What's the scoop in pit lane? Well, Zak Brown and Richard Dean at United Autosport have a little demo of their pit stall. We hear the great Tom Kristensen describing the pit stop but cannot see it on the picture, sadly. Whoa! Lopez in the #7 Toyota cuts the chicane at Dunlop! That was close! 307 laps now on the board for the #7 car. Toyota, Toyota, Alpine, Glickenhaus, Glickenhaus. That is the top five in Hypercar and nothing has changed. Setting up a car to be fast on the straight here at Le Mans, on the Mulsanne, requires low downforce. Jota #38 is in the pit lane. Antonio Felix Da Costa at the controls. The sun will warm up the ambient and ground temperatures and that shall affect the tire pressures.
Francois Perrodo and Ben Keating, the battle for GTE Am victory is heating up. Callum Illott is even quicker but Illott, the young Briton from single seaters, is even quicker. He is the official test driver for the Ferrari Formula 1 team. He will want to go ahead and sign for Ferrari when they go to race Hypercar. The next few years will tell. Nicky Catsburg is getting faster and faster, putting and keeping the pressure on Ferrari. Kevin Estre runs third in GTE Pro over Gianmaria Bruni. Bruni is a former Ferrari factory driver and also tested for the now defunct Minardi Formula 1 team. Scheduled service for Toyota #8 as Brendon Hartley will stay in and do a triple stint.
Pipo Derani still runs fourth in the #708 Glickenhaus. At Porsche, Kevin Estre and Fred Makowiecki have had a great battle going on. At this pace, these cars will run 3,000 miles plus, from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States in a day! Holy mackerel! That's unbelievable. That's London to Rome to London and back to Rome! Blimey O'Reilly! Derani is still pushing and trying to get back to the podium. The top running Glickenhaus, as we've mentioned, is currently in fourth place. Derani is still chasing the Alpine of Matthieu Vaxiviere. Everyone is chasing the #7 Toyota in the hands of Jose Maria Lopez right now. Another yellow flag and another slow zone coming up.
Ah yes. There is debris on the road in the chicane on the Mulsanne straight and the marshals have to be extremely careful down there and thank goodness for the orange Army. They wear white uniforms in the United States and orange uniforms around the rest of the world but they do the same thing no matter what. Pit stop time for one of the LMP2's. Hard to say which one. Oh yes. It's Habsburg aboard the #31 WRT car. He has to slam onto the brakes so he could avoid careering into Tristan Gommendy! Once again, Blimey O'Reilly! Big damage done by the disheveled #388 Rinaldi Ferrari. In the slow zone, the #709 Glickenhaus has a probelm, or is he letting the Jota car go by? Ah. The Glickenhaus is not limping like I first thought.
The Glickenhaus has been into the lane and out again. #388 headed for the garage. The esses after the Dunlop bridge were changed to clean up the circuit configuration. It is hard to figure out why. We all know why the chicanes are on the Mulsanne and the Porsche Curves are because of John Wolf's accident. Maybe it was due to the reconstruction of the Bugatti circuit where the motorcycles race. The Alpine is now into pit lane, three minutes and 41 seconds of Pipo Derani. Alpine are flirting with being a lap up on the Glickenhaus. Many people are hoping for a podium for Glickenhaus.
The fuel allowance is 80.2 kilograms of fuel per hour which equals 1,924 kilograms. Toyota #7 has a jolly lucky save under braking! Lopez is pushing extremely hard and he is told not to conserve anything. He will go hell bent for leather here. With three and a half hours to go, the Lopez/Kobayashi/Conway team might earn their first win. We shall see. A wonderful circuit with wonderful cars. Technology has improved. The race matures like a fine French wine. There's still a mystique about this place. The Nurburgring stays as it is all the way through the year. Le Mans is only like this for a few days a year being a road circuit. It is still a dangerous circuit. Lopez misses a shift coming out of the hairpin. Are we seeing trouble for the gearbox? Oh dear. This is not over yet. Manage the issue.
You have to be able to keep fluid and food going through you. Pasta and carbohydrates sometimes work for drivers, but sometimes it doesn't. Both Toyota's may be dealing with gearbox trouble and we also see gray clouds in the sky. Will we see rain again? It normally comes from the west and over the Porsche Curves. Habsburg and Deletraz are 1-2 in LMP2 while Ferrari leads in both GTE classes for the time being. Pit stop time now for the race leading GTE Pro Ferrari, the AF Corse #51. The windscreen is cleaned and fuel is added. Also into the lane, the second place #63 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
Repairs to the driver side window for Nicky Catsburg, or checking the window, along with tires and fuel. We have also seen the #91 Porsche make a pit stop and in third in GTE Pro now is the sister car #92 in the hands of Kevin Estre still. Corvette and Porsche are catching Ferrari in GTE Pro. Toyota run 1-2 in the overall. The Toyota will now deal with the Porsche easily and into the pit lane is Toyota. Jose Maria Lopez and the #7 look to be in good shape. A methodical race so far but there's trouble because they were held up in the pit lane. Jose Maria Lopez out and Mike Conway is likely going to do the final three plus hours. If he wins this, how fitting he would be in the car. But... we don't want to jinx this.
Brendon Hartley is still second and the weird part of this race is how we wondered about track limits and it seems Edoardo Freitas and company have been a wee bit more lenient this weekend. Both Toyota's and both Porsche's have been straight lining Tertre Rouge and the pit lane exit. Toyota #8 in the pit lane as well and will they make their final driver change? We shall see. Brendon Hartley might just be triple stinting. Would you use Kazuki Nakajima or Sebastien Buemi? Brendon Hartley will do a triple stint so this might be the last one. Matthieu Vaxiviere is third and half a lap behind is the Glickenhaus of Pipo Derani. The #7 Toyota is still managing issues.
This motor race is not over yet. Romain Dumas is closing up on the second WRT LMP2 car and five seconds quicker than the leading LMP2 for WRT. 27 and 29 pit stops for Toyota and 24 and 25 pit stops for Glickenhaus. They might not have the fastest one lap pace in the race. They did have it at teh test day last weekend. Are the Toyota's having issues matching their shifts on the downshifts and upshifts? That's another logical, valid question. DragonSpeed #21 pits. Porsche #91 is also in the pit lane. Pipo Derani will have to truly push althougn he has, he has set two blue sectors. Ferdinand Habsburg, too, just uncorked a 3:35.
32 and a half seconds in the gap in GTE Pro between Calado and Catsburg. Ferrari vs. Corvette. 3:49 for Calado and 3:52 for Catsburg. That gap in GTE Pro and see sawing. 3:31.435 for Nyck de Vries and G-Drive. Michael Christensen has just made a pit stop in the #92 Porsche. Could WRT be signaling to Audi they want to run their factory LMDh car? We'll have to find out. Norman Nato still has the #70 RealTeam Racing Oreca in a good spot but is the car smoking? Can't quite tell. #41 pits putting the #709 Glickenhaus in sixth spot. Ferrari building a Hypercar will be absolutely off the wall. In Group C, there were seven brands in the prototype class and we will have even more for Hypercar and LMDh. Business thrives on stability. Invest in a business. Invest in this racing formula. Ferrari, Corvette, and Porsche still fighting for honors in GTE Pro.
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