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.