Sebastien Buemi consorting with the team on the pit wall. Drivers will be more in tune with how their cars are running right now. We welcome Mark Cole back to the broadcast booth. Alessandro Pier Guidi leads GTE Pro with Antonio Garcia in second place. Porsche #92 in the lane and we have seen after 16 hours, the Ferrari, Corvette, and Porsche are all on the same lap in GTE Pro! Unbelievable! Michael Christensen takes over from Kevin Estre. New boots coming for the Porsche and the #36 Alpine is in the pit lane and the gap will tighten between the Alpine and the Glickenhaus. The fog is on the front straight. It looks very murky going up to Tertre Rouge. Goodness knows why.
Yes indeed. There is fog in Tertre Rouge. Glickenhaus have proven they can stay with it and they can run with the big dogs. They are consistently running in the 3:32 range on lap times right with the Toyota's. They have good, experienced drivers as well. Paul Lafargue locks the brake on the #48 IDEC Sport entry into Arnage corner. Toyota #8 has a gearbox issue. Through the fog, we saw a great battle between the #70 RealTeam car and the #21 DragonSpeed car. Norman Nato and Henrik Hedman. Into the pits, Satoshi Hoshino in the #777 Aston Martin. Ferrari might be the only team to ever win Le Mans and an F1 race in the same year. We see these cars coming through the mist, kind of like the 1980s when the Group C cars ran here. Those cars would come through morning mist and fog all the time here at Le Mans.
Nico Lapierre runs third. GTE Am battle for 11th between two Porsche's. Dominique Bastien vs. Rolf Ineichen. Herberth moves past the Dempsey Proton entry. Behind them, in 16th place overall, the #30 Duqueine LMP2 car has come back after being stone last earlier in the motor race. We have had a little bit of attrition in this race. The WeatherTech Porsche has been retired according to Laurens Vanthoor and will finish 50th. Plans were to build more garages and a new press room, but everything was delayed due to the global pandemic. There's no race that captures the beauty of engineering and the travails of fighting the weather and the track, like Le Mans. Daytona comes close, but nothing tops Le Mans.
Toyota #8 in the lane. Sebastien Buemi is now climbing into a car that has a gearbox problem and he is going to go flat out. Will Toyota nurse the sister car home as well? Maybe they've backed it off. They have it in the bag if they can keep it going. The fog is starting to burn off but there could be some dampness on the road from the dew. Glickenhaus #708 pits. This is not typical summer weather in France but it could be in England. Jota passes Panis in LMP2. Dries Vanthoor stopped on the road in the #72 HubAuto Porsche 911 RSR-19. We have a local yellow here, before the esses. Ben Keating brings the #33 Aston Martin into the pits and hands the car to Dylan Pereira, the Luxembourgish driver.
A couple more slow zones being prepared as there is that stricken Porsche on the road. Dries Vanthoor goes straight on and this is the GTE-Pro polesitter. Maxime Martin, Dries Vanthoor, and Alvaro Parente. He cannot walk away from the car or it will be disqualified. Birthday boy Mike Conway is leading the motor race and he has been knocking on the door year after year here at this race. Something terminal for the #72 HubAuto Porsche being lifted out by the crane. #28 takes a quick splash and dash pit stop. That's the Jota Sport car. Sad to see HubAuto out of this race. They were euphoric on Thursday night, but now, they are out. Charles Milesi leads LMP2.
HubAuto team owner Morris Chen has been running here at Le Mans since 2015. Ferrari in 1963 still has to be the only team that has won Le Mans and a Grand Prix. Ford did not make their own car even though they built engines for F1. Actually, Matra won three straight here at Le Mans in 1972, '73, and '74. Matra won a championship in 1969 with Sir Jackie Stewart as well. Claudio Schiavoni is in the #60. Sauber won Le Mans with Mercedes in 1989 but didn't start building Formula 1 cars until 1993. Lots of carbon brake dust coming off that Ferrari. The Glickenhaus had a load of brake dust coming off of it.
Nope. Matra did not win F1 races after 1969. The years of winning Le Mans in 1972, '73, and '74 did not include Formula 1. Ferrari has been the only team to do it. All five Hypercars have been extremely reliable which is amazing. Francois Perrodo leads GTE Am. Now, the only issue in Hypercar is the #8's small troubles, but every one of the five cars are still hanging right in there. The #83 AF Corse Ferrari has had a faultless race so far, the only one to do so. Argy bargy in replay between the #20 car and the #86 GR Racing Porsche. Mike Conway leads the motor race by just over a minute as Olivier Pla and Nicolas Lapierre are laps behind but still staying with it.
So much for the prediction of the Hypercars having issues and the LMP2 cars picking up the scraps. That prediction may yet by ripped to shreds and thrown out the window. AF Corse's #83 GTE Am leading Ferrari is in the lane and Francois Peroodo takes over. Toyota #8 pits from second spot and Sebastien Buemi takes over. Check that. He has taken over and now, he has had two pit stops or maybe it is a early bird pit stop. Maybe the pit stop schedule needed to be redressed. Nico Lapierre now pits the Alpine for third and we are going to have a driver change. Andre Negrao is into the car.
Dries Vanthoor had a drivetrain issue in the #72 HubAuto Porsche. Game over. It is curtains for those boys. Alfa Romeo and Tazio Nuvolari, run by Enzo Ferrari, won Le Mans and in Grand Prix, in the pre-Formula 1 era in the 1920s and '30s. Olivier Pla is back up to third spot in the #708 Glickenhaus. They arue a pit stop and just have gone out in front of the Alpine. The Glickenhaus needs to make a pit stop. Richard Westbrook just cut a 3:30.6 in the sister Glickenhaus. Richard Westbrook is in the pit lane for service. He locked the brakes up big style into the lane.
Richard Lietz pits the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 from fourth in GTE-Pro, the Porsche factory GTE Pro car. Tom Blomqvist has his hands full with Will Stevens. It's the battle of the fast food restaurants, KFC vs. McDonald's that we talked about earlier. Andre Negrao chasing Olivier Pla and around the outside, Negrao passes Pla and says, I'll have third place, thanks. Cheers, mate. Olivier Pla will try gettng negrao back into Mulsanne corner. Not yet, as they run down to Indianapolis.
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