So, under Full Course Yellow, more wholesale pit stops. Paul Dalla Lana is back in the #98 Aston Martin. Into the pit lane we also see the #777 D'station Aston Martin entry. Paul Dalla Lana in GTE-Am needs a whole stint even as an amateur rated driver while in LMP2, the amateur drivers can get away with running half a stint. Marshals are out retrieving debris as the #28 Jota Sport LMP2 is in the pit lane. D'station back on track as well. Did the #21 DragonSpeed car fix the taillight? If they didn't, they only have themselves to blame, but they fixed it. OK. Fine. How has Toyota #8 not taken the lead? Now, we are being told DragonSpeed spent a little over a minute in the pit lane which concludes that maybe they didn't fix the taillight. Alpine #36, the third Hypercar, is now in the pit lane for scheduled service despite being delayed.
Toyota #8 is suffering more than #7 with tire degradation and it could very well be down to car setup. That's a mystery because it hasn't worked to the advantage of #8. #36 is third. Andre Negrao tops up the fuel tank halfway through the stint. Green flag and we have just passed two hours. Jose Maria Lopez leads Kazuki Nakajima and Andre Negrao. That is your order in the Hypercar division. Robin Frijns, LMP2 leader has topped up his tank and he leads the category from Frits van Eerd in second spot. Filipe Albuquerque is third. Frits van Eerd has taken track position and going through the stint. Inter Europol and Jota complete the top six in LMP2.
We haven't seen a change at all in GTE Pro with the two factory Porsche's ahead of the two factory Ferrari's. All four have pitted. In GTE Am, Francois Perrodo has taken over the class leading #83 AF Corse Ferrari, while in second, Marcos Gomes, the Brazilian, has taken over the #98 Aston Martin Vantage. Ben Barker has the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 in third place. Toyota #7 has now run 62 laps, 208 and a half miles. DragonSpeed have now changed the tail of the #21 LMP2 car. The light was working but only intermittently.
Toyota #7 leads the sister car now by 12 seconds. That is the real world gap to #8. They shouldn't have lost out but they did and the assertion that they have worse tire degradation than #7, the sister car, is bang on the money. It depends on track position but also on Full Course Yellow. The Alpine might be able to push and come back towards the Toyota's. Marcos Gomes has gone by Francois Perrodo for the lead in GTE Am. Perrodo is in the middle of his second stint to get his drive time done. Then they can cycle the other two drivers through. Good move by AF Corse. Full Course Yellow offers you opportunities.
You don't decide in a split second. Your strategists go through and think up how the driver rotation is going to work and then you execute your pre-planned strategy. It doesn't mean the team doesn't have to think on it's feet. But, a lot of the strategy is usually really planned out in advance. Those are the windows we talked about earlier for opportunities to make strategy work. Andre Negrao needs to find more pace to hang onto the Toyota's, but he is in traffic as well. Dragonspeed are cleaning the non-working taillight. Hmmm. Is this just political gesturing on their part to say, we are faster than the rest of the LMP2 field?
Lighting on the cars is trivial, but it is a rule. So, the GTE Am Aston Martin is a lap down from the GTE Pro Porsche. The Porsche runs ahead of the #52 Ferrari. We can see three class leading cars together on the road. GTE Am with the Aston Martin #98. GTE Pro with the #92 Porsche and LMP2 with the #31 WRT Oreca. The #31 WRT car passes the Porsche as we see the Intereuropol #34 car passing the #29 Racing Team Nederland entry. Jakub Smiechowski passes Frits van Eerd. Ricardo Pera in the #56 Project 1 Porsche is now dealing with the #85 Iron Lynx Iron Dames Ferrari with Katherine Legge at the controls. Legge has taken over from Sara Bovy.
This is Katherine Legge's second WEC race of 2021. Great move by Ricardo Pera! We see the #44 LMP2 car for ARC Bratislava also make a pass on Katherine Legge and that has Kush Maini at the wheel right now. Legge was hoping to run more races in WEC but her IMSA program has also been a major priority with Team Hardpoint. The #20 High Class Racing LMP2 has pitted. We have Rino Mastronardi making his debut in a WEC race that is not the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So he and Kush Maini are debutants this weekend. We watch the battle of the AF Corse Ferrari's for third in GTE Pro. Daniel Serra leads James Calado and that will change soon.
#51 lead the points, and James Calado and Alesandro Pier Guidi, they are looking for their second championship in WEC. Jakub Smiechowski is behind Filipe Albuquerque and Robin Frijns. Smiechowski is Polish for smiling man. Interesting factoid for you. Robert Kubica has Kush Maini chasing him in the Pro Am section of LMP2. Jose Maria Lopez runs wide in the first corner. Oh "Pechito", take it easy, sunshine. Hit your marks. Kevin Estre has now handed the #92 GTE Pro leading Porsche to Neel Jani. Estre says there is a big advantage in leading and controlling the way you drive.
Ferrari seem to have less pace than Porsche and they can concentrate, be smooth, and fast. Their fuel saving gives them confidence over the sister car, the #91. Everything seems hunky dory at Porsche for now. Maybe Ferrari can come back. But, Porsche are working together to win the manufacturer's championship, and the #92 is ahead of #91, and they don't want team orders yet for swapping positions. The main goal is for the team. In this form of racing, in endurance sports car racing, you just have to play as a team. Toyota surely want to put a bow on the championship. Alpine's Achilles heel is a smaller fuel tank compared to the Toyota.
They are forced to elongate the stint artificially. It has been 26 laps for the Alpine and 31 laps for the Toyota's. Toyota's get five more laps on fuel mileage. That being said, in a perfect world it shouldn't make an iota of difference. If things haven't changed, why should the stint lengths be different? You are on high fuel because of using full throttle. Toyota may have oversold themselves when they said Alpine would beat them here in Bahrain. Jose Maria Lopez lays down black skid marks in the middle of the corner! He's pushing, and I don't have to tell you, hard.
The trouble for the Alpine is not lack of speed but fuel tank capacity. The Alpine was designed to the old LMP1 regulations and so they were forced, when they entered the Hypercar division, to shrink the size of the fuel tank compared to the Toyota being completely built (and the Glickenhaus which is not here as we've explained), to the new Hypercar rules. Either regulations set, for Le Mans Hypercar, or LMDh in IMSA etc. will be able to carry greater fuel loads. Alpine, by racing this car with Signatech, they've bitten a baited hook and they will support a Hypercar program, and they will be testing a new car for LMH regs.
Alpine team boss Philippe Sinault will be able to be very satisfied when Alpine does get their Hypercar together in a few years. Running a team in this form of racing is a big deal. Now then, Tom Blomqvist is running down Jakub Smiechowski but not by the amount he'd like to in all honesty. Tom Blomqvist is coming in a hurry. He needs to find 14 seconds to Filipe Albuquerque and then to Robin Frijns in the LMP2 lead. Smiechowski is told to move his brake bias forward as the rear brakes are getting hot. So, put more bias on the front brakes. The tire wear looks OK. Wind the balance forward "Kuba". Kuba is the diminutive of his full name, Jakub (Jacob).
If you know who is in the car ahead and behind you, you can get an idea of how the fight will be. Blomqvist will have been told that Kuba Smiechowski runs ahead of him. #38, the sister car of Antonio Felix Da Costa, he is sixth in class in LMP2 just behind Frits van Eerd by three second, or three and a a half seconds. Filipe Albuquerque is really putting in some fast average lap times this stint, running behind Robin Frijns. As the Alpine scythes through traffic, the #34 Intereuropol entry in LMP2 that is his next target.
Alex Brundle, Jakub Smiechowski's co-driver, is being coached by the team manage tires. Alex Brundle says he is doing a brilliant job. The team is really looking at the data and their tires are behaving well. They've driven to the front of the field and kept their tires alive. The Full Course Yellow messed up their strategy slightly, but now they are back on track with Kuba driving well. They've come from nowhere and been very consistent. Le Mans is where they really came into their own and the bright lime green livery on that car must have something to do with why they get noticed but do so in a less flamboyant way, save for the color scheme of course.
The team's development has been "monumental" according to Alex Brundle, son of Formula 1 driver and commentator, and 1988 Le Mans 24 Hour race winner with Jaguar, Martin Brundle. The engineering team at Intereuropol, a lot of it is ex-Toyota engineers from their old LMP1 program. Maybe in a decade, Alex Brundle would move into the booth. He is very much like his dad in the ability to commentate on races. While we've talked about Alex Brundle, we can see Job van Uitert working his way past Robin Frijns again.
Charles Milesi is the third driver on the team for the #31 WRT entry and he is the only driver yet to step into it for a stint. We have seen ARC Bratislava in LMP2 make their second pit stop. It could be Kush Maini will stay in the car for another stint, for a double stint. Robin Frijns moves past Job van Uitert. OK, back into your box, sunbeam. Kush Maini's first stint was broadly similar to Anders Fjordbach. Fascinating, because Fjordbach is a far more experienced shoe at the wheel of a LMP2 race car than is Kush Maini. We can see High Class Racing moving their way past the DragonSpeed entry as well, look. Robert Kubica passes Henrik Hedman.
Kubica is a Formula 1 race winner while Henrik Hedman is a Bronze rated driver. Hedman has been passed and is off the LMP2 Pro-Am podium. Henrik Hedman is putting his drive time in and that's his focus. We haven't seen the Bronze rated driver for High Class compete yet. That's the Danish driver Dennis Andersen. He has yet to get into the car. Before the LMP2 Pro-Am era, Henrik Hedman is one of just two Bronze rated LMP2 drivers to win the class. Frits van Eerd is the other. He won a WEC race while Henrik Hedman has won in the European Le Mans Series before. Battle for position in GTE Am between two Ferrari's as the #57 Kessel Racing Car Guy Ferrari is passed by the #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari. Scott Andrews looking for a way around Roberto Lacorte.
Tom Gamble in the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 is next up. Mike Wainwright still has to drive one more stint in that car. Andrews is scrapping with Lacorte. Andrews oversold the dummy into the corner, and what happens when you do that? Your rival, comes right back at you, baby. Andrews though is not done. He is going undercut Lacorte and pass him again. So, here's it all again, but in reverse, look. Lacorte is still fighting. He still has the welly down. Inside, inside. Clear. This is awkward for Scott Andrews to be sure.
Lacorte finally realizes that discretion is the better part of valor. The LMP2 battle will now include Sophia Floresch in the #1 Richard Mille Racing Oreca. Robert Kubica and Henrik Hedman are also back there. Sophia Floresch is aiming for Norman Nato, her next target, aboard the #70 RealTeam Racing Oreca. But he is a long way up the road. Floresch will have to chase him down the best she can. The #38 Jota Sport Oreca will soon lap Sophia Floresch. #38 is fifth while Floresch in #1 runs eighth in class. Not sure who is at the wheel of the #38 Jota entry. I think it is Roberto Gonzlez. But it just as easily could be Antonio Felix Da Costa. I don't think Anthony Davidson will get in just yet.
Pit stops and what you did or didn't do for service are going to come into play, but it is the after effect of the stop that is the crucial part. Jose Maria Lopez leads the motor race but Kazuki Nakajima, is catching his team mate. He is 3/10ths or 4/10ths of a second quicker than his team mate in a stint that has now lasted for 17 laps of the Sakhir circuit. Nakajima is catching Lopez once again. We know car #8 had four fresh tires. But what about the #7? What was their strategy on the tires? The gap ebbing and flowing between the Toyota's. We have seen two driver changes in Toyota #8 and everyone has cycled through the car. Mike Conway did a double stint and we assume that Jose Maria Lopez will do likewise before handing the #7 car to Kamui Kobayashi for the end of the race.
Jose Maria Lopez says he's struggling with locking brakes and the front tires lock up and so he washes into and out of the corners. Toyota have a sophisticated aerodynamic device to control braking when the hybrid system of the car recuperates. Nakajima is almost 22 seconds up on Andre Negrao in the #36 Alpine. Kazuki Nakajima continues pulling away. Light up the front wheels, your rear wheels have no lateral stability through the S curves. Dylan Pereira is now challenging Francois Perrodo for position in GTE Am. This is the scrap for second place in the class.
Perrodo finally has enough and he chops his away across Pereira's nose! Kazuki Nakajima splits these GTE cars. Here comes the #31 WRT LMP2 Oreca, and he could very well give a freebie to Dylan Pereira and let him pass the Ferrari of Francois Perrodo with no worries. Pereira tries to get a double slipstream off both the LMP2 car and the Ferrari. Will this work? Will this end in tears? Pereira claims track position. But can he own the corner when they get to turn one another time? Pereira sticks the pass. OK. Marcos Gomes still leads GTE Am in Aston Martin #98, 33 seconds up the road from where these blokes are.
Aston Martin resume station in 1-2 in GTE Am. Tomonobu Fujii in the #777 D'station Aston Martin is in fourth place. Fujii san back in the car after co-driver Satoshi Hoshino merely drove a single stint. It may be a wee while before we get the possibility of an Aston Martin 1-2-3. Fujii san is 14 seconds now behind Perrodo in the Am leading Ferrari. In LMP2, Filipe Albuquerque is clawing his way up into contention and is a tenth of a second quicker than everyone else. He is just 12 seconds behind the WRT entry at this stage.
Daniel Serra is third in GTE Pro ahead of teammate and points leader, James Calado. Calado has taken a long time to catch up. Two years ago, Calado and Pier Guidi were champions, in the 2018-2019 "Super Season" of FIA WEC competition. As of the start of this race, they led Kevin Estre and Neel Jani by 11 points. There are 64 points left on offer and up for grabs from this week's race, one for pole position, and the eight hour event next weekend that puts a bow on the 2021 FIA WEC season. 62 points are still on offer. The Ferrari's do the old switcheroo another time, and there may well be a radio message instructing the change. Miguel Molina is not in the championship fight. He will just be a wingman and be a responsible, reliable teammate.
Ferrari lead Porsche in the GTE Pro manufacturer's standings by 15 points with one race still to run after today. We won't be crowning champions today. Toyota put four new tires each on both cars. We have a battle for position in GTE Am between Katherine Legge and Jaxon Evans. Evans, from New Zealand, he was a factory Porsche Junior driver but this year he is racing for privateer teams and has had a difficult year in Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup racing. Katherine Legge is running her first race in Bahrain I believe. When she had her accident at Paul Ricard in France, that was the first time she had ever raced at the Paul Ricard circuit in the sputh of France. She had run some open wheel races in England in both Formula Renault and Formula 3.
Then, she got connected with Paul Gentilozzi, the former IMSA GTO and SCCA Trans Am champion who became a car owner, to race in IndyCar with his team (back then called Champ Car), and she has raced in the United States more or less, ever since. Katherine Legge was in the DTM for a few years as well. But that is not a global series, it is mainly a European championship. Paul Ricard is your second home as an endurance racer. Preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans see the teams testing at three different circuits. Motorland Aragon in Spain, Paul Ricard in southern France, and at Monza in Italy where we raced with the WEC back in July.
Legge ran DTM in Shanghai, China, but I believe it was on a street circuit and not on the permanent circuit where we have seen Formula 1 race in the past. The order has remained status quo in GTE Pro with the Porsche's #91 and #92 first and second ahead of Ferrari's #51 and #52 in third and fourth. James Calado running ahead of Daniel Serra at Ferrari. Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz, they are 39 some odd points out of the lead. There is potential for Lietz and Bruni to win the championship. However, they might just understand that Porsche AG want the sister car of Kevin Estre and Neel Jani to be champions.
Andrea Piccini is being chased down by the Porsche's, and he is aboard the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari sharing with Matteo Cressoni and Rino Mastronardi. Andrea Piccini does have a brother who drives, Giacomo Piccini. Jose Maria Lopez leads Kazuki Nakajima merely by four and a half seconds. Katherine Legge has indeed raced here in Bahrain before today. She did race the one-off Formula 3 Super Prix (Super Prize), that ran here in 2004. Sir Lewis Hamilton was the winner of that event. It was a national F3 festival. British Formula 3 used to race at Spa and Monza and did so at the first race of the season.
Carlos Sainz Jr. won one of the races and so did Sergio Perez who swept class B. Bahrain F3 festival that year, saw a 1-2 finished for Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, a couple of legends. There are five drivers in today's race that did run here in Formula 3 in 2004. Blimey! Who could there be? Giedo van der Garde, Loic Duval, Matteo Cressoni, Paul di Resta, and Kazuki Nakajima. Wow! Jamie Green completed the podium, DTM champion. Track limits for the TF Sport Aston Martin. James Calado has passed Daniel Serra. Currently, that is the smallest gap we are seeing in the whole of the field.
The second smallest gap is between the two Porsche's. Marcos Gomes now leads GTE Am with Dylan Pereira more than half a minute behind, 33.3 seconds to be precise. Francois Perrodo is next. There is not a gap more than five seconds. We are grinding it out. The strategy is on cue. Coil spring, laser focus, or not. The poor mechanics are wilting in the heat right now. Unbelievable. The heat coming off the cars is unbelievable, never mind the heat in the desert itself. We are looking for yet another round of LMP2 pit stops.
The strategies are all different. No tires? Two tires? Four tires? How about driver changes? Who needs tires or fuel? Robin Frijns has the #31 WRT entry in the pit lane. Filipe Albuquerque takes the lead in the #22 United Autosports car. He will take the lead and the #28 Jota Sport car, will see Stoffel Vandoorne taking over the wheel from Tom Blomqvist. Anthony Davidson, a former FIA WEC World Champion, has also won in LMP1 in Bahrain, on two occasions. Sebastien Buemi has two wins and so do Conway, Kobayashi, and Lopez. Filipe Albuquerque continues on in the lead in the LMP2 class. Who else has two LMP1 wins in Bahrain? A French driver. Not from the old Rebellion team, a Toyota driver. It's Stephane Sarazzin.
#34 for Intereuropol pits with Jakub Smiechowski continuing at the wheel for a double stint. Charles Milesi continues for a double stint in the #31 WRT car and the left rear wheel on Intereuropol has a problem. Right rear for WRT. Oh man. What is going on with the wheels on these LMP2 cars? Sheesh. The GTE Am battle continues as #86 Tom Gamble in the Porsche passes Katherine Legge in the #85 Ferrari. United Autosport and Jota are in. Filipe Albuquerque stays in #22 while Stoffel Vandoorne takes the wheel of the #28 machine.
Antonio Felix Da Costa has finished his stint as Anthony Davidson is now in #38. Alessio Rovera has also stopped in GTE Am. This was on a short call for Full Course Yellow. Charles Milesi takes the LMP2 lead. We have an interview with Robin Frijns and he says the competition in LMP2 is strong. He felt comfortable at the beginning of his stint while fending off the challenge from Filipe Albuquerque and they are fighting the two Jota cars. The high temperatures ambient make the tires suffer and so do the long duration corners. Don't heat the tires up too fast. Frijns will finish the race. We're not quite halfway through this race yet.
The championship sees a nine point spread in the top three. Jota #28 leads WRT by two points. They are nine points clear of Jota #38 while Phil Hanson is fourth on his own, 14 points away. Alex Brundle and Jakub Smiechowski are tied for fifth in LMP2 points, 23 markers behind. It is a genuine five-car points battle in LMP2 and seven driver combinations that have mathematical chances for the LMP2 championship before we head to the finale here in Bahrain, the 8 hour race, next weekend. Soaking your overalls in wateris a terrible idea because you will be steaming (quite literally), in a hot race car! That could earn the what were you thinking?! award.
Oh dear, oh dear. The #21 has lost the left rear wheel! You've picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel. Juan Pablo Montoya, on his outlap, has the wheel come loose off the #21 machine. So, Flex Box will be in the box. This is a massive blow for DragonSpeed. The wheel is loose, roaming around on the track someplace. So a marshal will have to be dispatched to pick that up. Full Course Yellow, potentially. This should be a Slow Zone for now. This is the end of Ben Hanley, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Henrik Hedman being in the hunt for the championship.
Montoya has a long limp home and Henrik Hedman, just out of the automobile, can't believe it! Anybody can make a mistake. Half a dozen LMP2 cars have struggled with loose left rear wheels and loose tires with the rattle gun not working. Full Course Yellow and Montoya has one drive wheel and no differential. The half shafts will be completely shot This is going to be a short Full Course Yellow and so Alpine will gain an advantage over Toyota. In replay, from the onboard camera, let's see if we can tell what happened to Juan Pablo Montoya.
Into the turn, engine revs up, the car wriggles, and he keeps the darn thing under control. He was a very lucky chap he didn't go through a super fast corner. As soon as the wheel departs the pegs, all you hear is vroom, vroom, vrooom. It's spinning the driveshaft and only the driveshaft. To rub salt in DragonSpeed's wounds, the stewards have put the car under investigation for an unsafe release from the lane. Wow. Dylan Pereira is in the pit lane now too. Norman Nato brings the #70 RealTeam LMP2 to the lane as do Sophia Floresch aboard the #1 Richard Mille Racing LMP2 Oreca and Kush Maini in the #44 ARC Bratislava entry. He may top up and go for another stint.
We have both Toyota's in the pit lane as well. This is a short Full Course Yellow as the tire has been recovered. The Alpine just ran 28 laps on it's most recent stint before pitting, while before that it ran only 26 laps. Now, DragonSpeed have finally made it back to pit lane. This is good news. Car #21 under investigation for unsafe release for, just what we saw, a wheel that was not tightened down onto the mounting peg. Driver changes at Toyota. Both AF Corse Ferrari's pitted and did quick stops. Now, one Toyota takes a driver change while the other does not.
Any straw for Ferrari, grab it with both hands. Porsche are in the final sector. Where will they end up? Now, back to the Dragonspeed entry, that left rear wheel is not sitting on the hub. Bad news. You see the bolts that hold the brake disc to the wheel, and then there are the holes on the inside radius of the stub axle. The whole thing rotates and that is what gives you the drive, the propulsion from the motor. These are drive pegs on the race compared to stud on the hub of your passenger car. The whole left rear quarter has to come out of that car.
We have moe GTE Am pit action with the exception of the class leader. Right now we see the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 in the lane. Aston Martin #98 stayed out but everyone else has made it. Pit stops made for fuel to extend the length of the stint for minimum drive time. Can we do it on the fuel? Sebastien Buemi is back in Toyota #8 and Matthieu Vaxiviere is now driving the #36 Alpine. No driver change in Toyota #7, but, a long pit stop nonetheless. The driver change took an extra 15 seconds. Toyota take the nose and the tail off to tune the balance.
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