He wants to get by the overall leader and Ben Barnicoat passes while Pepper gives him racing room. Some cooperation between the two McLaren teams? Hmmm. #38 is two laps down to the leader and so they want to get at least a lap back. Charles Weerts is pressing hard as well. He wants to get clear of the traffic as we see a spin there, for the #93 Ferrari, with Jonathan Hui driving. At Brussels corner, he gets rotated by Marco Mapelli in the Lamborghini, car #63. Hui noticed a Lamborghini in the corner and the #93 team has been in the wars all this time. Lamborghini #63 is tattered but still racing. Alessandro Pier Guidi has a 3.2 second lead and now, Ben barnicoat goes up the inside.
Barnicoat is quicker than you, Alessandro. Don’t fight this one, mate. Just let him get a lap back, would you? The McLaren shows itself to be a very quick car and Barnicoat is on the verge of doing it. It needs it’s pass. Pier Guidi is defending hard when he doesn’t need to. Discretion would be the better part of valor. Cut some good lap times and avoid Charles Weerts catching up to you. What can Weerts do, in his home race at his home track. Pier Guidi is wasting way too much time, defending his lead from a car that is laps down. That’s ridiculous.
In this moment, don’t fight with the lapped cars while your pursuer is pushing like crazy. The gap has stretched out and now, if he were to get past, he’d pull away. Barnicoat is desperate to get a lap back. He took a pass through during the yellow to reset his stint length to do a double stint. Pier Guidi leads by 5.7 seconds over Weerts. Ricardo Sanchez leads in Pro Am by 4.3 seconds over Tuomas Tujula in second spot in class. Oscar Tunjo, the Venezuelan is at the wheel of the #7 Toksport WRT Mercedes AMG GT3, and he runs off the road briefly before coming back on. But Senor Tunjo is way down the order.
Sanchez vs. Tujula continues in Pro Am. Alessandro Pier Guidi leads the overall by 5.7 seconds as David Perel abuses track limits again, in the #33 Rinaldi Racing Audi. Third in Pro Am is the second Audi Sport Team Attempto Audi’s. Alex Aka driving the car currently, sharing with Fabian Lavergne and Max Hofer. Tujula comes to the start/finish line. Marco Mapelli clears traffic, but he is in hot pursuit of Marco Sorensen. #63 is fourth overall and trying to catch the Aston Martin. Five cars I believe on the lead lap, as Mapelli runs wide and hooking a wheel over the curbs into the dirt. He’s fine and continues downhill into Pouhon.
Mapelli tagged Hui and Hui spun, as we watch in replay. He tried to back off the gas but still made contact and that is a Pro level car bashing into a Pro Am level car. Pro drivers are expected to make clean passes. #63 will likely have a third penalty and they are a lap down. They have had two speeding penalties already that have really put the kibosh on getting any farther up the order in this motor race. Running down the remainder of the top ten, we see Nick Tandy sixth, Nico Muller seventh, Ben Barnicoat eighth, Christopher Haase, and Timur Boguslavskiy.
Will the marshals look at the incident between Mapelli and Hui? Alessandro Pier Guidi has the welly down and he is pulling away steadily from Charles Weerts. Poor old Weerts is finding traffic to be a hindrance more than a help at this stage of the game. Ben Barnicoat is on the tail of the Ferrari but cannot pass. They are really running a similar pace and so are the #51 and #32. Weerts is not making up time on Pier Guidi like Dries Vanthoor did. To this point, he cannot get to Pier Guidi. Marco Sorensen on the lead lap is trying to pass Nick Tandy into Brussels corner another time.
Sorensen runs a 2:20.7 and Tandy also running laps in the 2:20 bracket. Pier Guidi is a second faster at 2:19.6, whipping that prancing horse right now. McLaren’s are fast and fragile. But Jota and Inception are both in this race. We have less than six hours to go in this race which is what we’d see for the GTWC Europe enduro at Paul Ricard in southern France, a 1,000 kilometer or six hour event. Ben Barnicoat is trying everything in his bag of tricks to get by the Ferrari. He is pressing harder and harder to try and get back into podium contention.
Five and ¾ hours to go. This is a tall drink of water for Barnicoat and company. Safety cars can help and hinder both. Traffic giveth. Traffic taketh away. Audi #32 has been metronomically turning laps and staying out of trouble after being 54th overall in the early portion of this race. At the six-hour mark, Ferrari led and we thought they didn’t always survive. Well, with five and ¾ hours left on the board, a Ferrari is still in the lead of the motor race and has gone through without a hitch. So, what do Maranello’s rivals think now? They must have some real concern. We need to worry about this car. Speed, reliability, and fuel economy is the trifecta. That’s what Ferrari and Iron Lynx have had.
#32 has had a few hiccups. They were checking a sensor on one of their previous pit stops. Aston Martin have been solid in the race but their pace just isn’t there at this moment. The #51 has been the complete package, the crème de la crème throughout this event. So, Nick Tandy is being hounded by Nico Muller. It is indeed the Nick and Nico show. Nico Muller started in open wheel cars, went to DTM, and by dint of an Audi contract, headed into GT3 racing. Tandy is the reigning Spa 24 Hours champion who won in the 2020 event last October. Drive through penalty to car #14, the Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini. Poor Alain Adam. He has had to say the same thing over and over and over.
Maybe we should just hire Siri to do the track limits, car numbers, and driver announcements, and automate the Race Direction position. New SRO Race Director… Siri. New hashtag. #Don’tJinxTheLynx. They’ve burst onto the scene and has earned a lot of recognition from Maranello and Ferrari. They are one of if not the premier GT Ferrari team. AF Corse have been a premier Ferrari outfit for years and now Iron Lynx is maybe beating them to it. Iron Lynx has a junior single seater team as well. There is customer track day involvement too. Nick Tandy moves through Courbe Paul Frere. KCMG built single seater race cars for the World Motorsports Games. Here comes Nico Muller, too.
Iron Lynx is run by former winning driver in the Spa 24 Hours, Andrea Piccini. The way you can tell a car is part of each championship in this race is through looking at the Fanatec windscreen banners. If they are black with white letters, they are a part of GT World Challenge Europe, or not associated with the full championship for IGTC. If they are white with black letters, those are the Intercontinental GT Challenge entrants. Nick Tandy and Maxime Martin will be splitting these last five or so hours between them. The Audi is faster than the Porsche up the hill. Porsche came with a dozen cars. Mercedes came with a dozen cars. Audi has nine entries. Ferrari has seven entries, so, significantly down from the others. The one Ferrari that has been the most competitive is the race leader.
Drive through penalty to the #31 WRT Audi, and yes, you’ve guessed it. Say it with me. Track limits. Frank Bird will have to take the penalty and now up on the screen we see the same for the #14, the Emil Frey Lamborghini Huracan GT3. The Porsche vs. Audi battle continues. KCMG vs. WRT. The lead gap is increasing. Ben Barnicoat still cannot unlap himself. Now, the battle is on, look, in Silver Cup. Tuomas Tuujula, the Flying Finn, has caught Ricardo Sanchez. So, Garage 59 Aston Martin eating up the #90 Mad Panda Mercedes. This is for the class lead. Into Les Combes, Tujula, boom. He goes to the inside. Poor old Sanchez just got dusted.
Dusted? I don’t think so. He’s still going for it. Advantage Aston Martin in the Silver Cup division. Wow. Wow. Wow. Audi #31 obeys the command comes to serve it’s drive through penalty. The gap between he leaders is at 12 seconds. In Pro-Am, we have a new class leader and it is Rino Mastronardi at the wheel of the #53 AF Corse Ferrari is it. The Am class has fallen like a stack of dominoes or a house of cards, because the #166 Porsche was in the pit lane with a litany of woe while the #23 Porsche, we saw smashed into the barriers earlier. #166 is back on track and have been on the track for five minutes. The #166 Haegeli by T2 Racing crew though, “hold on a second, our competition is out of the race. We can still salvage something!”
Again, Rino Mastronardi in Ferrari #53 is in the lead in Pro-Am. He has a lap in hand over his closest pursuer which is the second, #52 AF Corse Ferrari with Alessio Rovera at the controls. Ferrari are represented well and there is a Ferrari in Silver in fourth spot in that class with David Perel and company. Don’t jinx The Lynx. Pier Guidi has now run 36 minutes in his reset stint. So, he has less than half an hour to go. Charles Weerts is 45 minutes into a stint and will have to pit earlier. He has 20 minutes left before handing the car over to one of his team mates.
Marco Sorensen is also due in in another six minutes. Wow, a battle rages here, look. Nico Muller and Nick Tandy! Through traffic, side by side in sixth place through Les Combes! They used the traffic and Nico Muller made the move best. Both these blokes have the #66 Attempto Audi ahead and that car lost a lap by staying out on slick tires much earlier in this race. Remember that deluge we had in the second hour yesterday? That’s probably what happened. I cannot remember, but if you read back through the race report, you’ll find it. The leaders have now run 425 laps, 1,850 miles. Alessandro Pier Guidi is clear up front and now Nico Muller has moved past Nick Tandy.
That won’t sit well with Tandy who wants another win with Porsche. Tandy is a terrier. He will nip at your heels, and he is pushing hard as they go through the Piff Paff (Fangnes corner) and into Campus by the technical college. Nico Muller was last year’s DTM runner up in the final year of the Class 1 touring car regulations for that series. Now, much like GTWC Europe, they race in sprint format, to GT3 regs. Nico Muller now must catch the #66 Attempto Audi, the Christopher Mies, Dennis Marschall, and Mattia Drudi.
Nico Muller is now sixth, 35 seconds in-arrears of the #66 Audi. He has indeed made his way by Nick Tandy. Target acquired. How long will it take to get there? These cars are a lap off the lead but still in contention. We are close to 11AM local time, so an hour or so before lunch. Ben Barnicoat is still stuck to Alessandro Pier Guidi. He’s like Nathan the gnat, if you have a gnat flying you in a room and can’t get rid of it. Iron Lynx, phew! They could be looking at a dominant breakthrough victory here at Spa. But, that said, there’s still five and a half hours left on the board.
The leader has run 426 laps, 1,854 miles. The order is Pier Guidi, Weerts, Sorensen, Mapelli, Mies, Muller, Tandy, Barnicoat (running behind the leader), Haase, and Boguslavskiy. Christopher Haase and Timur Boguslavskiy, we haven’t seen them as much, but they are still hanging on to the top ten. Tuomas Tujula, the Silver Cup leader in the Garage 59 Aston Martin #159, the Finn is 12th. Sanchez and Aka are next up in the Silver division. Nico Muller was running quicker than Nick Tandy and now, Ben Barnicoat has just unlapped himself once. Now, a scheduled pit stop for Marco Sorensen in the third place #95 Garage 59 Aston Martin.
They are slightly off sequence. We will see the other top cars in a range of 15-24 minutes. McLaren #38 does gain back one lap. For a while, despite being laps apart, we saw the McLaren and the Ferrari running at the same pace. The McLaren maintained the gap. Marco Mapelli is the first car a lap down, a car that led a lot earlier on and they got squished by a couple speeding penalties. Two penalties, you will be put a lap down. They are pressing hard but must unlap themselves from the leader, from the steamrolling #51 Ferrari. Nicki Thiim has now taken over the wheel of the #95 Aston Martin. In another eight minutes, Mapelli will stop. Charles Weerts and Alessandro Pier Guidi will be in the lane soon.
The Ferrari, and the #95 Pro class Aston have both been amazingly quick. Nicki Thiim’s fastest lap time still stands when he set it in the dead of night at 3 or 4 A.M. This is not planned for a full season IGTC effort as they have a black windscreen stripe. They just went around one of my favorite liveried cars in this motor race (I concur with you, SRO lead commentator Ryan Myrehn), the #50 HubAuto Mercedes AMG GT3 that is a throwback to a winning car here at Spa during the glory years of the touring car era. 50 years ago, a Mercedes touring car won here, not necessarily overall, but in it’s class, and that is the livery HubAuto are paying tribute to, the #50 of Nicky Catsburg, Maximilian Buhk, and Maximilian Gotz.
Old school liveries and old school helmet designs take the KISS philosophy, Keep It Simple Stupid. Helmets and their liveries have meaning. Colin Braun, he has a special livery on his helmet as throwback to the late, great Spanish sports car racer Fermin Velez. Colin’s dad, Jeff Braun engineered Fermin Velez when he was racing for Scandia Racing in a Ferrari 333SP back in the 1990s. He always liked Fermin Velez, the late, great driver. Velez was a small lad but had a huge heart. Meanwhile, Mapelli should pit very soon, working his way steadily through traffic. Fate will have to put you back on level terms with cars in contention.
So, Mapelli will pit in another couple laps. That’s always a major part of this 24-hour race at Spa or any 24-hour race for that matter. Other than the major wreck we saw yesterday, we have had a clean event. Whoa! Now, what we just heard from Race Director Alain Adam, is mega. Car #63, drive through penalty for causing a collision. Mapelli was aggressive through Brussels corner that is caused by him spinning the #93, the Sky Tempesta Ferrari. The Pro driver is responsible. Another penalty too, for track limits, to the #20 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes. George Kurtz, from the United States, who teams up with Colin Braun in GT World Challenge America, he will have to serve that penalty.
The Lamborghini was almost wheel to wheel with the Ferrari. There is a vew that the professional driver should avoid contact with an amateur. It is harsh though because the Lamborghini was sufficiently in the right spot as the #52 Ferrari pits. This is the third drive through penalty for the Lamborghini. #63 dove down the inside of the Ferrari there. The judgment has to do with contact between two cars, one driven by a Pro and one for an Am. The team is in the lane for service right now and they are up against the timer. Then they will have to take their medicine by coming back through the lane for the drive through.
That’s a hard penalty to deal with. Marco Mapelli must be steaming inside his helmet. Mirko Bortolotti and Andrea Caldarelli will also be very upset. Maybe there’s something goofy with the pit lane limiter or something. We don’t really know. Still, #63 will drop down out of the top six as the gap is about 40 seconds between Mies, Muller, and Tandy. It is a minute and ten second delta from entry to exit of the pit lane. A minute and 11… actually, and that equates to a lap or so. Is there some vapor coming out of the exhaust of the Lamborghini? Is the breather not working? Maybe that is normal function of the V10.
Charles Weerts will bring the #32 WRT Audi to the lane shortly. Meanwhile, the sister car, the #37 is in the lane for service. Tires, fuel, and a driver change. They were forced to do their technical pit stop under green flag racing. Audi have shown well today. The evo version of the Audi R8 has not won a Spa 24 Hour race yet. Weerts is in the lane and Dries Vanthoor will be into the car. From the onboard camera, we see a can that says Nitrous Oxide Systems. Now, nitrous is not allowed on GT3 cars. That’s drag racing stuff. Is that a joke? If so, that’s a screamingly hilarious thing! Andrea Caldarelli serves his penalty and now, we have Dries Vanthoor back into the car for the #32. Drive through penalty, track limits, for the #11 Kessel Racing Ferrari, Giorgio Roda, the Italian, is behind the wheel.
What will the WRT driver stint strategy be in the last few hours? We shall see. Regardless of class, no driver can drive more than 14 hours total out of the 24 hours, as we see the #93 Ferrari in the pit lane now. The maximum consecutive drive time is three hours with a mandatory one hour rest period. Dries Vanthoor might do a double stint and likewise for Kelvin van der Linde and then Charles Weerts. Christopher Mies is in the pit lane with the #66 Audi Sport Team Attempto Audi R8 LMS. Driver change for this team as well. Who will they put into that car?
Aston Martin #159 is also in the lane for service and a driver change. Trouble with the door on the Aston Martin as we see the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes. Ezequiel Perez Companc is driving the Benz right now and we have these door issues for the Aston which could put them behind. Perez Companc needs to stand on it. The door on the Aston won’t shut and a drive through penalty for the #50 Mercedes, the HubAuto machine. The Mercedes will take the spot away as the Aaton Martin finally gets the door issue solved. Mercedes #90 now leads Silver and the Aston has lost the lead because of a busted door latch!
Goodness me! We have run now for 18 hours and 50 minutes. Ben Barnicoat brought the #38 Jota McLaren into the lane. Alessandro Pier Guidi continues to lead the race and he reset his stint time for a double, as Dries Vanthoor on his outlap, goes purple (fastest of all). Wow! So, Vanthoor is cooking right now. He is totally on form at a track he knows like the back of his hand. They are throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the Ferrari. He is two seconds faster and the Ferrari will be caught up in traffic. They are committed on going the extra lap on a 27 lap stint when most of the field is running 26 laps. Don’t bail out too soon.
Dries Vanthoor just ran a 2:19 dead. A 2:19.016. This is also his best lap of the race so far! He’s rocketing around Spa! He’s less than 4/10ths off the best lap we have seen all race. Those brand-new Pirelli P Zero sticker tires are working well! Use the tires to the maximum level on the outlap. Put your hot shoe in the car and go. Drive through penalty for the #87 AKKA ASP Mercedes AMG GT3, a car that runs way down in 27th in the overall, with Simon Gachet currently driving. They are fifth in the Silver Cup class and could cost them a spot as Rolf Ineichen is a lap behind them. #51 has gone an hour and two minutes and here’s Iron Lunx into the lane.
Alessandro Pier Guidi has built up a huge margin, so they need to be perfect on this pit stop to hld it together. Dries Vanthoor is fractionally slower, but it is another 2:19 as the Ferrari could only muster a 2:21 on older tires. KCMG in the lane as well in car #47, the Porsche. Nick Tandy at the wheel along with Maxime Martin as Laurens Vanthoor was hit by a four-wheeler to transport tires. Pier Guidi is serviced and sent. WRT very quick in the pit lane. How much quicker can the Ferrari run now that they know the Audi is going to be screaming around this circuit?
Driver swap on the Iron Lynx pit stop, and Come Ledogar, the Frenchman is now at the wheel of it. Dries Vanthoor cuts a 2:20.3, over a second slower than his previous two laps. We find the leader, the Mercedes, and the McLaren, and here comes the Audi on hot tires with a head of steam. Come Ledogar has to push hard to stay ahead of Dries Vanthoor. Vanthoor is going to have a fractional advantage. Dries Vanthoor is running hard to give this Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo it’s last run as the new Audi GT3 car is being displayed here at Spa and will race in 2022.
Now then, Ferrari and Iron Lynx had the edge in the pit lane, Dries Vanthoor is pushing and so is Come Ledogar. He clicks off a 2:19.221. 2:20 for Dries Vanthoor. Come Ledogar, the 2016 Endurance Cup overall champion for McLaren and Garage 59. Now, he is part of the Ferrari effort. Which teams have spent the most time in the lane? Audi #66 has spent the least time in the lane so far and the #63 has done the most. This is a calculation of time in the lane either driving or standing still. That was a close shave through traffic between Audi #37 and one of the Porsche’s. Can’t tell. That might the #911 Herberth Motorsport entry.
The Porsche was not sure where to go and came across. A professional driver will make a move. That may have been very light contact, but Christopher Mies was just fine. He didn’t have anything to do with that and again we are not sure who is driving that car because of the busted transponder we’ve talked about. They have moved past the #63 Lamborghini of Andrea Caldarelli.
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