Sunday, August 22, 2021

24 Hours of Le Mans: Hour 20

Winning races on merit instead of the misfortune of others is a better approach.  Porsche continues to battle each other but they know they can't touch each other either.  Easier said than done.  So, #92 passes #91.  Kevin Estre seems satisfied with the car at this point in the motor race.  Makowiecki is on much older tires.  Pit stop time for Racing Team Nederland but it was a close shave for those boyus and Giedo van der Garde almost gets t boned by the United Autosports car!  So easy to drop a wheel at Tertre Rouge because of the camber of that turn.  Jose Maria Lopez pits from the lead of the motor race in Toyota #7.  Lopez almost overcooked the pit entry.  Duqueine Team and Rene Binder were stone last in LMP2 at the start of the motor race but now they are up to ninth overall.  Maybe they were stone last on the whole field when the race began.  Cannot remember.

Less than five hours remaining.  Job van Uitert is now at the controls of the #29.  Something happened but I wasn't sure.  Look at the TV screen and the team manager looks and says, "yeah right, sunshine."  Racing driver's book of excuses, table of contents?  I don't think so.  Sorry, mate.  G-Drive and Duqueine continue to battle each other.  Porsche into the gravel pit off Mulsanne corner?  Say what?  That was a close shave!  Oliver Jarvis in the #82 Risi Competizione LMP2 car has smoke coming out of the left exhaust pipe.  Something is wrong in the left bank of cylinders on that Gibson Technologies 4.2 liter V8.  Coughing and sputtering it's way into the lane.  Terminal engine failure.  

We have a slow moving Ferrari and it is the #54 AF Corse Ferrari of the Swiss driver Thomas Flohr sharing with Francesco Castellaci and Giancarlo Fisichella.  He is going slowly through Indianapolis and Arnage.  The #82 Risi Competizione LMP2 is in the garage being repaired.  Spmething was on fire.  Maybe a blown head gasket cooked the motor.  Brendon Hartley is very tentative through the turns.  Do they have the positions for a 1-2?  They know they are nursing issues on the #8 car.  Peugeot, Ferrari, ByKolles, and many others who are coming for LMDh like Porsche, Proton, Lotus, Tata, Jaguar, Murray, Nissan, Brabham, Cadillac, BMW, Acura/Honda, Peugeot, and others.  When you have a long lead time for development, you might be able to come in with an advantage.  WRT have nearly signed, sealed, and delivered a possible class win in LMP2.  

Come Ledogar and AF Corse lead LM GTE Pro ahead of Corvette.  Aston Martin and Dylan Periera are second in GTE Am and they are having a whale of a time trying to challenge the #83 AF Corse Ferrari.  Ben Keating is back into the car for TF Sport Aston Martin.  Ferrari #83 have really been in the pound seats since hour two of the race yesterday.  Fourth in GTE-Am, the Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Jaxon Evans, Matt Campbell, and Christian Ried.  Drivers of the past did not have the runoff they do today and so, there are more incidents because some drivers drive in over their heads.  Safety breeds complacency and this is especially so in the last decade.

Juan Pablo Montoya has pitted and is now back on track in the #21 DragonSpeed Oreca.  Scratch that.  It is Ben Hanley.  Jota have not given up on a plausible LMP2 victory.  You've missed nothing in LMP2 as WRT still run 1-2.  James Allen from Australia, he is running well aboard the #65 Panis Racing Oreca.  Full Course Yellow in 20 seconds.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  We are under Full Course Yellow.  Marshals will be able to retrieve debris from the circuit.  There could have been a monumental wreck at Arnage.  Wow!  We don't know how the future landscape of sports car racing is going to fall yet.

We've talked about that a lot this week.  Full Course Yellow withdrawn.  #34 for Intereuropol and the #41 WRT car is in the lane, the Yifei Ye, Ferdinand von Habsburg, and Louis Deletraz who has taken over the car.  An overtake in LMP2.  Yours truly missed it.  Brendon Hartley in the lane in Toyota #8 and he will stay aboard.  Habsburg and Deletraz still battle.  Stoffel Vandoorne closing up in the sole remaining Jota car.  Alpine back on track out of the pits.  They are five laps down and #8, they are a lap down.  Glickenhaus are banking on a podium as well but they will have to close up on the Alpine.  Pipo Derani will have to reel in Matthieu Vaxiviere.  

It is no mean feat for a team to introduce a brand new race car here at Le Mans and Glickenhaus despite all their testing program woes at Vallelunga in Italy, they have come leaps and bounds from where everyone thought the'd be, going for the podium.  This isn't just a flash in the pan for them.  Correction.  TF Sport were just a second behind Francois Perrodo and AF Corse.  Ben Keating is a minute and a half away.  Rene Binder earns a warning flag for abusing track limits.  Ben Hanley uncorks the fastest lap for DragonSpeed at 3:34.436.  Job van Uitert pits the #29 Racing Team Nederland Oreca.

Ricky Taylor has the controls of the #20 High Class Racing Oreca as well that he shares with Dennis Andersen and Marco Sorensen.  Jose Maria Lopez continues to lead in the #7 Toyota.  Jose Maria Lopez tries to take a major risk through traffic and he didn't need to do it.  Lopez hits the pit lane for service.  Francois Perrodo continues to lead GTE Am.  Now, you just (as the leader), cannot let your guard down.  Times are tumbling in GTE Pro meaning, a new lap record?  We'll see.  Jose Maria Lopez into the pit lane for service.  They can keep doing what they're doing and finish things in style.  It is not done yet.  Porsche #92 in the lane for a scheduled pit stop.  Kevin Estre wants to leapfrog team mate Gianmaria Bruni.  

Calado, Catsburg, Estre, Bruni, the top four in GTE Pro.  Roman Rusinov is gaining on Rene Binder little by little in the scrum for LMP2.  This is actually a battle for ninth place in class.  You would not know that from the intensity.  This is quite the showdown here at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the greatest motor race in the world.  Stay tuned.  You won't want to miss a thing as we get closer and closer to the end of this motor race.  

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