Game over for G-Drive. The #36 Alpine needs a stop while the Toyota's pitted five or six laps earlier. The cars are fast but they were twitchier in their handling. It will take time to rebuild the tire wall and that is why we are under Full Course Yellow again. Roberto Merhi is out of the race. He ran with the Manor team in Formula 1 in 2015 and then in the World Endurance Championship with the same team the next year in 2016. We were going to go through the GTE Pro order. James Calado in AF Corse Ferrari #51 leads Antonio Garcia in Corvette #63, followed by Miguel Molina in the sister AF Corse #52 Ferrari, Porsche #91 of Gianmaria Bruni, Kevin Estre in the #92 factory Porsche, and Laurens Vanthoor in the #79 WeatherTech Porsche 911 RSR-19 in sixth spot in the class.
Toyota #7 takes the opportunity to pit from the lead of the motor race. Driver change, as Jose Maria Lopez is replaced by Mike Conway. Alpine in the lane, having the brakes checked. Nicolas Lapierre is staying in for a double stint. The cars at the end of the pit lane wait for the safety car crocodile to come through. Kazuki Nakajima takes the lead away from Mike Conway. Pipo Derani third in the #708 Glickenhaus as they have cut quietly through this field even though they are a mere three laps down on the Toyota while the Alpine is languishing in eighth overall. Robert Kubica leads LMP2. James Calado leads GTE Pro for Ferrari and Alessio Rovera leads GTE Am.
Iron Lynx Ferrari #60 in the lane for service. Claudio Schiavoni sharing with Paolo Ruberti and Raffaele Giammaria in GTE Am. Yours truly was downstairs getting a snack and we have a pit stop for LMP2. While I was away from the word processor, there were a number of pit stops including for the #708 Glickenhaus and Pipo Derani is now at the controls. We are also seeing LMP2 pit stops. This is a mild evening but with high humidity and a small bit of a breeze. We might see more rain before this race is out. Honestly, though, there's a long, long way still to go. Nyck de Vries is back on the road in the #26 G-Drive Aurus.
But that was the same car that Franco Colapinto crashed into Sophia Floresch earlier. The field is stringing out and we see Kazuki Nakajima ahead of Mike Conway. Ferdinand Habsburg has moved around the #708 Glickenhaus. Olivier Pla has taken over from Pipo Derani and the car has moved down to fifth place. A harvest moon hovers over the Hunaudieres, the Mulsanne straight. The Wright Brothers made their first flight here at Le Mans in 1912 when they brought their airplane over, a decade almost after they invented it. Wowzers. The race didn't even start until 1923.
Such a shame about the cursed pandemic because the great race at Fuji in Japan has been cancelled and replaced by a second race in Bahrain which is a sterile modern circuit compared to Fuji Speedway. Antonio Garcia has moved to second in GTE Pro and he runs in a Ferrari sandwich between James Calado and Miguel Molina. Great to see Alexander Sims racing for Corvette and he insists "don't call me Alex, call me Alexander, please!" A great section of course through the Porsche Curves. Unreal. The mechanics are heroes. The drivers are heroes, but the mechanics absolutely work their butts off with no sleep in 30-40 hours and whenever they can they have to catch a few winks. This is true at Le Mans, Daytona or other 24 hour races. They won't pack up until tomorrow night at 8PM.
Gianmaria Bruni and Kevin Estre are next in the GTE Pro order and Kevin had that huge crash on Thursday night. It was miserable. But now, they're moving up. Mazda and Panoz used to test their cars on a runway at the airport and the citizens of the town went crazy. We've never had a red flag at Le Mans in the race. The clock continues to tick in practice but stops in practice. The clock would keep running in a 24 hour race during a red flag. That's what happened at the Rolex 24 at Daytona a couple years ago. The drivers sleep for a while but it is more like a nap before the crew chief pulls you out of bed and says "it's time for another driving stint. Go get 'em, sunshine." Be ready. You can't doze. Frits van Eerd, eighth in LMP2, 15th in the overall.
Henrik Hedman is chasing down Frits van Eerd in the #21 Dragonspeed Oreca, the rapid Swede. Both of these chaps are Bronze rated drivers. Henrik and Frits are in their 50s but they still have it as drivers. A car is off the road with the headlights on just sitting there and it's come to a stop. Yellow flags on the speedway out of Tertre Rouge. No engine power but lights are on. Matt Griffin has a problem and poor old Matt Griffin is the bloke stopped on the course. James Calado and Antonio Garcia will be stretching their lead out. Glickenhaus #708 will move back to third place as we see Team WRT in the pit lane with car #41.
Mike Conway is into the lead and #8 makes a pit stop. Kazuki Nakajima is going to stay in the car and no tires. They will triple stint the tires. Toyota are very experienced but their reliability has been questionable as of late. There's a long, long way to go yet. Ferdinand, "The Duke" Habsburg has been replaced in the car the #41 WRT LMP2. Troubles at Porsche with the steering wheel in car #92 I believe. Yours truly has lost the TV stream and so I am listening to the official commentary with timing and scoring. Have been swapping back and forth between Eurosport and the World Feed. We are back to full green flag racing. Bad news as Proton Competition will retire the #99 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Harry Tincknell, Florian Latorre, and Vutthikorn Inthraphuvasak.
The #63 Corvette C8.R in the pit lane, Antonio Garcia out on track for another stint. So, the marker of doom comes out once again as the garage door closes on Harry Tincknell, Florian Latorre, and the other bloke from Thailand. Monsieur Inhraphuvasak. Multimatic were constructing the Aston Martin Valkyrie, for the Mercedes Benz Project 1, and also, the Mazda RT24P in IMSA. Felipe Fraga comes back to the lead of GTE Am in the Aston Martin #33. Nicolas Lapierre is eking out a gap over the #31 WRT car. Antonio Garcia will have to serve a ten second penalty on the next stop and Nicolas Lapierre has done a personal best in fifth with the #36 Alpine.
Felipe Fraga hands over the #33 Aston Martin to Dylan Pereira, the Luxembourgish driver. Porsche are in the lane with the #91 for Gianmaria Bruni. He is back on track now. The Alpine is motoring again and it is much quicker than the Glickenhaus of Olivier Pla. But the Glickenhaus boys are going to keep pushing. Michelle Gatting is slow in the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari, 44th overall and 12th in GTE Am. Kazuki Nakajima is really pushing hard right now in Toyota #7 down to Mulsanne corner. We've lost the picture in the World Feed. The audio is still there as the world feed somehow went right back to the beginning of the motor race. Strange.
Michelle Gatting has stopped on the road and is dropping like a stone. Trying to figure out where that car is stopped. Yellow at Dunlop Chicane and Frits van Eerd is off the circuit.
No comments:
Post a Comment