Nicky Catsburg is still pushing hard, and monstering Nicky Catsburg. Have Sam Bird's tires given up? That Ferrari may be a very loose race car. Don't pull out too early to hit a wall of air. Mulsanne straight now, and Sam Bird is a very steely nerved driver. Flashing the lights won't help. Into the second chicane he has a run. Side by side, look, and there goes Nicky Catsburg right 'round Sam Bird. Wow! This is very much game on for GM and Chevrolet. 49-51 cars out of the 61 have started. In replay, we see it is a straight ahead move, done and dusted, as Catsburg goes by Bird. We are highlighting the retirements and we have seen a couple Ferrari's that have indeed dropped out. Project 1 and Richard Mille Racing are listed as retirements from the race but we have more. The #79 WeatherTech Porsche, the #56 Project 1 Porsche, the #57 Kessel Racing, the #47 Cetilar, Proton, the #98 Aston Martin, and the #1 Richard Mille Racing car, all have headed for the bench.
Corvette manager, Laura Wontrop Klauser says that with the #64 there was crash damage at the beginning. The drivers are happy, and they hope to land in a good spot. They have been running great in IMSA all year. Simulation really helps and learning from their past. We see the #64 car in the garage and Nick Tandy is in the car. They have been looking at their cars with key races like Le Mans in mind. The correlation has made it stronger. The drivers are thrilled with what the car is doing and they feel comfortable driving the car hard. Corvette is showing what they can do against the Ferrari's and the Porsche's with half the race still to go.
We hope Cadillac can come to Le Mans and WEC. They will be announcing an LMDh car soon. Laura Wontrop Klauser has taken the helm at Corvette Racing just like Lena Gade did at Audi. Lena Gade really broke the barriers for women in motorsports and she is astonishing. HubAuto, Lucy Paine got the job on Monday and that team scored the GTE Am pole. There is a documentary about Lena Gade and her wins with Audi as race engineer here at Le Mans. Take a look for it. I cannot give you the title because I don't quite know what it is.
Giedo van der Garde is in hot pursuit of one of the two Robin brothers aboard the #39 SO24 Graff Racing car. Maxime Robin at the controls of the #39 right now. WRT runs 1-2 in LMP2 right now, #41 ahead of #31. Ir is beginning to get misty as we saw a move to unlap the #29 which is Giedo van der Garde at the controls. Pit stop time for the #34 Intereuropol Competition car, and Nick Tandy, who is a former race winner in GTE Pro. There's trouble with the #64 Corvette C8.R. Jan Magnussen pits the #49 High Class Racing car. So, there is a driveline issue in the #64 Corvette that had diffuser damage from contact with another car at the beginning of the race.
There was fluid around the driveline and now, there is a definite driveline issue on the car. It is an undiagnosed issue and hopefully they can fix it. The car is mega according to Tandy and as the track has rubbered up, the tires are working. The #63 car is still pressing on. Nick Tandy is not a happy camper. He was a Porsche man for years. The factory AF Corse Ferrari hit them. No love lost between Corvette and Ferrari. That rivalry has been going on since the 1960s. Kamui Kobayashi has had four poles at Le Mans. Well, he is one pole away from tying Jacky Ickx's record of five poles. The Toyota is right on the knife edge through the corner.
Yifei Ye pits the #41 WRT car followed by the team car of Charles Milesi and next up is the #22 United Autosports car. Driver change at #41. Louis Deletraz will get into the car. Hybrid could have an advantage in Hypercar. The Hypercar regulations are really clever because they are allowing for a major balance between hybrid and non hybrid cars, with windows to work in. The power, weight, and aero is balanced out, not perfectly yet, but it might be. We shall see what happens when LMDh comes along. The Hypercars have front wheel drive hybrid or 4 wheel drive, while the IMSA cars are going to have rear wheel drive with hybrid drive only on the rear wheels.
IMSA are supposed to be very good at Balance of Performance. Sports cars have always been about technology. Matthieu Vaxiviere is at the wheel of the Alpine. Sports car racing as it is, develops street going cars. Everything on a modern road car has been defined by Le Mans over the last century. Sports car racing is ahead of Formula 1. Charles Milesi is in the lane for WRT leading LMP2. The #777 D'station Aston Martin pits too. It will be a long race for them. Keep pushing. Racing Team Nederland #29, Giedo van der Garde is off the road.
Spin for the #22 United Autosports car out of third as it is in third in class as we see a picture scramble right now and the fog is coming in. Oh boy. Trouble for Rinaldi Racing as Christian Hook has spun the #388 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari, beached, hung up in the gravel. This is at the exit of the esses. Christian Hook in the Dunlop essses, no, the first chicane, and that's a spot of bother for the Rinaldi Racing Ferrari. Hard to tell who is to blame and the #7 Toyota has stopped! How many times can we see the #7 stop?! This gives Brendon Hartley and the #8 car the lead! The #7 is back up and running after a Control, Alt, Delete.
A mistake with tire temperature and the instruction is to move brake bias to the rear. That's Kamui Kobayashi! He is so lucky to have stopped! Kobayashi almost went off the road on Thursday as well. Stay with us, ladies and gentlemen. This motor race is far from over. Oh la la la la! Toyota #7 very nearly hit the wall! It seems someone is stopped on the road unless the camera is frozen. Kamui Kobauashi though, he is the luckiest racing driver in France. They are adjusting the brake bias to the rear of the car.
Louis Deletraz and Charles Milesi battle for the lead in LMP2. Deletraz has made the move. Son of former Formula 1 driver, Jean Denis Deletraz who ran in the Road To Le Mans races earlier in the weekend. Daytona has had to stop the race due to fog on a number of occasions. The last time was with rain in 2019 that I can remember. There's more than 12 hours of darkness in January at Daytona. The #38 Jota Sport LMP2 car is 15th in class behind Juan Pablo Montoya. Now, the #8 Toyota is in the lane for service. Brendon Hartley at the wheel of it. Mike Conway is the top British sports car driver and he still has yet to win Le Mans.
We have a yellow on course, a local yellow, perhaps. Matthieu Lahaye is driving the #84 LMP2 car as Jan Magnussen has gone off the road. Does this car have a rear wing? Yes. He has spun or has he? He's been hit by the G-Drive car of Roman Rusinov in Arnage. No neutral and no reverse on that car. Very similar to Sophia Floresch's troubles earlier. Jan Magnussen is a legend. Jan has found reverse and we've lost the local yellow. But that was a great shame for his team, he and son Kevin. Stay hydrated. No need for energy drinks so you crash. Matthieu Vaxiviere still has the welly down. Meanwhile, AF Corse continues to lead GTE Am with the #83 car.
Ferrari #54 for AF Corse is in pit lane, Giancarlo Fisichella at the controls and so is the gray and green #30 Duqueine Automotive car. Not sure who is in that car as we have another slow car. Jan Magnussen has gotten back on track but he is creeping down the Mulsanne straight and we see in replay, Magnusseen snapping away from him into the Armco coming into Tertre Rouge. He has a porblme with the car. The other car that hit him, did so with quite a lick. He has a long way to go to get back to the pit lane. That's a demoralizing sight.
Magnussen says the steering is at 45 degrees. He has to drive back straight with the wheel at that kind of cockeyed angle as Kamui Kobayashi has a normal service for the Toyota GR010. He changed tires that were flatspotted. Stay up but ditch the energy drinks and get water. Maybe one jug of Gatorade but that's it. High Class Racing is preparing a new nose as Jan Magnussen is still struggling to get back. He is trundling back on the pit lane limiter. Filipe Albuquerque says let me sleep, but you have to go back into the car even though it is 4:47 A.M. Replacing the clutch in the #64 Corvette due to fluid loss. So, the #64 may finish but they won't get on the podium. Nicky Catsburg in the #63 is still in the fight.
But High Class Racing, their race is going pear shaped. #41 still leads #31 in LMP2, both of the WRT Oreca's. Deletraz in first and Habsburg in second spot in LMP2, Pit stop and a driver change for one of the Iron Lynx Ferrari's. Jose Maria Lopez and Brendon Hartley are going to be racing each other for the lead. The cardinal rule in racing, do not take your team mate out. Tehse chaps won't do anything silly. Keep it clean.
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