Black clouds looming, but from the east, the weather is looking favorable believe it or not. Due to Pierre Alexander Jean pitting his Bentley, this moves the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 up into the top ten with Mikael Grenier, the Canadian, at the keyboard right now. Offline and in the gravel trap at Piff Paff, there has been a chunk of debris lying in the gravel trap. Piff Paff, I believe that corner used to be known as Malmedy. Nick Tandy, a potential favorite for this race, runs 12th in the #47 KCMG Porsche, right behind Grenier in the Mercedes. Tandy won this race last year. Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor are reunited at KCMG for Intercontinental GT Challenge. This is the season opener of a triple crown championship of three races for 2021.
Porsche could be in the running as this motor race
continues. Some cars do duck for the
lane on the hour mark or a little later.
Kevin Estre has been checked out and released from the infield medical
center, but it must be a demoralizing, disappointing experience for the
Rutronik Racing Team and the #21 Porsche 911 GT3R Estre was due to share with
Sven Mueller of Germany and Richard Lietz, the rapid Austrian who is a Porsche
factory driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship and will be racing at
the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a couple more weeks.
More pit action underway as we see a second stop for David Pittard and
the sister Walkenhorst BMW is in as well.
David Pittard rejigs the pit strategy and fuel only for Walkenhorst BMW
and no tire changes yet.
Raffaele Marciello leads the motor race, and he might come
in soon. A pit stop as well for the #31
Audi R8 which started way, way down the order.
This is the #31 Team WRT Audi R8 for Ryuichiro Tomita of Japan, Frank
Bird of England, and Valdemar Eriksen of Denmark. Pit stop time too for the #93 Sky Tempesta
Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 as Chris Frogatt is about to hand that car over to one
of his co-drivers. Will it be Jonathan
Hui, Matteo Cressoni, or Eddie Cheever III.?
We’ll see. Ah. A dramatic fuel spill in the pit lane for
someone getting it cleaned up in their pit box.
Race Director Alain Adam puts a message out to the drivers
and teams about the conditions of drivers involved in the accident. Drivers of cars #21 and #163, and #71 and
#114 are updated. Two of the drivers
involved have been released from the infield care center while two more are
being observed but there are no life-threatening injuries. Four cars running close together, and a
domino effect. If you are caught up in a
wreck with another driver, you have no chance to get out of it. Unfortunately, this means some heavy hitting
teams are out of the race already.
It is game over for one of the Emil Frey Lamborghini’s, an
AF Corse Ferrari, an Iron Lynx Ferrari, and a Rutronic Racing Porsche. Actually, it is both Emi Frey Lambo’s. The leader’s pitted and the next wave of cars
hit the lane for their first stops.
Sticker tires all around.
Bortolotti stays in the Lamborghi and we also see Luca Stolz staying in
the Mercedes. Will Raffaele Marciello
inherit the race lead? We shall
see. Some of the teams are based in the
endurance pits which are downhill and connected with the Formula 1 pit lane. Christopher Mies, too, is moving up ever so
slowly at the wheel of the #66 Audi Sport Team Attempto car.
Mies is sharing with fellow German Dennis Marschall and
Italian driver Mattia Drudi. Cars are
coming back onto the track, and we see the safety car being deployed, so, if
the safety car is out here at Spa, it really means that we are getting close to
restarting the race. It sounds like all
the work being done to repair the barriers and so forth at the top of Raidillon
is complete. This is good news to see
the safety car scrambled. We are now 19
laps into the motor race, and we have been under yellow for nine laps and we’ve
been under Full Course Yellow for almost an hour. Safety Car procedure. Drivers have to catch up with other
cars. Sitting on Full Course Yellow,
drivers nod off and get a little sleepy.
Two or three laps, that is what it will take to get the tires back to
temperature if they are fresh, cold, green tires.
Cars are still cycling through pit stops. The stewards are investigating the four-car
incident we saw earlier that caused this long yellow. The stewards are going to sort out the data
and see how the wreck happened. The
drivers can go faster under a safety car so that it is safer for the
restart. Some of the marshals are waving
red and yellow striped flags for moisture on the road. There seems to be a lot of oil down at the
top of Raidillon and it is already being soaked up by speedy dry, the cement
dust that the track workers put on the racing surface to clean up the fluid.
The light is beginning to fade, and we start seeing the
headlights of the cars. Martin Tomczyk
is in the #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3, the very experienced German
who has raced in DTM and has raced GT3 cars for BMW for quite some years
now. Mirko Bortolotti is getting set to
mash the gas and go back to green as is everyone else out there as there should
still be 50+ cars on the road. Drivers should
watch out even though they are single file.
A bloke who must look out, is Come Ledogar. The Frenchman has taken over the #51 Iron
Lynx Ferrari from Alessandro Pier Guidi.
So, it is surely watch your step time for Monsieur Ledogar.
Drivers are preparing to restart the motor race. 21 laps now completed, 91 miles. Safety Car in this lap. That is the call. The field will now be tidied up. We also have cars being investigated for speeding
in the pit lane. So, these cars are the
#11 Kessel Racing Ferrari that we’ve documented already, the Ferrari, shared by
Kohmann, Zollo, Roda, and Fumanelli. The
other car being examined by the stewards is #23. The Huber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R being
shared by Nico Menzel and Jacob Schell of Germany along with Swiss drivers Ivan
Jacoma and Nicolas “Nicky” Leutwiler. The
speed limiters have to be calibrated. 50
kilometers an hour, maximum speed limit in the lane.
Lights out atop the safety car as we are ready to race but
just as we are starting to go back to green, the rain is coming and the teams
will have to change over to wets. The
release agent that is on a new set of tires right out of their molds, things
are going to be slippery through the final chicane as Raffaele Marciello leads
over Mirko Bortolotti. We see some
lapped traffic in the form of Ben Barnicoat and Nico Muller, a McLaren, and an
Audi. Nico Muller is not playing games
with Ben Barnicoat and slams the door in his face. Through Bruxelles (Brussels corner),
Barnicoat is still being shut out.
Barnicoat has the oomph out of Speakers’ corner and towards
Pouhon the McLaren passes with no muss and no fuss. Trouble in paradise ladies and
gentlemen. The rain is getting heavier
on the start/finish straightaway and all these cars that are still running are
on slick Pirelli P Zero tires. Towards
Pouhon where these cars are traveling it is tipping down with rain. Barnicoat goes wide and Christopher Mies
tries moving ‘round Pierre Alexandre Jean, but no dice. Oh my gosh!
They are going ‘round the #89 AKKA ASP Mercedes.
Everyone, it is time to take a swim, or at least
presumably. Break out your fins,
snorkels, Scuba masks, flotation devices, anything you’ve got, because it is
about to get wet! Eddie Cheever III. Inj
the #93 Ferrari must be careful. The
brave thing is to stay out, but the track is totally saturated. Nico Muller, David Pittard and others are in
for wet weather Pirelli tires, but it may not be the best choice. Wet weather tires are probably going to be
the way to go as it is getting wetter on the track and busy, busy, busy in the
pit lane, look. Is it the right call? It’s the safe call. Don’t risk it.
Drivers will take the wider approach into Pouhon so they
don’t aquaplane off the road. Ricardo
Feller is moving up. But tbis is no time
for heroics. It is time to eep out of
trouble because the visibility is just going to get worse from here on out. Slick tires on a wet track is a recipe for
disaster. Golly, look at the spray as
they come into the chicane at the end of the lap. The top three are being told to stick it out
for the time being as Ben Barnicoat goes sideways into the lane and Luca Stolz
and Lucas Auer, both are in as well. The
tarmac temperature will go down. Drivers
have decided to come in as it is just too risky to stay on slicks.
There is a whole list of drivers who are coming in at this
moment. Ben Barnicoat, Luca Stolz, Lucas
Auer, Pierre Alexandre Jean, Mikael Grenier, Klaus Bachler, Laurens Vanthoor,
and Max Hofer. We haven’t called his
number yet. Hofer is in the #99 Attempto
Racing Audi R8. The Austrian is sharing
that car with Germany’s Alex Aka and Fabien Lavergne of France. The pit lane at the top of the circuit is
soaked. The rain is hammering down
still. 24 laps, 104 miles in. But the rain is getting heavier by the
minute. Once everyone has cycled through
their pit stops, Ben Barnicoat in the #38 Jota Sport McLaren could be leading
the race as we see the #4 Mercedes back on track with Luca Stolz in second
place.
The new Pirelli wet tire is going to get a proper
workover. TSL Timing’s Steve Taylor, who
handles timing and scoring, is predicting this rain is going to hold on for the
next 20 minutes. Raffaele Marciello, on
slicks, slithers, slithers, slithers his way off the road and into the runoff
area coming out of the last turn, formerly known as the Bus Stop. Oh dear!
Bortolotti and Ledogar, too, go skating off the road! It’s squeaky, squeaky, slippery, slippery
time here. All three of these blokes
decide, “OK. Enough of this! It is time to hit the lane!”
More drivers and cars losing grip. Aye yaye yaye yaye yaye. Standing water in the braking zone. There’s more spinners. Two spinners, three spinners, four
spinners. Check it out on video if you
haven’t seen it, but there’s a great scene in Havoc 6 I believe from
Videovision Broadcast International (this is on an app called Motorsport TV),
there is a sequence of spins at a very wet Silverstone in England during the
1984 British Touring Car Championship Tourist Trophy Race where six, seven,
eight cars go spinning off the road and into the barriers or into the gravel traps
in a single corner. That is what this
scenario reminds me of.
Legendary drivers like Frank Sittner, Jeff Allam, and Jean
Louis Schlesser all had these exact same troubles in the rain that we’re seeing
with the best GT3 drivers in the business today. Kelvin van der Linde can barely see out of
his windscreen. The conditions have
deteriorated unbelievably. Raffaele
Marciello and Mirko Motorolotti have been in the lane and now Ben Barnicoat can
push through the gloom, and he is leading the motor race. But now, Luca Stolz has moved ahead and now,
Nico Muller is the true overall leader on the road.
Muller down
the hill into Pouhon on the wide line through to Fangnes, is leading and he
goes over the wet painted curbs too!
Egad! Well, well, well. This throws the cards all over the floor as
Rik Breukers is steaming right along and chasing down Ben Barnicoat. Breukers aboard the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports
Mercedes AMG GT3 sharing with Ezequiel Perez Companc of Argentina, Ricardo
Sanchez of Mexico, and Patrick Kujala of Finland. You want downforce to stick these cars to the
pavement. Christopher Mies leads the
motor race but has made just one pit stop.
He is on slicks! Believe it or
not, he is on slicks. Mico Muller is
second. It is an Audi 1-2 as we work lap
26. Muller goes off the road uphill
through Eau Rouge and narrowly avoids whacking the tire barrier!
One wheel
catches a rivulet of water and sends you reeling. These teams are in a pickle because the rain
might end soon. The track might dry out,
but we shall play it by ear. Nico Muller
keeps Luca Stolz at bay. Nico Muller is
second behind Christopher Mies and Luca Stolz has moved ‘round Mies. Poor old Christopher Mies is going to lose
spots hand over fist as they stay out.
What a roll of the dice. Nico
Muller, the Swiss driver is your leader here at Spa as we have just barely
ticked by the two-and-a-half-hour mark in the race. If this were a typical endurance race, we
would have just shy of half an hour to go.
But this is eight three-hour races all rolled into one.
Muller leads
Stolz to the tune of 1.9 seconds while Ben Barnicoat runs in third place. A trio of Mercedes’ are next. Ben Barnicoat is sliding all over the road,
but it must be coming back to the McLaren.
The lap times are far slower.
They are in the three-minute range.
Rik Breukers is leading the Silver class as Ricardo Feller is next in
line in the Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini as Barnicoat in the McLaren is still
skating around on the road. The spray is
diminishing and now it is becoming a drizzle.
So maybe this rain will move out soon and we could be back to dry
conditions before long.
Mirko
Bortolotti diving into the last turn, he can’t see a thing and looks out the
driver’s side window of the car to find his braking marker. Your top ten update right now is Nico Muller,
Luca Stolz, Ben Barnicoat, Raffaele Marciello, Rik Breukers, Lucas Auer, David
Pittard, Klaus Bachler, Mirko Bortolotti, and Laurens Vanthoor. Farther behind the top ten we have Come
Ledogar, Martin Tomczyk, and now, Muller leads Stolz still. 28 laps now on the board. Visibility is lacking. Traffic all over the shop. Pierre Alexander Jean slides wide in the
Bentley. Poor old Christopher Mies is
plummeting down the order and is 16th in the overall and still
losing places.
Mies is
dropping like a stone. But rising,
moving up the mountain as it were, is Kelvin van der Linde. WRT has star drivers, and they have race
winning drivers as their team bosses like Thierry Tassin, Pierre Dieudonne, and
Vincent Vosse, who have all won this 24-hour race as drivers and as part of the
team. Audi and WRT have not tasted the
champagne here at their home track for a long time. Raffaele Marciello is pushing, and I don’t
have to tell you, hard. He wants to move
in past Ben Barnicoat. Sainteloc was the
last Audi team to win here at Spa. That
was in 2017 or 2018 if memory serves.
Porsche was struggling, Audi was not showing at the front in
qualifying. Mercedes on pole for the
third straight year and Raffaele Marciello on his second straight pole.
Fabian
Schiller passes Andrea Rizzoli for 25th spot. Jota and McLaren are the ones fighting for
overall honors for the British marque.
Jota are in the hunt for a class victory not an overall victory. Once again, to clarify, the classes here in
GT3 racing are based on driver ratings and rankings because everyone, no matter
which brand they are racing for, they all run that brand’s specific model of
GT3 car. In Pro Am, Fabian Schiller
leads Andrea Rizzoli. It is the #69 Ram
Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 ahead of the #56 Dinamic Motorsports Porsche 911
GT3R. That is their second car.
Ferrari’s run
second and third in Pro Am with Andrea Bertolini in the #52 AF Corse 488 GT3
ahead of Eddie Cheever III. In the similar car for Sky – Tempesta Racing, the
#93 car. Eddie the third’s father, Eddie
Cheever Jr. is the 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner. Eddie Cheever III. Despite the American name,
he races under an Italian flag. He holds
an Italian racing license. Clemens
Schmid is wrestling with his Lamborghini.
He is adapting to a very different GT3 car than he is used to, having
raced Porsche’s in the recent past.
Schmid started the Grasser Lamborghini from the pit lane and has
scrapped his way to 31st spot.
Nico Muller leads. 30 laps, 130
and a half miles, in the books.
Raffaele
Marciello pushing on behind Ben Barnicoat.
The weather has really thrown the cat among the pigeons thus far with
eighteen minutes left on the board in this second hour. Nico Muller leads Luca Stolz by 4.3 seconds
followed by Barnicoat, Marciello, and Lucas Auer, who has been racing in GT3
since 2019. He is running DTM which is
now a GT3 category, and he is Formula 1 winner Gerhard Berger’s nephew. Matthieu Jaminet moves around Maxi Buhk as
well. He is in the #20 GPX Porsche. They won this race two years ago with Kevin
Estre as part of the driver’s strength, in rain-soaked conditions. Estre of course is now sidelined.
Fred
Makowiecki in the Porsche is 21st in the overall. Christopher Haase in the #25 Sainteloc Audi
passes Fred Makowiecki for position.
British driver James Pull is next in another WRT Audi entry, the #30 car
that Pull, from England, shares with Franco Colapinto of Argentina, and
Benjamin Goethe from Denmark. James Pull
trying to pass Fred Makowiecki on the outside into the last turn, but no
dice. He can’t quite make it. Christopher Haase, a Spa 24 winning driver,
racing for Sainteloc, a Spa 24 winning team.
This scrap we are looking at is down the order for 21st and
22nd spot.
The circuit is
drying, but only slightly. It is wetter
than an otter’s pocket right now. Nico
Muller leads, sliding his Audi through both Campus and Courbe Paul Frere, Paul
Frere corner, named after Paul Frere, who was a race car driver and, a
journalist. Muller, in his racing driver
mind, is trying to determine how usable the surface of the road really is and
decides, I will give it another lap before I really put the welly down. Traffic is starting to become a factor. Yes, we have all GT3 cars, but we have
drivers on differing levels. It does not
matter what 24-hour race you go to.
Daytona, Le Mans, Nurburgring, here at Spa, all of them see traffic as a
crucial part of the race and its outcome.
Working your
way through these clusters, and clumps of traffic, is crucial without making a
mistake. Now, Ben Barnicoat is going to
go for it. He moves inside of Luca Stolz
for second place and does take the spot away.
Ben Barnicoat, somehow or other found his way into GT racing after being
on a clear path to open wheel racing through Formula 3 and Formula
Renault. Barnicoat also stepped up the
SRO GT racing ladder starting in GT4 and now a top contender in GT3. Mirko Bortolotti set the fastest lap of the
motor race on lap two but since then we have had very little dry running under
green.
Barnicoat is
coming to the fore. He was under
pressure from Raffaele Marciello but he has dropped the Italian Mercedes man
like a hot rock. Kelvin van der Linde,
the South African Audi ace has glued himself right to David Pittard’s six in
the battle for 12th place. On
his six as well, look is Ricardo Feller.
Kelvin van der Linde is a double ADAC GT Masters champion in Germany and
before coming to race in Europe, he raced Volkswagen’s quite successfully in
his native South Africa. The Walkenhorst
BMW he is chasing with David Pittard at the controls, his own brother, Sheldon
van der Linde will drive that car later in the race today.
We have about
half a dozen South African drivers in this race and the van der Linde brothers
blazed that trail to put South Africa back on the sports car racing map after
other well-known drivers from that nation competed. Drivers such as Sarel van der Merwe, Tony
Martin, Graham Duxbury, and Wayne Taylor, to name a few of them. Kelvin van der Linde wants by David Pittard,
but Pittard says “no way, sunshine” and proceeds to chop van der Linde’s nose
off, while rattling his way across the runoff area at the last turn. That was inevitable. A banzai move will cost you dearly.
That is what
is known in stock car racing as “casual contact”, but it could have been a
whole lot worse. Van der Linde still
chasing Pittard for 12th spot.
Ben Barnicoat runs 5.7 seconds in-arrears of Nico Muller and his last
lap ‘round was fractionally slower. No
heroics yet chaps. It’s early
doors. Anything can happen. Raffaele Marciello, meanwhile, is reeling in
Luca Stolz. There’s lapped traffic. Klaus Bachler in the meantime in the leading
Porsche has fallen into the clutches of Mirko Bortolotti in the
Lamborghini. Bortolotti, in the meantime
is doing his best to bag a panda. We
have the Mad Panda Motorsports #90 Mercedes, currently in the hands of Rik
Breukers looming large up ahead.
Breukers
leaves Bortolotti with a face full of spray as he tracks out to the wet side of
the road. This scrap is for sixth and
seventh. Bortolotti wants what Breukers
has. Rik Breukers, we have seen him not
just here in IGTC but also in the Creventic 24 Hour Series and in IMSA at the
Rolex 24 as well. Bortolotti’s
Lamborghini is stuck like glue through Blanchimont. That car is on rails right now. These drivers must have rain tires that are
beginning to chunk because they are looking for water on the road. Into La Source hairpin another time and
Breukers is feeling the heat from Bortolotti.
Will he be bold and daring enough to set up a pass through the flat-out
compression at Eau Rouge? Down the hill
and back up again into Eau Rouge, where you can barely see where you are. Breukers moves to the wet part of the track
as a distraction to throw enough spray into Bortolotti’s face that he can’t see
a thing. It is like the wake from behind
a boat. There’s a song called “Never
Make Your Move Too Soon”. Well, that is
true at this juncture in the motor race.
It is way to soon to make a banzai move.
Save that for the last hour of the race which is something we surely saw
here at Spa the last time we ran the 24 hours last October.
Lamborghini
showed their cards in qualifying and were quiet, beforehand. But then, they got their armada wiped out in
that earlier accident and now, they seemingly have just one bullet left in the
gun. It is game over for the Emil Frey
Racing cars and so the Orange 1 FFF automobile is the sole car to fly the flag
for the raging bull. The spray is
lessening, and the track is drying.
Raffaele Marciello makes an inevitable move on Luca Stolz. Once again, Stolz knows he needs to give it
up, at least for now. It is easier to
chase than be chased. Marciello will be
the explorer, the pioneer, finding out where the remaining puddles are, and
Luca Stolz will just bide his time and follow his rival through.
Whatever
setups the AKKA ASP team have put on car #88, in these steadily drying
conditions, they seem to be paying dividends.
Audi #31, Ryuichiro Tomita at the wheel of it, he still has his hands
full. He is surrounded by Eddie Cheever
in the Sky Tempesta Ferrari, the #93, and Lucas Legeret, the Swiss driver
aboard the #27 Sainteloc Audi. This is
their Pro-Am entry. Legeret is sharing
with Alexandre Cougnaud of France, Aurelien Panis of France (son of former F1
driver and 1996 Monaco Grand Prix winner Olivier Panis), and Louis Prette, the
Italian with the French sounding name.
Legeret, another man who used to drive in GT4.
That’s an
incredible noise when these GT3 cars scream through Easu Rouge. Cheever is in the fight, and he is pressing
Lucas Legeret and he does it. The fight
is not over. He’s going to lose the
spot. Cheever has traffic behind. You’ve got one of the Aston Martin’s and the
HRT Mercedes. Hubert Haupt, former
driver, owns that team and it is Vincent Abril, the rapid Frenchman, driving
alongside Maro Engel and Luca Stolz and I must check my notes again, ladies and
gents, but that is Stolz at the wheel of it now. Nikki Thiim too, has dropped like a stone and
in 33rd overall now, he really has to push. He’s gaining every single lap and going in
the right direction.
Cheever is
still fighting with Thiim right on his gearbox and Legeret keeps him at bay
through Pouhon another time. Thiim must
go offline to overtake, but it’s wet, slippery, greasy out there, mate. Be clever and realize discretion is very much
the better part of valor. The cars
wriggle their way out of Campus, next to the technical college here at the
circuit. Cheever is a shot duck because
he has to defend rather than attack and he has the Aston Martin pulling up
alongside as Thiim is going for a pass. Thiim,
two wheels on the grass, look! Oh
man! Rallycross style there.
Eddie Cheever
III., runs wide and is flustered. Oh
man, this guy’s going to give me fits!
Nicki Thiim, what did you eat for breakfast this morning sunshine? Oh my goodness! Two wheels on wet grass! Reminiscent if you are a NASCAR fan of Dale
Earnhardt’s mega move on Bill Elliott in the NASCAR All Star Race at Charlotte
Motor Speedway in 1987. Blimey O’Reilly,
that was brave stuff! Hubert Haupt,
again, has stepped away from driving to look after his own team and we can see
more action in a BMW vs. Ferrari battle as the clock is ticking closer to the
end of another racing hour here at Spa.
HRT came out
of the Black Falcon team and Sean Paul Breslin struggling to get customer to
race their cars during the virus pandemic.
Haupt Racing Team, not to be confused with the legendary Holden Racing
Team that you’ll know if you’ve followed Australian Supercars for oh, the last
two to four decades. Maybe longer than
that. Hubert Haupt has also returned to
DTM racing with their new GT3 formula after 30 years away when he raced during
the Group A touring car glory days in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Looking from the rear bumper of Eddie
Cheever’s Ferrari, we couldn’t have seen this picture just a wee while ago with
all the spray being kicked up.
Now it looks clear. Hehehe, tentative laughter intentional. We shall see.
Check another box for Thiim and Aston Martin as they move up. Audi #30 for James Pull, he is getting one
final warning from the stewards about track limits, or he will have to pull
into the sin bin for a penalty of some kind.
Drivers are pushing the envelope and giving those in race control many
more gray hairs. Those chaps up in the
race control center in the tower must have steam coming from their collective
ears. OK. You’ve been a naughty boy. Take this note and go see the principal. Thiim storms clear of the Ferrari as Mirko
Bortolotti on the downhill run to Eau Rouge, flashes by Rik Breukers probably
thinking, “finally! I’ve gotten ‘round
this bloke.” Rik Breukers does still
lead in the Silver Cup driver category.
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