rob Bell in the McLaren is eighth overall, running in the same time bracket as the leading Ferrari in the 2:21 range.  Correction, as we have a transponder issue too for the #166 Porsche, and Dennis Busch is at the wheel of it.  Busch, the German is the second driver listed on the entry.  So he is back in for another stint.  We have an international driver lineup and an international audience.  Great to have this car on the grid here at Spa and we don’t see it in GT World Challenge Europe.  These guys usually race in the Crventic 24 Hour Series.  Drive through penalties for track limits to the #11 and #66 cars.  #66 is the Attempto Audi in fourth place. The #11 Ferrari, that is in 25^th overall, the Kessel Racing Ferrari.

We saw smoke earlier from the #25 Audi for Audi Sport Team Sainteloc.  It’s nothing serious.  The #66 Audi has also had a transponder issue and we cannot tell which of the three drivers is in the car now.  It is either Chrsitopher Mies, Dennis Marschall, or Mattia Drudi.  We will assume it is Christopher Mies, a very experienced Audi driver as they dive into Eau Rouge for the 375^th time.  Alexandre Imperatori has moved around Maro Engel.  Porsche vs. Mercedes.  A lot of the German brands have had issues in this race.  Maro Engel has the best placed Mercedes in 11^th overall.  The best of the Porsche’s is Maxime Martin running fifth overall in the #47 KCMG entry.

As for BMW, they’re done and out of contention.  38^th place in the overall is the closest BMW you’ll find and that is the much beleaguered #10 Boutsen Ginion car we talked of earlier in the race.  The best finish for an Italian brand in this motor race dates back in recent memory all the way to 2008.  That is when Maserati won for Vitaphone Racing with Michael Bartels, Andrea Bertolini, Stephane Sarrazin, and Eric van de Poele.  I also should correct myself on an earlier statement.  1954 was not the last Ferrari win here at Spa in the 24 hours.  The most recent Ferrari triumph came in 2004 in the GT1 era.

That was a Ferrari 550 Maranello driven to victory by a quartet of drivers from Italy and Switzerland.  Enzo Calderari, Lilian Bryner, Luca Capellari, and Fabrizio Gollin.  Enzo Calderari and Lilian Bryner may be familiar to American sports car racing fans if you’ve followed the sport for a long period of time because they won in class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, I believe, in a Porsche 911 RSR in around 1996 or so, fully a quarter century ago already!  My gracious!  How time doth fly!  That was a front engine Ferrari, a Ferrari 550 V12 built by Prodrive.

Drive through penalty for car #14, the surviving Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini for the all-Swiss crew of Alex Fontana, Rolf Ineichen, and Ricardo Feller.  Drive through penalties for abusing track limits, coming thick and fast.  #33, abusing track limits.  That’s the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 for Benjamin Hites, David Perel, and Fabrizio Crestani.  Maxime Martin is now in the #47 KCMG Porsche and of course, Laurens Vanthoor is no longer in this car.  He is hurt after he collided on his scooter with an All-Terrain Vehicle.  So the duty is now left to Maxime Martin and Nick Tandy to put the pieces together.

Vanthoor was on a scooter and has face is bruised up and busted up.  He will be very disappointed.  The strategists shall be on top of their drive time minute by minute.  The strategy will be up in the air and the race tacticians for that team will really have to go for it.  Maxime Martin is a racing hero here in Belgium, his home country.  This Porsche runs fifth in the overall right now.  Martin needs to be back on the lead lap and right now he is a lap down.  It will be very difficult for him to get the lap back.  That’s the downside of one of these races.  You just cannot hope to get a lap back.  The Full Course Yellow and safety car period just didn’t come at the right time for some teams.

One of the cars that lost out is the now retired #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes with that broken shock absorber.  There were sparks all over the place, screaming through Eau Rouge at high speed.  Another drive through penalty for Huber Motorsports, the #23 Porsche we have talked about.  #33 cuts across a car to head to the lane for serving the penalty.  Yikes!  That’s a situation that could indeed cause an incident.  Max Hofer, the Austrian, driving for Attempto Racing will gain a spot in Silver Cup, currently fourth in class aboard the #99 Audi R8.  Hofer will move ahead of Benja Hites.  Max Hofer, another experienced GT racer in European championship and German Championship competition, as well as in TCR Europe.

Track limits are being fully enforced in modern motor racing more than they ever have been, and some drivers just still don’t get the message that they must stay within the boundaries.  A decade ago, 20 years ago, we never heard a word about track limits.  The track is defined by white lines.  You can run with two wheels on the curb, but all four wheels is a penalty.  Track limits are here to stay.  They won’t be going away anytime soon.  Ten track limit warnings against the #33 car and 11 against the #23.  Don’t talk to me about track limits because I get feisty.

Benja Hites is now 16^th in the overall.  Hites has been passed by Hofer.  Drive through penalty now for the #2 GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3 for speeding in pit lane.  Eighth is now Rob Bell in McLaren #38.  He has run behind the leading Ferrari, the #51 car.  He has gained on Nicklas Nielsen even though the two of them are not in any way racing each other.  If the McLaren had not been down the order, they surely would have been in the fight for overall honors.  Now, a quick word about retired cars that we no longer see on track.  The #3 Porsche of which Michael Christensen was one of the drivers, they are out of the race after contact with the barriers at Eau Rouge.  That was the #3 Schnabl Engineering Porsche 911 GT3R of Dennis Olsen, Michael Christensen, and Fred Makowiecki.  We also lost Porsche #22, the GPX Martini Racing entry for Matt Campbell, Earl Bamber, and Matthieu Jaminet.  The front axle broke and that led to a steering failure on the car.

Now we see the #95 Aston Martin in the pit lane.  That car is third in the overall and has the fastest lap of this motor race thus far.  We lost the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, the winning car and team from here at Spa back in 2018.  David Pittard the Brit was driving it at the time, sharing with Sheldon van der Linde of South Africa (Kelvin van der Linde’s brother), and Marco Wittmann of Germany.  We also lost the sister Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW, the #35 car with suspension dramas.  Timo Glock, Martin Tomczyk, and Thomas Neubauer, they’re out of it. 

We lost the #19 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini due to crash damage and the lights not working.  So, the quartet of Bertrand Baguette of Belgium, Hiroshi Yamaguchi of Japan, Stefano Constantini of Italy, and Phil Keen from England, have long since departed the motor race.  An alternator needed to be changed on the #54 Dinamic Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R.  We wonder if after spending more than an hour in pit lane, if Matteo Cairoli from Italy, along with Klaus Bachler from Austria and Christian Engelhart from Germany, if those boys will get back out.  Clemens Schmid also has damage that we saw sustained earlier to the #16 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini.  So, it may be day done for Schmid and co-drivers Tim Zimmerman, Kikko Galbiati, and Alberto Maria Di Folco.

So all the top three and most cars have done their technical pit stops.  So we are just looking now at a series of routine pit stops including four Pirelli tires all the way around on the #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 as it sits in the lane.  Check that.  It looks like #25, is now undergoing it’s technical stop because they are fueling the car and new wheels and tires have not been put on it yet.  There are the dollies being put under the car and so, now they will serve their technical pit stop.  Drive through penalty for the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes for (yes, you’ve guessed it), abusing track limits.  Lucas Auer at the controls.

Audi can now release the caliper from the hub to remove the brake disc without having to take the quick disconnect lines off.  Brake changes used to be a lot longer if you had to bleed the system out or put a clamp on the brake lines so you wouldn’t lose brake fluid and subsequently brake pressure.  More importantly you didn’t want air in the brake lines when you reconnected everything.  Maxime Martin is in the lane now too.  Dennis Lind in eighth spot at the wheel of the #37 Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8, will gain another spot.  More penalties for track limits.  This time, the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari.  Eddie Cheever III., will lose third place in Pro-Am to the very rapid Sandy Mitchell.  Mitchell at the keyboard of the #77 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini.

The Pro-Am leading #52 Ferrari is in the lane for service.  John Wartique got out. And so there has likely already been a driver change as a crewman removes yet another tear off from the windscreen on that car.  Maxime Martin is in the lane as well in the Porsche, the #47 KCMG car as a mechanic is clambering atop the bonnet to clean the windscreen, look.  It will be Martin and Tandy having to press on to the end of the motor race.  The sun rises in the east with loads of cloud cover hovering above Spa.  So, there’s no rain in the short term.  We may see rain before the end of the race this afternoon.  Mirko Bortolotti is fourth looking to get back on the lead lap.  An incident between the #63 Lamborghini and the #3 Porsche will be investigated after the race, so, seven and a half hours from now.

Now we know which car in the night the #3 machine tagged.  If it is a post-race investigation, that will take longer.  The car came to a standstill at the bottom of Eau Rouge.  The stewards are working out flat out like lizards drinking.  Drivers with the GPS mapping of the cars on the circuit, have an invisible wall around them, a wall that they cannot see.  It does exist.  It is a similar deal to the timing transponder.  There’s a whole team of marshals going through track limits in another office.  A beam is broken to tell you if you are outside of track limits.  We could be on for a track limits violations record. 

Ah.  We talked about Florian Scholze earlier and I had totally forgotten which car he was driving.  Well, it is the #2 GetSpeed Mercedes of course, that he shares with Jim Pla, Olivier Grotz, and Nico Bastian.  Alexandre Imperatori is right behind Florian Scholze in the #18 KCMG Porsche.  That car dropped in time early but is coming back into the race.  Imerpatori just about slows it down and almost gets caught out in the final corner as the Mercedes’, some of them, hit the pit lane.  Speaking of Mercedes, now we watch the #4 car for Mercedes-AMG Team HRT currently in tenth spot with Maro Engel at the controls.  This is a car we expected to see doing a wee bit better.    

They just have not been in contention.  More track limits abusers, and both, Mercedes AMG GT3’s.  We have the #87 AKKA ASP machine and the #69 Ram Racing car as well.  Iron Lynx are ready to pit again.  They have had a bittersweet race.  They are leading with the #51 and of course their sister car #71 went out in a colossal crash yesterday.  Davide Rigon, the top driver in that automobile, he is back at the circuit watching, but with a back brace on as he took a hard lick yesterday.  Glad he is here at the track again.  Pit stop time for the race leader.  A driver change it looks like.  Kevin Estre is also back here at the track.  Ditto for the #32 WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor.  The top two cars enter the pit lane on lap 382, 1,662 miles completed.

The stints have been 27 or so laps for both the leading cars.  So, the order will remain the same here after these pit stops.  27 laps = a stint of 117 and a half miles.  Drive through penalty for the #10 BMW.  Nick Tandy says Laurens Vanthoor has had an accident in the paddock overnight after colliding with something on his scooter and faceplanting into the tarmac.  He is OK.  But his face is a mess.  So, Nick Tandy and Maxime Martin ought to be OK on drive time.  It is a maximum of 14 hours for one driver with a three hour and 15-minute stint length before an hour’s rest.  The 24 Hours of Spa is one of the toughest on the driver.

Tracks like Le Mans and Daytona have spots on the road where the driver can rest and ease up on the driving through a certain portion of the lap.  That’s not the case here at Spa, however.  Everything is running well at KCMG with Nick Tandy and Maxime Martin.  Just to add to the drama, a fan reports in there is light drizzle on the downhill run to Eau Rouge just past the endurance pit lane.  A couple of Lamborghini’s are coming out of the pit lane here.  Marco Mapelli is one and Sandy Mitchell is the other.  Mapelli is down a lap now but the two drive through penalties they’ve had, have put them on the back foot. 

The gap between the leading #51 Ferrari and the second place #32 Audi has ballooned to 14 seconds.  We know Ferrari’s are fast, but it is amazing how strong they’ve been so far, especially the #51.  We’ve seen Ferrari’s in winning places but never going for the overall win.  In 2021, this race has had a different feel.  The Iron Lynx Ferrari is at the performance edge, and the car is running perfectly.  They’ve found a rhythm.  Could another Full Course Yellow allow the Audi to close in again?  The Iron Lynx team is new at this level.  Oh wow!  We have breaking development!  The #2 GetSpeed Mercedes, which was just in the lane for a penalty, has now retired.  Nico Bastian was at the wheel when the car was withdrawn and retired from this motor race.

The gap is now up to 15.8 seconds.  I toculd be traffic and Dries Vanthoor, the Belgian, leads Marco Sorensen by 37 seconds while Maxime Martin is a lap down in the top placed Porsche followed by Marco Mapelli, Dennis Lind, and Christopher Mies.  Only three cars are on the lead lap.  Game over for Matteo Cairoli and the #54 Dinamic Motorsports Porsche.  Cairoli and co-driver’s Klaus Bachler and Christian Engelhart, out of race with alternator trouble.  389 laps complete, 1,693 miles.  Alessandro Pier Guidi leads Dries Vanthoor while Fabian Schiller in the Ram Racing Mercedes has a drive through penalty.  Anyone who has lost a lap, might not be able to make it up unless we get rain in these last seven hours or so.

Christopher Mies braved the rain showers yesterday, on slicks!  That was a brave drive.  That’s taking a lot of risks you as the driver cannot control.  Maxime Martin is ahead of Marco Mapelli by only a second and a half.  Mapelli has a good pace.  The gap is closing as Maxime Martin is being eaten up by Senore Mapelli.  The Porsche with Martin at the controls will pit earlier than will the Lamborghini.  The gap between first and second has now grown to 16.8 seconds.  The Ferrari is quicker than the opposition, but it is also using less fuel.  Speaking of Ferrari’s, Chris Froggatt in the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3, he is in fact on the last track limits warning that automobile has before he has to serve a drive through penalty and make his way to ye olde sin bin.

The gap is shrinking between Martin and Mapelli.  9/10ths of a second.  So, Mapelli ought to pass any second now.  He must wonder where he can find a place to pass.  They sweep through Eau Rouge and up the hill.  Martin has not lost any time.  Into Les Combes, and you’ve not seen a change.  Maybe just 2/10ths of a second at most.  Martin has lapped traffic in the way, a Ferrari.  Maxime Martin will be peeved by having that Ferrari in the way.  The Balance of Performance means clearing a backmarker that is well driven, is really tought.  Mapelli tries easing through that door, as the doppelganger into Fangnes.  No dice there, mate. 

He sweeps down past the Ferrari into Campus corner.  A net gain for Mapelli.  They were delayed by contact and their two drive through penalties.  Avoidable contact, but the Schnabl Racing Porsche team has filed a protest to look at the incident when this race ends.  The Lambo is a lap down to the Ferrari and a second behind.  The Ferrari has the pace and in the process is using less petrol.  Mapelli is now within striking distance of the Porsche.  Martin is a former Spa 24 Hours winner and he won’t let the Lamborghini pass without a fight.

Martin gets balked through Speaker’s corner and down into Pouhon.  Can he slide down the inside?  No.  It is too big a risk to lob the car into Fangnes another time.  This is a four wheeled chess game.  Too much of a good thing, maybe.  Everyone is on the limit.  No one is leaving a damn thing on the table here.  The lead Ferrari is doing things that are spot on, and the other drivers and other cars are just driving the wheels off their cars and can’t get by.  However, you just never know what is around the bend in these endurance races.  No one can predict anything.  You just have to survive, and that is why this whole deal is called endurance racing.

18.8 seconds is the gap from first to second now.  Mapelli has caught the Poresche but he cannot pass.  The Lambo may be faster than the Porsche, but the cars are so evenly matched on acceleration and straight-line performance.  Mapelli si doing all in his power to find the advantage and just can’t make it work.  Almost a move made for Marco Mapelli.  Martin must go defensive.  He really does, as they scream down the hill and back up the other side.  That move didn’t work the right way.  We have an interview coming up with Mirko Bortolotti and we’ll see what he has to say about all of this.

24 Hours of Spa Hour 16

We are now 2/3rds of the way through this year’s 24 Hours of Spa.  The Porsche that we saw pass Pierburg, he was a tenth or two of a second quicker than the Mercedes man, and so, Pierburg wisely decides discretion is the better part of valor and lets him through.  Stay sensible, chaps.  Stay sensible.  Valentin Pierburg also had to know Rik Breukers in the Mad Panda Motorsport Mercedes was there, and Breukers, the Dutchman, should be coming to the end of his stint by now before handing over to one of his co-drivers.  We can see the SPS Automotive Mercedes still had globs of tire clag on the windscreen.  The drivers don’t really notice that.

A fresh tearoff at the next pit stop will be essential.  The latest track limits warning is given to the #911 Herberth Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R.  Robert Renauer is at the wheel of it, sharing with his brother Alfred Renauer, and their co-drivers are Antares Au of Turkey, and Switzerland’s Daniel Allemann.  The driver who is in the car at the time, a given number of warnings are accumulated, will have to cop the penalty if he wants to or not.  Let’s hope we have no worries with track limits.  But you can never tell.  We are currently following the #63 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini with Mirko Bortolotti behind the wheel. 

Nicklas Nielsen leads this motor race now by some 40 seconds.  Bortolotti has been stymied by penalties and other things throughout this race, chasing Rob Bell in the McLaren, the #38 Jota Sport machine ahead in seventh.  No worries with the car as far as the Lamborghini is concerned.  Ferrari #51 and Lamborghini #63 have had pace in every segment of this motor race so far since we began racing 15+ hours ago.  A number of drive-through penalties have really stymied the Lamborghini, but they could still get back into the fight.  Nicklas Nielsen’s gap over Kelvin van der Linde has balanced out and he has gained 5/10ths of a second on the most recent lap.  Oscar Tunjo, the Venezuelan driver, has brought the #7 Toksport WRT Mercedes into the pit lane and the team is undergoing their mandatory brake change.

Rob Bell is running well in McLaren#38 for Jota Sport, but Mirko Bortolotti is catching him hand over fist, and fast.  Markus Winkelhock is also being caught at a rate of knots.  He has the #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 next up in sixth place as Nicklas Nielsen has now posted the fastest first sector time of the #51 Ferrari.  The cars are getting closer to pit stop time, as the window is closing in.  Their tires are ratty, and the fuel tanks are running dry as this stint draws to a close and another shall start as soon as service is completed.  The #63 Lamborghini could have a scratched windscreen, and that is how it appears from the onboard camera. 

Both Bortolotti and Bell are catching Markus Winkelhock as we speak.  Constant adjustments through the sweeper and into the final chicane, the Bus Stop.  They are not clattering the curbs like they did during Super Pole, nursing the car home to the end of the race.  Nicklas Nielsen is a lap up on the Rob Bell driven Jota McLaren.  Finally, finally, finally, Jules Gounon has been told to bring the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes to the garage, and the mechanics are getting a good hard look at the suspension damage on that automobile.  We’ve wondered and wondered when they’d bring that car into the lane and into the garage.

With the busted suspension, Gounon has been driving consistently.  A new shock absorber is finally going to be installed on that car and boy howdy, has it needed it!  Spot on.  We’ve diagnosed it right and that was hours ago.  Now, they have a shock absorber ready, but from Jules Gounon’s resigned facial expression and giving a hug to his crew members, it might just now be game over for the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes!  Oh dear!  How depressing!  The pole sitting car is out of this race.  Either the repairs they wanted to do will take too long, or the prolonged running with the broken shock, has done too much damage to the suspension and/or the underside of that car.

So, with the retirement of the #88 Mercedes, this will promote the #159 Garage 59 Aston Martin to third spot.  Nicklas Nielsen in the lead of the motor race has been cutting consistent laps in the 2:21 bracket while Mirko Bortolotti is eighth, but now that #88 is parked, they will move up a place.  Audi still has the most cars in the top ten with four.  There’s still one each from Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche, and Aston Martin.  That blended candy dish of makes and still present as the cars fly through Eau Rouge again.  One of the other Mercedes’ has some slightly damaged bodywork but it isn’t bad.  Nicklas Nielsen’s lead has increased now to 42.6 seconds.

Jules Gounon says that the broken damper happened four hours into the race.  They had no opportunity under Full Course Yellow to fix the damper and he says, “the damper is bent completely out of shape.  It is broken.”  The team has never had this issue.  They’ve been preparing for this race all year.  They will have to come back in 2022 and try again.  Their pace was amazing, but it is really tough to push through Eau Rouge with a broken shock.  Gounon knew he had to take risks to stay on the lead lap, and that’s how motorsports is.  It is a love/hate relationship.  Gounon says the car was easy to drive until the trouble hit them with the damper.

Loads on the left side of the car with a bent shock for four hours.  Absolutely unreal.  Jules Gounon is very good with describing how things are, just like his dad Jean Marc Gounon.  It would have been very scary to drive that car, and very uncomfortable.  Through the La Source hairpin goes the Lamborghini, and then up through Eau Rouge and a wee bit sideways there, look in the middle of the corner.  The undertray is scuffing along the pavement as Mirko Bortolotti is still catching Rob Bell.  Meantime, Rob Bell is closing in fast on Markus Winkelhock.  Nothing in this three-way scrap has changed all that much.

Bortolotti is pushing hard and giving Rob Bell absolute fits!  Half a tire is enough to stay within the boundaries of track limits, but Rob Bell has received a final warning from the stewards, incurring their ire.  So, if he goes off the road again, he’ll be headed for the sin bin, for a drive through penalty in the pit lane.  He must watch his step, trying to move around those cars ahead of him.  Bell cleanly moves past one of the lapped Ferrari’s.  Not sure which one he just went around.  Can’t quite pick out the number even though it is daylight now.

Bell in his earlier stint described the fog and mist as being a real hindrance.  Ferrari #51 still in the lead of this motor race.  But Nicklas Nielsen now has just 40 seconds in hand over Kelvin van der Linde.  All seems well for Nielsen at this point.  He could very well be in the catbird seat.  But being in the catbird seat is nothing you can really affirm with just under nine hours to go in one of these 24-hour races.  A large slice of luck is truly necessary.  As the old saying goes “it’s not over ‘til it’s over.”  In clear track, you ask for another second and may receive.  Traffic giveth.  Traffic taketh away.  Safety cars giveth.  Safety cars taketh away.

We’ve said it numerous times in numerous races because it holds true, for both sprint and endurance format sports car races.  That is motorsport and the story of a 24 hour race.  Into the compression at Eau Rouge, Kelvin van der Linde moves past the #7 Toksport WRT Mercedes.  That car runs 22^nd in the overall with Marvin Dienst at the keyboard right now.  We can see down the Kemmel straightaway back towards Raidillon.  That’s a relief.  The drivers are dlashing their lights at slower cars to tell them they are coming through.  We’ve seen a lot of drive through penalties for speeding in the lane, and speak of the devil, we have another.

This is the #61 EBM Giga Racing Porsche.  Nicklas Nielsen does not have to take many risks leading this motor race.  Car #23, the Porsche of Huber Motorsports in the Am class is hanging right in there.  They are still running behind the #166 Haegell by T2 Racing Porsche.  We don’t know who is at the wheel of #23 at the present time.  But, the team has Jacob Schell of Germany sharing with countryman Nico Menzel, and two Swiss drivers, Ivan Jacoma, and Nicolas Leutwiler.  Glad to see Jens Liebhauser of Germany at the wheel of the #10 Boutsen Ginion BMW M6 GT3 still in the motor race after his earlier scare with a flat tire.  The German is currently running 41^st in the overall.

That was the car we saw earlier on with a collapsed left rear suspension.  Thought at the time they’d retire, but thank heavens, they are back in the motor race.  Louis Machiels brings the #52 AF Corse Ferrari to pit lane for scheduled service.  He is leading in the Pro-Am division, running 16^th in the overall.  We should see the race leading #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari in the pit lane momentarily as the lollipop man is preparing to signal the car into the lane.  They might pit next time by.  The “Roar” livery we saw on the #10 Boutsen Ginion BMW, was penned and sketched by the same artist who draws and writes the Michel Vaillante comic book, the story of a French racing driver which was also turned into a cartoon series and a movie.

Rob Bell steadily closing.  The #63 Lamborghini is clawing back lost time as well.  Speaking of Lamborghini’s, in the pit lane we have the #77 car, the Barwell Motorsports example of a Lamborghini Huracan.  Miguel Ramos of Portugal currently behind the wheel.  They have a stop scheduled and may have a penalty to serve.  The #47 KCMG Porsche is in the lane now, from fifth spot.  Rob Bell should pass the KCMG car which of course is being shared by Nick Tandy, Laurens Vanthoor, and Maxime Martin.  Oh dear!  More trouble for the #16 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini! 

Austria’s Clemens Schmid has nosed that car into the barrier!  He’s stopped there, and this will scramble the safety car for sure.  We saw Tim Zimmerman have a big crash in this car during practice or qualifying and we’ve seen it in strife at other points earlier on in the race as well.  Barwell just made their pit stop and we will see if anyone else ducks for the lane.  We are going to have either a safety car or a Full Course Yellow.  Duncan Cameron may have taken over the #52 AF Corse Ferrari from Louis Machiels on their pit stop.  We cannot be sure of that, however.

Check that.  Duncan Cameron is driving the sister car, #53.  John Wartique was the driver to take over the #52 entry.  We have a Full Course Yellow coming.  Alain Adam should be giving the orders as the marshals lceran up the Lamborghini.  We do have a Full Course Yellow on the signboards.  Rob Bell brings in the #38 Jota Sport McLaren.  We’ve also seen the race leader in the lane, the #51 Ferrari for Iron Lynx.  We can see that #38 are taking their long pit stop, their technical pit stop, for changing brakes, right now.  This Full Course Yellow is a blessing for those boys.  They didn’t want to do the tech pit stop under green flag conditions.  Team boss at Jota, Sam Hignett will be breathing a huge sigh of relief!

Ditto for the leader, the #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari.  They have 42 seconds in hand over second spot at this moment.  Some pit stops have been calm.  Frantic action for Iron Lynx, who are very much new to the game of endurance sports car racing.  They have been racing here in SRO, and in other championships in Europe, and have come from being purveyors of and running a racing school.  Kelvin van der Linde has the #32 Audi in the lane, as we watch the marshals craning away the #16 Lamborghini.  So, Rob Bell is in the lane in the Jota McLaren, or he was, and so is the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes of Lucas Auer.  That is the car they will focus on, since their favorite for the win, their favored entry #88 is now out of the race.

The #32 Audi is now on the dollies going into the garage for the brake change, for their technical pit stop.  Nicklas Nielsen has completed his pit stop, and he is down off the air jacks, and away back into the race.  He is clear to go.  Go, go, go!  Again, #32 is in for their brake change.  The sister car did not want to do that pit stop until the brakes were really, really worn down.  #37, they were waiting for a Full Course Yellow to minimize the damage but could not do so. #32 is now waiting to rejoin the race and it’s agonizing waiting for the cars to come out of the pit lane, and they are on the 60 kilometer per hour pit speed limit.  Kelvin van der Linde was clear to go as they are right at pit out.

We remain under Full Course Yellow here at Spa Francorchamps with a shade over eight and a half hours of the race to go.  The technical pit stop is timed, and WRT undertook their brake change so fast that they had to wait before they were in fact clear to exit the lane.  The actual technical stop is timed for four minutes, but most of the teams can just go bish, bash, bosh, and get the pads and rotors for the brakes changed in two minutes.  Into the daytime on Sunday morning, slow speeds trundling ‘round behind the safety car looks pedestrian compared to full chat motor racing.

It rained briefly, a brief and heavy shower yesterday afternoon.  But we did not have overnight rain at Spa for the first time in a long while.  We’ve had a lot of clean racing and fewer retirements than we expected from this originally 58 car field.  Rob Bell is ninth in the overall a lap down.  But he is running right behind Nicklas Nielsen.  Pit stop time here, look, for the #159 Aston Martin.  Valentin Haase-Clot is in the car, and they are going for a brake change as well.  They will make that pit stop, but how much longer will the yellow stay out?  The #16 GRT Grasser Lamborghini has indeed been moved. 

Also, into the pit lane comes the #31 WRT Audi.  Anyone taking a stop now is really risking it before we go green and might have to wait a bit to take their technical stop to change brakes.  There are other cars behind it in their pit stalls.  Eight and a half hours to go.  It is incredible that Dries Vanthoor has made up 52 places throughout this motor race.  We have seen the #51 and #63 cars heroically leading and it’s a dang shame that the #88 Mercedes is out of the motor race after it’s broken shock absorber.  Hat a horrid shame.  So, one of the Lamborghini’s exits the lane.  Good morning.  Grab a Belgian waffle with either butter, sugar, or maybe berries and whipped cream, or maybe even honey, and join us for the conclusion of this great race.

We still have over 1/3^rd of it to go.  The track is dry but it is full of tire debris.  Race Director Alain Adam now calls for safety car procedure to be followed.  If you are the race leader, a lot of your advantage you’ve built up will be eaten into.  Now, we are under yellow because Valentin Pierburg who we were singing praises of earlier, he has beached it in the gravel trap and the #20 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes with sponsorship from Richard Mille watches, he must be rescued.  He just spun on his own accord, but the rear wheels are going to dig into that gravel trap and he’s going to be buried if he’s not careful.

He just spun it, running slowly around the racetrack.  Just ran out of talent there for a wee while.  OK.  OK.  When I said ran out of talent, I was only joking.  The power of that big V8, just whipped poor old Valentin Pierburg around and now he’s just sitting there.  The fog is cleared up and the sun is reappearing.  The track is warming up and the lap times will be coming down soon.  We welcome back our mates David Addison and John Watson to the broadcast booth and say farewell to Bruce Jones and Charlie Butler-Henderson who have done yeoman service through the night.  There’s a bunch to catch up on, and we have ended a safety car period.

A number of cars have lost laps because of making their mandatory technical pit stop under green flag conditions.  Ferrari #51 with Nicklas Nielsen driving still leads.  The battle for sixth spot is heating up like crazy as Patric Niederhauser at the wheel of the #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc, he is having the blowtorch applied by Mirko Bortolotti in the #63 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini.  Bortolotti is pressing hard to get a lap back.  Niederhauser and Bortolotti are both a lap down.  But these two chaps, are stuck, look, in the traffic, right on top of each other.  This field is still stacked up on the restart like a plate of those famous Belgian waffles we talked about earlier.

There’s no rom for the whipped cream on that plate or these guys would be running into each other.  Poor old Niederhauser gets wrong footed in the traffic and almost gets mugged by Senore Bortolotti!  Wow!  Whoa!  Even more action, as someone is way off the road!  Who was the chap who got clipped there?  That was the much beleaguered #23 Porsche or so it appeared.  Dennis Lind in the #37 WRT Audi, he is pressing hard to try and move around Mirko Bortolotti.  We saw Lind in this race last fall press really hard but it came to naught after he retired.  This year could be a different story.  Bortolotti wants by but can’t quite make it.  The top three cars are scampering away because they are on the lead lap compared to this shemozzle, we’re seeing in the latter half of the top ten or top dozen.

Traffic in the way at the last chicane which used to be called The Bus Stop.  Niederhauser, Bortolotti, and Lind, these three are the ones scrapping for a position.  Bortolotti is holding firm and not letting “Dennis, The Menace” Lind get by.  We can see loads of junk on the side of the road.  Lind is right on Bortolotti’s six.  He is going for it big time!  Everyone is running flat out even through traffic.  Up through Raidillon they go.  Bortolotti just didn’t have the oomph to pass and poor old Niederhauser is trapped in traffic.  Niederhauser knows his next target is the #47 KCMG Porsche, currently in the hands of former Spa 24 Hours race winner, Maxime Martin. 

Niederhauser’s Audi is smoking and could be losing pace.  We don’t know if that is a tire rub on the right rear fender, or, if it is a fluid leak such as oil spewing out the back of the car.  It began when the Audi came through Bruxelles and then into Speaker’s corner.  If that is bodywork rubbing, it could cut a tire.  Lind is all over Niederhauser like a cheap suit now.  Bortolotti passes Maxime Martin and gets him out of the traffic.  Wait.  Let me correct myself.  Bortolotti will now be going after Maxime Martin and trying to catch and pass him.  That is what we may see happen here before long. 

Laurens Vanthoor has tweeted that he had an accident in the pit lane of some sort.  We will have to find out what that is all about.  Laurens Vanthoor has been taken to the hospital with some cuts and wounds to his face.  So, now, this will put the KCMG Porsche team in a pickle because Maxime Martin and Nick Tandy will have to run the rest of this race as a duo, just like the old days, when these 24-hour races were completed usually by a tandem of only two drivers.  For many years that is how this race was run, and the Spa 24 Hours was no exception from it’s beginnings in 1924 up until the last time a duo won, 40 years ago in 1981.  That was a Mazda RX7 driven to victory by Tom Walkinshaw and Pierre Dieudonne.

Other legendary duos have won this race before too.  Just look at the winners’ chart.

https://www.totalenergies24hours.com/winners

Which trio will we add to that today?  We’re not done yet and we’ll have to find out.  We wish Laurens Vanthoor well.  He hit an ATV, a quad bike, while riding his scooter through the paddock and there was a wreck there, a fender bender.  Bortolotti is being monstered by Dennis Lind right now.  He is really pushing hard through Speaker’s corner and Bortolotti is pushing really haerd but into the Fangnes corner, he might just be on the wrong side of the road.  Just be patient.  Don’t force the issue.  Work it out, and understand the racetrack.  So, Mirko Bortolotti now runs ahead of Alexandre Imperatori who is at the wheel of the sister KCMG Porsche, the #18 car.

The Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini had two drive through penalties during the night.  Bortolotti has a clear road while Dennis Lind is three cars back and he is still slicing and dicing his way through traffic.  Alexandre Imperatori is looking to pass Valentin Pierburg who we saw quite literally trapped in a gravel trap earlier on.  Up the hill they go again toward Raidillon and then back down the hill.  Bortolotti’s most recent lap was 2 minutes and 22 seconds.  Nikki Thiim’s lap time set during the nighttime hours, at 2:18 and change remains the fastest lap of the motor race thus far.

Ross Gunn is in the Aston Martin.  Ross Gunn is half a minute down on Dries Vanthoor.  Rob Bell, we can see he is running ninth in the overall in McLaren #38.  Bell is two laps down after a drive through penalty and being wrongfooted during the safety car scramble.  The gap from first to second in 13 or so seconds.  #51, the leading Ferrari has now run 366 laps, 1,593 miles.  The top end of the pit lane is lonely right now.  WRT has new tires out.  Dennis Lind is due in to finish his stint and he has three minutes to go.  Dries Vanthoor runs second as he has lost 4/10ths of a second to Nicklas Nielsen, or rather, Nielsen has pulled that gap out.

In comes Dennis Lind into the pit lane.  “Dennis The Menace” will do a double stint.  We also see another WRT Audi, that is the Gulf Oils sponsored machine currently in the hands of the rapid Argentinian Franco Colapinto.  That is the #30 car that Colapinto is sharing with James Pull and Benjamin Goethe.  The screen is cleaned.  Teams have tear off’s on the windscreen but they are only allowed four during the whole of the race.  So cleaning the windscreen is a far better option than wasting all of the tear off’s.  Only two mechanics can do the tires.  Part of the inside of the fender around the rear wheel is released and a few liters of oil also added.

Ross Gunn still runs in third spot as we hear the voice of Race Director Alain Adam on the radio.  “Drive through penalty to car #2, disrespecting track limits.”  That is the GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3.  Florian Scholze at the controls, running way down in 24^th spot.  Ross Gunn is 35 seconds behind, stuck in traffic and losing time.  The Aston is being stymied by Balance of Performance or so it appears.  Now, we have a reset on the fastest trap speeds in Eau Rouge.  So, where we are with that is that Ross Gunn is fastest at 247 kilometers an hour (154 and 3/8ths miles an hour: 154.375), Ollie Milroy in the #70 Inception Racing McLaren at 246 kilometers an hour (153 and ¾ miles an hour, 153.75), Rob Bell at 245 kilometers an hour in the #38 Jota Sport McLaren (153.125 miles an hour), and two cars tied for fifth fastest in the speed traps.

Those are the #87 AKKA ASP Mercedes of Konstantin Tereschenko, and the #159 Garage 59 Aston Martin of Valentin Haase Clot.  Both are racing at 243 kilometers an hour (151.875 miles an hour).  So, just about a three mile an hour spread.  Patric Niederhauser is trying to unlap himself and Ross Gunn does not need the Audi around him.  He is probably saying, “come on, leave me alone!”  Eau Rouge speeds are fractionally down because this track has been pasted for 368 laps.  Alexandre Imperatori wisely lets Ross Gunn through.  Leading the Silver Cup is still the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3, Dutchman Rik Breukers at the controls.

This car has run well with very little drama.  Breukers and Finland’s Patrick Kujala have been the two real hot shoes in this car.  Valentin Hasse Clot who we mentioned in the Aston Martin is second in the Silver Cup division and there’s 1/3^rd of a lap between these two as Hasse Clot, the Frenchman, is doing the chasing.  Through the final two turns they go to start yet another lap here at Spa as the 16^th hour of this motor race winds to a close.  We are starting yet another racing hour right now and they are dwindling down.  Are we there yet?  We’re close.  We’re going to be there before you know it.

 

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 15

In replay, whoa!  We see a Mercedes sweeping up the hill through Eau Rouge, and while doing so, losing a massive chunk of carbon fiber bodywork off the car.  That looks like a rear fender or something that has dislodged itself from the automobile.  Ah yes.  That’s bodywork damage from a left rear wheel arch, the lining of the wheel arch.  That car is the #2 GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3 for Nico Bastian, Florian Scholze, Olivier Grotz, and Jim Pla.  That will decrease the car’s weight a wee bit.  It is right at the back of the shot we see now that another lap has started.  Still tremendous tire clag at the top of the hill into Les Combes.  Poor old Jim Pla is down in 29^th overall but running decently despite the bodywork damage.

Under ten hours to go now.  14 hours in the bag.  We lost four cars from this race after nine or ten laps.  We lost other cars due to some mechanical woes.  Of the 58 cars that started this race, only ten or so have officially retired, and so, that still leaves 48 entries in the field.  Ricardo Feller in the Emil Frey Lamborghini is running consistently but not quite in the place where he wants to be, as he is down in 36^th place overall.  We are now following, in the Silver Cup, in 31^st spot, the #16 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini, a car we talked about earlier in the race. 

Right now, Kikko Galbiati, the Italian, is at the wheel.  You’ve got to enjoy driving in this race.  Hang on, folks.  We have a Full Course Yellow coming up.  Race Director Alain Adam frantically gets on the radio.  “Full Course Yellow in ten seconds!  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Full Course Yellow now.  It will be a short Full Course Yellow to remove debris in turn three.”  So, turn three, that is that spot we talked about, right at the top of Eau Rouge.  The liner of the wheel arch is retrieved.  “Restart on short notice.”  Any more debris?  There looks to be a fender or something from a Porsche.  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  We are back to green.  Let’s go racing. 

That’s efficiency for you.  It is unusual to have such a short Full Course Yellow.  As a driver, read what you see right in front of you.  Strangely, we just caught a glimpse of the #87 AKKA ASP Mercedes.  We have not seen that car since this race began over 14 hours ago.  But the team of Simon Gachet, Konstantin Tereschenko, Petru Umbrarescu, and Thomas Drouet, those chaps have been plugging away and keeping at it this whole race so far.  They are in the Silver Cup, running 32^nd overall.  Nick Tandy in the #47 KCMG Porsche 911 GT3R, he has moved up to seventh spot, two laps behind the leader, knocking on the door of the top five.

Our leader remains the #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari in the hands of Come Ledogar.  He is a lap up on Kelvin van der Linde in second spot in the #32 WRT Audi.  Robin Frijns in the #37 Audi Sport Team WRT, he is sixth in the overall is the Dutchman.  Black and white warning flag for the #2 Mercedes for not respecting track limits.  That is Jim Pla, the man we just saw going off the road merely minutes ago.  Poor old Jim Pla is having his moments and he is chasing Jonathan Hui in the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari but has Frijns in the #37 Audi right on his back door.  Frijns has been a very busy man, driving.  Nico Muller drove that car earlier in the race. 

We saw Dennis Lind in that car earlier as well when he was stopped at the head of the pit lane.  Look at the official race feed (yours truly is keeping a sharp eye on the video), look at the timing screen to see what the positions are.  This is all a part of knowing who is where in an endurance race.  There’s a lot to look at during one of these races.  Kelvin van der Linde is 48 seconds behind the race leading Ferrari.  Let’s go for a lap around Spa with Kelvin van der Linde.  Through La Source, and down the hill on the run to Eau Rogue.  Third, second, first gear.  Back up through the gearbox.  He is in fifth gear entering Eau Rouge.  Does he lift?  Is he brave not to?  No!  Flat out through Eau Rouge!  That’s commitment!

You can hear the undertray and the side skirts of the car clattering over the pavement.  Sixth gear, as van der Linde is adjusting the air conditioning fan in the car.  Braking, shifting down to third gear, over the curbs taking you down through Fangnes, and Stavelot.  Then, braking again into Brussels corner.  Be patient.  Don’t understeer.  Speaker’s corner, and now, a good exit into the kink, through Pouhon.  OK.  Power back up through these curves as you get closer and closer to the chicane at the end of the lap.  Easy flat through Malmedy it seems.  Kelvin van der Linde has had a very clear lap.  Some oversteer through the chicane compromises the exit.  Back to the front straight.

The light has come back on this Sunday morning.  That was a full lap of Spa in the second place Audi.  Have two screens for this race, one for the video, and one for the living timing and scoring.  Well, well, well.  How about Mad Panda Motorsports?  They’re still your leader in the Silver division, ladies and gentlemen.  They haven’t put a wheel wrong so far.  Rik Breukers in the class lead is 14^th in the overall.  That car is fairly clean.  The Dutchman is running well, thank you.  Although the left side marker light, has been taped up from damage, but you cannot see it on the black and silver livery on that car.  The Mercedes thunders.  The Lamborghini and Audi, and the Ferrari, BMW, and Porsche, are awesome as well.

Much of the tire junk has been blown off the circuit and we have only had an hour or so of rain in this race, too.  It has not been a total deluge like we thought it would be.  We also look at the Am class Porsche, the #23 car.  That is the Huber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R in a combination Swiss and German team.  Jacob Schell sharing with Ivan Jacoma, Nicolas Leutwiler, and Nico Menzel.  We have news that the #30 Audi took it’s technical pit stop after having a puncture.  That is the Team WRT car for James Pull, Franco Colapinto, and Benjamin Goethe. 

The sister WRT Audi is now in the lane, the Frank Bird, Valdemar Eriksen, Ryuchiro Tomita car.  That car is currently 16^th in the overall.  Frank Bird hands the car to Valdemar Eriksen as we now see the sister #52 AF Corse Ferrari in the lane too, with Andrea Bertolini of Italy behind the wheel.  Another tear off is ripped off the windscreen.  It makes you feel you are driving a fresh car rather than having dirt, oil, rubber marks, and flies all over your windscreen.  Oh dear.  A brief stall from the #52 Ferrari.  Andrea Bertolini is a driver who just doesn’t do that.  The #95 Aston Martin is back on track.  The contrast of engine tones between a couple of the German cars is staggering with the thunderous rumble of the Mercedes turbo V8, and the sonorous scream of the 4-liter flat six in the Porsche.

American stunt driver Kevin Madsen brings the #70 Inception Racing McLaren to the pit lane, sharing that car with Jordan Pepper from South Africa, a former Bentley driver, American Brendon Iribe, and Brit Ollie Milroy.  Madsen gives a thumb’s up, happy with his stint and happy to be in a GT3 car at one of the greatest racetracks on the planet.  This is a bucket list race for a lot of drivers.  Let’s have a Captain Cook at the Eau Rouge speed trap.  The now retired #35 Walkenhorst BMW of Thomas Neubauer was fastest through there along with Ross Gunn in the #95 Aston Martin at 248 kilometers an hour.  Pierre-Alexandre Jean and Charlie Eastwood were tied at 247 kilometers an hour, and Oliver Wilkinson had a best speed through the traps at 246 clicks.  So, those speeds maybe have not been improved on for some number of hours now.  Recall that the #35 BMW is now retired from the race.  So, we’ve seen speeds ranging from 246-248 kilometers an hour equaling a smidgen between 154-155 miles an hour average in a GT3 car around Spa Francorchamps.

Ollie Wilkinson was also in that fight earlier on.  In the lane, from the lead, Come Ledogar.  The Frenchman is having the windscreen cleaned and the tires changed, and fuel added.  There has also been a driver change.  So, Come Ledogar, out, and we’ll see who has entered the car for their next stint here, in a second.  So, this is Nicklas Nielsen from Denmark, now at the controls.  Kelvin van der Linde is in the lane as well.  So many crews have been pinged for speeding in the pit lane as the mechanics are very methodical about their tire changes to avoid penalties.  Now we see the #11 Pro-Am class Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 in the lane, with David Fumanelli completing a stint and a new driver entering.                        

Formula 1 has blink of an eye pit stops.  It is easier to see what the endurance cars and drivers do.  F1 pit stops are 1.9 seconds at least.  So, Rik Breukers leads Pro-Am over David Perel and Nicolai Kjaergaard.  We can see Ross Gunn has uncorked the quickest middle sector time of the race so far.  He is booking it right now.  When the weather improves, some cars really come into their own, finding their sweet spot.  We are now in full daylight again and have been for 45 minutes now.  We wonder about Jules Gounon and the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes and how that car is handling.  Bang.  As soon as we talk about him, Monsieur Gounon sets the fastest middle sector of all!  How about that?

Nicki Thiim says the team made it through the night and things are getting better and better now that Happy Hour has arrived.  They had to take their technical stop under green flag conditions, and they hope there is no more yellow in this race.  The cold suits the turbo cars well, the Ferrari, the BMW, and the Aston Martin.  There’s still a long, long way to go.  Thiim is not on a full-time team, but he is very happy to represent Aston Martin.  The #188 Aston Martin seems to be retired.  Hopefully we are wrong about that. 

Meanwhile, Iron Lynx are leaving their competition in the dust as we speak.  They have a 46-47 second lead of this motor race.  It’s very consistent.  However, Kelvin van der Linde and Nicklas Nielsen, both, are uncorking 2:19-2:20 laps.  The mist is gone.  The light is better.  We had a ton of mist last night which required great concentration.  It was foggy as heck last night and very tricky driving.  Nicki Thiim’s 2:18.654 is still the fastest lap of the motor race.  No one has come close since last night.  Again, the Iron Lynx Ferrari continues to lead, flashing the lights at the lapped cars, the backmarkers, which are fighting amongst themselves.

Soon, the leader will come up on a cluster of four cars.  This will be a cluster buster, maybe.  The tire debris is still there on the outside.  One of the Mercedes’ has some bodywork flapping on both sides.  That’s the #87 AKKA ASP Mercedes, currently in the hands of Petru Umbrarescu from Romania.  A wee twitch from the Romanian racer, and he continues.  The gap has stabilized between the leaders, at 46 seconds.  Nine and a half hours remaining.  In Pro-Am, we still have the David and Nicolai show to entertain us at present.  In seventh spot in the overall, we have the #63 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini clawing and scraping it’s way back up the order with Mirko Bortolotti driving.

Bortolotti has traffic to negotiate on this lap, but he is a second and a half up on the next car, the #38 Jota Sport McLaren of Ollie Wilkinson.  We have another official retirement.  Game over for the #188 Garage 59 Aston Martin.  Alexander West, Chris Goodwin, Charlie Eastwood, and Marvin Kirchhofer, headed for the house, with the race barely 15 hours old, and with nine left to run.  Try again next year, boys.  So, here is your classification.  Before we do, incidentally, 340 laps are now complete, 1,480 miles.  

1.       #51 Ledogar/Nielsen/Pier Guidi                 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GT3

2.       #32 Vanthoor/Van der Linde/Weerts      Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3

3.       #88 Marciello/Juncadella/Gounon           Mercedes AMG AKKA ASP Mercedes AMG GT3

4.       #37 Muller/Frijns/Lind                                   Audi Sport Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3

5.       #95 Thiim/Gunn/Sorensen                          Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3

6.       #63 Bortolotti/Mapelli/Caldarelli               Orange 1 FFF Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3

7.       #66 Drudi/Marschall/Mies                           Audi Sport Team Attempto Audi R8 LMS GT3

8.       #47 Martin/Tandy/Vanthoor                      KCMG Porsche 911 GT3R

9.       #25 Winkelhock/Niederhauser/Haase    Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 LMS GT3

10.   #18 Liberati/Imperatori/Burdon                KCMG Porsche 911 GT3R

11.   #38 Bell/Wilkinson/Barnicoat                     Jota McLaren 720S GT3

12.   #4 Engel/Stolz/Abril                                        Mercedes-AMG Team HRT Mercedes AMG GT3

13.   #89 Auer/Boguslavskiy/Fraga                     AKKA ASP Mercedes AMG GT3

14.   #90 Perez-Companc/Sanchez/Kujala/Breukers  Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3

15.   #159 Tujula/Macdowall/Haase-Clot/Kjaergaard  Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3

16.   #33 Hites/Crestani/Perel                            Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3

17.   #54 Bachler/Engelhart/Cairoli                     Dinamic Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R

18.   #7 Jeffries/Tunjo/Petit/Dienst                    Toksport WRT Mercedes AMG GT3

19.   #31 Tomita/Bird/Eriksen                               Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3

20.   #52 Machiels/Wartique/Bertolini/Rovera  AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3

21.   #99 Lavergne/Hofer/Aka                              Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3

22.   #53 Cameron/Mastronardi/Griffin/Molina  AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3

23.   #93 Hui/Froggatt/Cressoni/Cheever III.  Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3

24.   #40 Born/Love/Mettler/Arnold                 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes AMG GT3

25.   #77 Ramos/Machitski/Chaves/Mitchell  Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3

26.   #20 Pierburg/Kurtz/Braun/Baumann       SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes AMG GT3

27.   #61 Triller/Rivas/Harker/Bamber              EBM Giga Racing Porsche 911 GT3R

28.   #27 Cognaud/Legeret/Prette/Panis         Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3

29.   #2 Bastian/Scholze/Grotz/Pla                     GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3

30.   #69 De Haan/Collard/Collard/Schiller      Ram Racing Mercedes AMG GT3

 

  

This is a rundown of the top 30, not the full field.  Oh deary me.  We have a possible retirement.  The #10 Boutsen Ginion BMW M6 GT3 is stopped on the road.  This was the sole remaining BMW in the motor race.  Bavaria will be crushed if these chaps retire.  This is Jens Liebhauser of Germany at the wheel, but he's going nowhere fast, because that BMW has a collapsed rear suspension system.  Just like the War song, "All my friends know the low rider.  The low rider is a little higher.  The low rider drives a little slower.  The low rider is a real goer.  Yeah."Well, this one is a stopper, not a goer.  Sorry mate.Repairs shall be required.  Is it a quick fix?  Is it a slow fix?  Is it a no fix?  We’ll find out.  Audi #32 has now gained eight seconds on the leading #51 Ferrari.  The gap has closed to 39 seconds as we speak.  Nicklas Nielsen has traffic ahead in the form of the #31 WRT Audi.  We have a pit lane update coming on the #54 Dinamic Motorsport Porsche.  Porsche have not had a good race at Spa this year.  The #54 is in the garage and the team is working on the alternator belt.  They have also reattached the tires.  The sister car for this team, the #56, is out of the race.  This is a mechanical issue with the belts in the engine.

The stricken cone we saw earlier has been retrieved as Audi #32 is gaining tenths per lap on the leading #51 Ferrari.  Flat out through Eau Rouge!  Yes!  The car scuffs the pavement.  Jules Gounon is still sparking and pogoing up and down in the #88 Mercedes.  That rear suspension is a wee bit down.  There’s something wrong with a shock absorber or something.  Gounon must be able to live with whatever the issue is right now.  He is still lapping within a second of the ultimate speed.  Boing, boing, boing, boing.  That car is bouncing like a ball.  Now, into the lane comes the #37 WRT Audi and there’s fuel, tires, and a driver change going on.  Robin Frijns is in the car but is he giving way to Nico Muller or to Dennis Lind?  We’ll have to find out.

The mechanic signals to the team like the car is busted.  But no.  They are going back to the garage for their technical pit stop, to change brakes on the car.  The brake pads are dead, finished, toast.  So, let’s get the long stop out of the way, take our medicine, and get back on the road ASAP.  The whole tool kit for changing brakes was ready to go, and the team can just swap the brakes (rotors, pads, everything), out in two minutes without having to bleed the system or do anything complicated.  Busy but not frantic.  That is the key to everything.  Fast, thorough, and safe.  Tight and correct.  Ross Gunn has moved the #95 Aston Martin to fourth place.

Aston Martin and their drivers have already done their long, technical stop.  Rob Bell, he has set the fastest lap at a 2:20.  He is running in tenth.  That was a super quick brake change by the #37 team!  Bish, bash, bosh.  They are done with the repair and the car wants to rejoin but they have to wait for another car to get to it’s pit stall first.  Frijns is now back on the road.  We get onboard camera footage with both the Audi of Kelvin van der Linde and the Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti.  Senore Bortolotti is dealing with a smeared, smudged windscreen, but is still giving it the stick, giving it full welly right now.

Robin Frijns says things are going well for his team and had strategy early, but they lost two minutes after a fuel issue in pit lane during the night.  They are a lap down and want a safety car to get back in the game.  They had to gamble on the technical stop under the green flag.  It’s a different deal for Frijns between driving electric in Formula E and then driving an endurance race in a GT3 car.  You cannot compare the two.  They are apples and oranges.  Jules Gounon pits the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes and Mirko Bortolotti does likewise at Lamborghini.  Clearly WRT could not stretch their brake life.  Dennis Lind is now at the controls.  It was a fuel issue they had earlier on. 

Jules Gounon is in the lane.  Will he swap drivers?  We might hear from Jules Gounon momentarily if he is getting out of the car.  Let’s find out.  The gap has stabilized and is down to 39 and a half seconds.  Somehow Nicklas Nielsen is losing time in traffic to Kelvin van der Linde.  So, the plot thickens with nine hours to go.  The race is settling down into a rhythm again.  We watch the #20 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes, in Pro-Am, running 24^th overall.  That is one we have not mentioned save for the full field rundowns.  Valentin Pierburg of Germany, sharing with George Kurtz and Colin Braun from the United States, and Austrian Dominik Baumann. 

That team is fourth in Pro-Am with the class being led by Louis Machiels now at the wheel of the #52 AF Corse Ferrari.  Duncan Cameron, Eddie Cheever III., and then the car we are looking at, the #20 Mercedes, the Pierburg/Kurtz/Braun/Baumann car.  Mad Panda Motorsports, despite the damage to their car, the #90, that thing is still out there, pounding around, just like it’s supposed to. 

We see far less attrition in these endurance races today than we have in the past, in the last 20-30 years.  Pierburg has a battle on his hands for fourth in Pro-Am, 24^th and 25^th overall.  He has that place and Will Bamber wants it.  So, Mad Panda moves past SPS Automotive Performance.  So many of these cars have their windscreens absolutely covered in tire clag.  It’s no wonder the drivers can even see well enough out of them.  There’s some pushing and shoving going on between Silver and Pro-Am class cars as we get to the end of another racing hour here at Spa.  We do see a change for position.  Pierburg courteously stays out of the way.  Let the other blokes keep racing and have at it.       

       

 

24 Hours of Spa Hour 14

The #22 GPX Racing Martini retro liveried Porsche is still in the garage.  As you can see if you are watching the coverage, the headlight gels on that automobile are a vivid shade of red.  They are back in the garage with more problems.  Not much work being done.  Matt Campbell driving, but he is way down in 45^th place, 53 laps down.  It could very well be game over for a team that won this race just two years ago, back in 2019.  Andrea Caldarelli is now serving his drive through penalty from tenth place and he will just lose time hand over fist after this.

This penalty for Caldarelli will be manna from heaven for Lucas Auer in the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes and perhaps also for Josh Burdon, the Australian currently behind the wheel of the #18 KCMG Porsche 911 GT3R.  He is 12^th overall while the sister car of Nick Tandy is eighth overall.  There are two pit lanes here at Spa, remember, the new F1 pit lane and the old pit lane used for this race, for touring cars, and for endurance sports car racing, down the hill to Eau Rouge and then back up the hill, like a reverse ski jump up to the top of Raidillon. 

Caldarelli is going to be driving out of his skin now, to gain the time back after serving the penalty which is done and dusted.  He can push on as hard as ever now.  This race has been predominantly dry, despite the ideas of possible rain the whole time.  We had an hour of rain at the very beginning which soaked the track but have not had any precipitation since then.  So, the trio of drivers in this car, Caldarelli/Bortolotti/Mapelli, the all-Italian trio, they are going to go for it.  No question about that.  Come Ledogar is still leading the motor race half a minute to the good over Charles Weerts in the WRT Audi, the #32 car.

Very aggressive over the curbs for Caldarelli.  He is frustrated about having to serve that penalty and rightly so.  We haven’t spoken about the Am class in a long time.  Manuel Lauck, the German still holds the lead in that division in the #166 Haegeli By T2 Racing Porsche 911 GT3R.  We have been calling that car the berries and custard special because of it’s vanilla yellow and ruby red graphics scheme.  I want to say paint scheme, but everyone knows that most of these cars are not necessarily painted anymore, and instead wrapped in a graphics package.

Lauck and his co-drivers are currently running three places ahead of their rivals from Huber Motorsports, racing now in 37^th in the overall.  The sun will be fully risen in half an hour.  The dawn is breaking every so steadily as we watch Lauck at work, the exhausts of the Porsche glowing as well as the brake discs and the sparks that shoot out from under the cars.  We need an update on the #88 Mercedes of Jules Gounon, and we have it.  Gounon is moving up in spite of the sparks.  Charles Weerts, the second-place man, he has been losing time to Come Ledogar who continues on his merry way in the lead.

We can’t check the lap times always, but Ledogar is pushing hard and running quicker than Charles Weerts.  Poor old Weerts probably got caught up in traffic.  Ah.  We’ve found the second place Am entry.  This is the #23 Huber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R, and the Swiss driver Niki Leutwiler is at the controls.  Leutwiler, second in the Am class, he is 40^th overall, three spots down from the class leader Manuel Lauck in Am who we just mentioned.  Just two teams really in the Am class.  We need the Am runners in this kind of racing to be honest and we may have more in the future if we can get this cursed virus pandemic behind us.

Felipe Fraga, the Brazilian, at the wheel of the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes is in the pit lane.  Fraga brings the car in from tenth overall.  He is getting into the car for his next stint.  New tires on the rear and maybe scrubbed on the front.  Not sure which driver is replacing Fraga at this moment.  Fuel, clean windscreen.  Wait.  Let me double back for a moment.  Felipe Fraga, the rapid Brazilian is now in the car and he replaces the departing Lucas Auer who has finished his stint and will get some breakfast no doubt and bit of a rest.  The Red Bull energy drink company from Austria has a massive presence in motorsport and is spread widely throughout.  Of course, their main claim to fame is the title name and title sponsor of the Red Bull Formula 1 team.

Felipe Fraga is an international driver but also runs in the wild world of Brazilian stock cars.  Robin Frijns, too, he is driving not only GT cars but open wheel cars as well.  Keep your skills sharp.  Charles Weerts is nearly 32 seconds behind Come Ledogar as we go onboard with him through La Source and powering down to Eau Rouge.  The rallycross circuit is on the righthand side of where that turn is.  There is a karting track and a bobsledding hill somewhere in the next valley too.  The gap is steady between Ledogar and Weerts, and now we see Alessio Rovera in the pit lane from the Pro Am class lead.  He is running in 18^th overall if I am right.

Matt Griffin in the sister car is 15 or so seconds behind as we listen to the howling 5.2 liter normally aspirated V10 in the back of the Audi R8 LMS GT3.  The same motor is in the Lamborghini.  We were going to go for a lap, but Weerts is in the pit lane for service now.  He is undoing the seatbelts and his helmet cooler.  Never undo your belts while driving.  Come Ledogar has pitted and Nikki Thiim, he is in the lane as well in Aston Martin #95.  Jules Gounon in the lane as well in the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes down in the endurance pits down towards Eau Rouge.  Nikki Thiim exits the lane and returns to the race as we await Jules Gounon which has been bouncing around like a pogo stick throughout this race.  There is gravel spilling out from underneath the car, and the rear wheel on the left side, or the left rear suspension has a drop in it.  Maybe that is just the camera angle.  New Pirelli P Zero tires going on.  The pace of this car is down by a second which is not too good in a competitive field like this one.  No repairs for the #88 as it goes back on track.  Maybe there’s something loose on the undertray that is scraping on the deck, on the track surface.

Pit stop time too for the #107 CMR Bentley in the Silver Cup.  That is being driven currently by Pierre-Alexander Jean of France.  A bit of argy bargy in the Bus Stop, between the #33 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari and the #90 Mercedes for Mad Panda Motorsports.  Ezequiel Perez Companc, the Argentinian and owner of the team, he will have to regroup.  Perez Companc has collected a cone under the car.  It was David Perel, the South African, who is at the wheel f the #33 Ferrari now as we work towards full daylight again here at Spa in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

That cone is gone but it will be debris on the Bus Stop chicane exit.  We have no idea yet about the trouble for the #88 but maybe can find more out.  They had their equipment laid out for the compulsory brake change for pads and discs.  They are happy with the brakes right now.  They bolted new tires onto the car but didn’t look at the rear end of the car which is softer in handling.  Are the dampers working?  Is there something in the suspension?  We’ll follow up on that soon and maybe get a chance to hear from Jules Gounon after his stint finishes.  We’ll let him get a drink when he comes out of the car and then ask about it.

So, at the sharp end of the field, you’ve missed nothing, as Come Ledogar, the Frenchman, remains in the lead of the motor race.  Strange how little concern we saw from AKKA ASP about the damage to the Mercedes, but Jules Gounon is a very good driver.  When it is in full darkness, you rely on the lights.  The attitude of the car looks soft on one end and stiff on the other, though, even in the dark.  Spin for the #2 Getspeed Racing Mercedes.  Jim Pla at the controls, in 30^th spot.  Pla, from France, sharing with Olivier Grotz from the Netherlands as well as German drivers Nico Bastian and Florian Scholze. 

More marbles (clag) building up on the outside of the track.  Nice to see that the Pirelli tires have not had the degradation that could have been.  We have had constant dry weather and no major downpours which can be expected in this part of Belgium especially with the microclimate in the mountains here.  Very decent conditions for Pirelli.  There was a quick downpour early in the race, but it just came in, and bish, bash, bosh, it was gone soon.  We have not had major tire delamination incidents either.       

Nikki Thiim has uncorked the fast lap of the race so far at 2:18.654.  Thiim is in sixth spot just behind the #37 WRT Audi and the #38 Jota McLaren.  He can leapfrog those two when they pit.  Meanwhile, we are looking at the second-place runner in Silver Cup, the #159 Garage 59 Aston Martin which has Dane Nicolai Kjaergaard at the controls.  Kjaergaard runs behind the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3.  We saw the sister #188 Garage 59 automobile in strife earlier.  That car is now 43^rd in the overall, after spending loads of time in the garage. 

Stop and go penalty for a refueling infringement for the #25 Audi Sport Team Sainteloc Audi R8 LMS GT3.  That is the car in the hands of Markus Winkelhock.  As we continue checking in on the Silver Cup division, we see another Audi, the #31 Team WRT car with Frank Bird at the controls.  Daylight continues to come closer to the circuit.  Incidentally, Frank Bird is no relation to Sam Bird who is driving for Ferrari.  Frank Bird sharing that #31 Audi with Ryuichiro Tomita of Japan and Valdemar Eriksen of Denmark of course.  Visually and the atmosphere for the teams, this race is changing.  We’ve made it through the night without any rain!

The skies are lightening but gradually.  It’s still dark out there.  It is darker than the iris of the camera makes it look, but we have about 15 or so minutes before the sun rises fully here at Spa.  Revisiting the #25 Audi, that car is eighth overall, the Winkelhock/Niederhauser/Haase entry.  Winkelhock has just made the stop for his stop and go penalty.  As we are now in the second half of the motor race, the penalties are going to be much more severe.  The light is coming quickly.  We are so used to it being dark, gray, and gloomy here.  Of course, at the Nurburgring earlier this year, we had fog and cold and had to stop the race due to the fog for a long, long time.  We can see the #107 CMR Bentley being swiveled around on the dollies into the garage.

So, Pierre-Alexander Jean, the Frenchman, will be going nowhere fast at least temporarily.  That’s tumbled to 35^th in the overall now.  Rik Breukers, the Dutchman, is back behind the wheel now of the Silver Cup leading #90 Mad Panda Motorsport Mercedes, as we watch the overall leader, Come Ledogar at the wheel of the #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GT3.  Breukers is only two seconds clear of Nicolai Kjaergaard.  Ledogar is leading this motor race by half a minute or so over the #32 WRT Audi which remains in second spot.

Kelvin van der Linde, the South African, is now driving the #32 Audi having taken the car over from Charles Weerts.  Ferrari #51 has been up at the sharp end for a good while now.  Will van der Linde and company close the gap?  In fifth in the overall, is the #38 Jota Sport McLaren 720S GT3 with Oliver Wilkinson currently driving.  The leaders are running in the 2:20 bracket although we did see Nikki Thiim crank out that 2:18 earlier on, just a short time ago.  Thiim is closing on Wilkinson through Les Combes and now onto the downhill section of the circuit.  We see Wilkinson using all the road and a little more on the exit of the corner.

What we ought to be seeing, if Mr. Director shall let us, is the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes.  Poor old Jules Gounon has had no repairs done to that race car and we documented the damage earlier.  But that thing has to be bouncing up and down like a pogo stick right now.  With daylight closing in, we are seeing less headlight effectiveness.  Now, maybe I am mistaken, and we are seeing another Mercedes with a suspension issue and not the #88 automobile.  Some of the trackside billboards have taken a thrashing and we saw Manuel Lauck in the Porsche, the Haegell by T2 Racing #166 Porsche off the road earlier scattering them all over the place.

Lauck is back on track but that tema has had a fraught race.  Oh boy!  Nikki Thiim is now right alongside Oliver Wilkinson heading through La Source and down the hill.  Good clean pass for the Aston but Wilkinson is not letting it go and he gets the spot back.  Better exit through Raidillon for the Aston Martin.  Great scrap for position and Rik Breukers will be licking his lips, wanting a bite of that apple as well.  He says, “hey guys, do you mind if I join your little positional scrap?”  Breukers had a cone wedged underneath the nose of that car, but it is gone now. 

That’s got to be Jules Gounon in the #88 car.  2:21.8 for him while Thiim was a second faster at 2:20.8.  The Aston Martin seems to have the legs on the McLaren in certain sections on the circuit.  Rik Breukers, a lap further down from the overall lead, leads the Silver Cup class.  Wilkinson and Thiim continue to chase each other.  Each car delivers a lap time in a different way as we’ve explained and so the battle between these two British cars is intriguing.  Meantime, the gap is stable between Come Ledogar in the lead and Kelvin van der Linde in second.  Wilkinson is just not going to give this spot up to Nikki Thiim.  He catches the McLaren under braking but just can’t quite make the move stick.

Poor old Rik Breukers knows these two blokes are the cork in the bottle for him, and he’d rather just press the afterburner button and zoom right by.  Breukers, in the meantime, has another Garage 59 Aston Martin a mere two seconds up the road, closing fast.  He knows the other Garage 59 racer will be on his six in short order.  The fractured, battered, busted cone is still mournfully residing on the outside of the circuit waiting for a marshal to pick it up saying, “someone put me out of my misery!  I am just a lowly traffic cone that has been beaten up by these speeding cars!  Have mercy on my soul!”  Those cones can be sharp on the edges, though.

Wilkinson has to watch his step because Thiim is harrying him and if he oversteps, there could be one of those mysterious trap doors that opens, sending him into the dungeon with no way out.  He runs wide into La Source does Wilkinson and Thiim can smell blood.  It’s that classic tooth and nail, shark and minnow fight.  Gounon is still third in the Mercedes, but as we’ve said, that AKKA ASP Benz has been porpoising, ducking, and diving underneath it’s driver for a good while now.  The handling on that car is going away.  Poor old Jules Gounon will be wrestling that car.  The sparks make it obvious to the naked eye.

Closer still, as Nikki Thiim might be running out of patience with Oliver Wilkinson.  Wilkinson is driving cleanly and smartly now.  He is not as defensive in his driving as we first thought.  Wilkinson’s defensive maneuvers are making it more and more difficult for poor old Thiim to make his move.  Who is bravest of the late brakers into La Source?  Wilkinson continues making that McLaren very wide.  Mr. Wilkinson is a former Ginetta racer in a one-make series, which really teaches young drivers race craft.  So, Come Ledogar is now leading Kelvin van der Linde by 36 seconds.

The Iron Lynx Ferrari did take a penalty earlier but they are very consistent.  The #32 Audi has also improved after a penalty earlier in the race where they clawed their way from 54^th all the way up to second.  Andrea Caldarelli in the #63 Orange 1 FFF Lamborghini is uncorking some really quick laps but that car is buried down in eighth in the overall.  He has to find 20 seconds to catch the seventh place car, Christopher Mies in the #66 Attempto Racing Audi.  Wilkinson is really running well at this moment and he is holding the gap consistently.

Now we see Wilkinson giving up the battle because he dives for the pit lane.  This should be scheduled service for the #38 McLaren.  There might be a driver change on this pit stop.  Thiim runs a 2:22.5 this lap by.  Daylight is coming at Spa.  We shall see but will it be Ben Barnicoat or Rob Bell stepping back into the #38 McLaren?  Wow.  We have a tire carcass, lying in the middle of the road ladies and gentlemen.  Now, we wonder, who had a Pirelli P Zero tire get cut down?  Ah.  That is the #30 Audi, the sister Team WRT entry for James Pull, Franco Colapinto, and Benjamin Goethe.  Full Course Yellow.  Check that.  It is a slow zone right now.

We have thankfully had very few punctures in the race so far.  An unfortunate incident for the #30 car which is now getting a new tire as Come Ledogar is still leading the motor race.  Kelvin van der Linde is almost a minute behind!  Yikes!  We have to check on Nikki Thiim’s lap times, too.  #51 moved up twelve spots and as we’ve said, the #32 Audi has moved up even more.  We check back on the Silver Cup battle and it is still hot and heavy with Rik Breukers hanging on by the skin of his teeth over Nicolai Kjaergaard.  Pitting under yellow, do you want a half a tank of gas or a full tank?

Going through Eau Rouge with a full tank, your lap times won’t be as quick.  It is a definite and delicate balance.  Nicolai Kjaergaard has pitted, and we might just see him begin to move up again.  The Mercedes #90 could have either loose bodywork on the left front, or maybe that is just tank tape holding it together that is flapping in the breeze.  Maybe that is the right front.  Nothing to worry about really.  In daylight, we can see damage better than at night.  That’s obvious.  We are now looking at the second-place runner in the Silver Cup class.  This is Marvin Dienst, the German, driving the #7 Toksport WRT Mercedes AMG GT3.

Dienst is sharing that car with Axcil Jeffries, Oscar Tunjo, and Paul Petit.  You’ve got quite a mix of nationalities in that team.  A Zimbabwean sharing with a Venezuelan, a Frenchman, and a German.  That team has been regaining ground through the night.  Track limits penalties have decreased from where they were earlier in the race and during practice and qualifying.  You push hard but hopefully don’t get a penalty, and maybe are let off with a warning by the stewards.  We now watch the third place Silver Cup car, the #33 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 with South African David Perel at the wheel of it.  Perel sharing with Benjamin Hites from Chile and Italian Fabrizio Crestani.

So, the top three Silver class cars run right together with a tad over ten hours to go.  Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and more.  Audi are in this but Mercedes, in Pro-Am at the head of that division.  Mercedes and Audi have probably been the more dominant cars in this race, although Ferrari are leading.  Ah.  From a long way back, Perel might get passed.  That is the #14 Lamborghini, the Emil Frey Racing car.  Which of the three drivers is currently at the wheel?  Can you trust another car ahead of you?  One half hearted lunge in the darkness could really damage a car.  Be circumspect during the night.  But now, in daylight, the drivers will be more inclined to see each other and where they are on the road.

These 24-hour races offer a plethora of championship points.  So reach out and grab them when and if you can.  Great reliability for these cars in a dry race and fewer casualties without any rain around.  Come Ledogar’s lead over Kelvin van der Linde has ballooned to 40 seconds.  Kelvin van der Linde then has a sizable gap to Jules Gounon in third spot.  The ragged suspension on that #88 Mercedes is still a question mark.  Will the car drive properly?  Will the suspension system hold itself together?  You don’t want to be repairing a suspension system with chicken wire and chewing gum as it were.  That wouldn’t be pretty.  Jules Gounon has likely been told by the team, “we will work on the suspension at the pit stop that comes at the end of the stint you are on now.”

“For the time being, just hang in there, sunbeam.  Grin and bear it, mate.”  Black and white flag shown to the #61 EBM Giga Racing Porsche 911 GT3R of Carlos Rivas.  Rivas, the Dutchman is of course sharing that automobile with Wolfgang Triller of Germany, team owner Will Bamber of Australia, and fellow Australian, Reid Harker.  That is a Pro-Am entry.  Notice one of the Ferrari’s has a Fiat badge.  That reminds me of the days at Ferrari’s Formula 1 team in the 1990s when they had the Fiat branding on the car, for the driving teams that included Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger, and then, Michael Schumacher (the seven-time F1 champion), and Eddie Irvine. 

Two brands in the same company of course.  How are the cars handling?  The temperature is rising upwards consistently and that will provide the drivers with more grip. At the same time, the cars will be losing grip due to the tires being very old and getting to the end of a stint.