We are into the final two hours of this race and we won't really see the Toyota lap the Alpine, the leading Toyota. But it might be lapped. Alpine lost bucketloads of time on the last Full Course Yellow. D'station in the lane and Satoshi Hoshino will stay behind the wheel. No driver change. Katherine Legge, fifth in GTE Am for Iron Lynx and the Iron Dames Ferrari. Nicklas Nielsen has just completed a pit stop in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari and Andrew Watson is now at the wheel of the #777 Aston Martin and we did see a driver change in that car. There will be a driver change at Toyota as well, fairly soon. We now see the #7 Toyota in the lane from the race lead. So, this is surely a scheduled service for them. Let me correct myself. Both Toyota's are in the lane together with #7 ahead of #8.
Driver change for the #7 car and Kamui Kobayashi takes over the car from Jose Maria Lopez. This is Kobayashi's first stint I think. Brendon Hartley is now in the #8 Toyota. This is Hartley's second stint. The #7 Toyota has done double stints for drivers the whole way through while it likely has been single stints for the #8 car. Buemi, Hartley, Nakajima, and back to Buemi. So, that's four single stints for the #8. New tires for the #7 Toyota. Each pit stop will knowingly be longer than the sister car. However, if you think about it, your driver change is less than the fueling time. Where is the car on the out lap? 17 seconds slower on the pit stop for #8! Wow! #777 Aston Martin does not have a lot of luck today. Thye just been given another penalty, with a meatball flag, a black flag with a red dot, also known as a mechanical black flag.
They have to pit. Matthieu Vaxiviere is running on 33 lap old tires in the #36 Alpine. There will have to be an extra stop for the Alpine relative to the Toyota's. Whoops! Brendon Hartley runs very wide through turn 12. It looks clean, but as you get offline later in the corner the corner truns right and he gets on the dirt on the outside. There's loads and loads of sand all over the road. Remember, we are racing in the desert. Kamui Kobayashi is given the gaps by his race engineer and so, he has 31 seconds over the sister Toyota and 34 seconds over the Alpine. The gap is now what, 35 seconds I believe. #777 needs repairs.
Team manager of car #1 for Richard Mille Racing being asked to report to the Race Director's office with Sophia Floresch, the most recent driver to do a stint in that car I believe. #777 has a loose front bumper while Toyota says the tire change went awry on #8. Was it a failure of the rattle gun? That's a possibility. But 17 seconds is a race deciding and world championship deciding margin beyond a doubt. We have just seen a couple GTE Am pit stops. Matteo Cairoli brought the #56 Project 1 Porsche to the lane and likewise, Matt Campbell did the same in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19. Matty Campbell actually took over the car. So, in GTE Am, Aston Martin leads with Felipe Fraga over Marcos Gomes. Then comes Team Project 1 and Dempsey Proton for Porsche.
After them, Iron Lynx, and AF Corse #83 and #54. Katherine Legge has just made a stop in the #85 Iron Lynx entry while Daniel Serra is now pitting the #52 AF Corse Ferrari, bang on schedule. James Calado has done an identical number of laps and they are clearly on a different strategy than Porsche. That is an extension over and above normal due to the Full Course Yellow. Neel Jani and Richard Lietz have both run 21 laps in their stints thus far. Kessel Racing and Cetilar have also stopped in GTE Am from tenth and 11th. Mikkel Jensen at the wheel of the #57 and Giorgio Sernagiotto in the #47 as Brendon Hartley is working the traffic.
This is for position in second place as Hartley moves past Matthieu Vaxiviere. The regulations have changed and with the Hypercar, they can't boost their speed until 120 clicks. But there is also a lot of debris on the right side of turn 13. Lots of tire clag out there. He squeezes Matthieu Vaxiviere to keep the tires clean. In replay, we can see that on the pit stop for the #8, the wheel nut on the left front didn't lock into place correctly when the mechanic hammered it home with the air impact gun. The mechanic had the action on the impact gun reversed, and threaded the wheel nut the wrong way. It looks like he cross threaded the nut.
Actually, they had the wrong tire or a tire from the sister car. Oh dear. That's against the rules because each car's allotted tires have a bar code specific to them. Alessandro Pier Guidi completes his pit stop and takes back third spot ahead of team mate Miguel Molina. The LMP2 leader is in the lane, Charles Milesi, as well. So, Porsche have been leading GTE Pro and now #92 hits the pit lane while #91 stays out for another lap to save a lap on fuel mileage. To add insult to injury for DragonSpeed, they've been fined 2,000 Euros by the FIA for the unsafe release from the pit lane after their wheel fell off! Oh man, oh man, oh man! Hit a team in the wallet, where it hurts, but a penalty is a penalty. Pay up, or else.
There is a wheel bouncing around, and fining someone for a human eaccident is a big deal. But that is a 40 pound wheel that could hurt someone. Porsche #92 is in now. Fuel, tires, and a driver change. Job van Uitert takes the lead in LMP2 Pro-Am with the #70 car making a pit stop and we have Dennis Andersen in the #20 High Class Racing Oreca LMP2 riding a bucking bronco out onto the sand there. Off track and back on. Andersen needs four minutes to be clear on his drive time for minimums for an Am driver in LMP2. Andersen is on the podium in LMP2 Pro-Am, but, Oliver Webb is closing in a hurry.
Miro Konopka has burned his time and he did everything he needed to do. Driver change and new tires at RealTeam. Oliver Webb is catching up as we see the #91 factory Porsche 911 RSR-19 in the lane now. They have now run 121 laps, 407 miles. Due to the lost wheel, Ben Hanley, Henrik Hedman, and Juan Pablo Montoya have now lost their lead in the points standings in that category, in that section of LMP2. Frits van Eerd is now second and in third, Esteban Garcia and Norman Nato. DragonSpeed, RealTeam, Racing Team Nederland, and High Class all have a mathematical chance of winning the Pro-Am LMP2 crown. So, there 'tis.
Ten seconds quicker by the Porsche compared to the Ferrari's on their GTE Pro pit stops. Both Porsche's are back out and they have taken ten seconds out of the Ferrari's on pit lane. Hot brakes for the #38 Jota Sport car in LMP2 so hopefully someone is armed with a fire extinguisher on their next pit stop. That car will literally be coming in hot. Anthony Davidson also mentioned issues with a long pedal, as we watch the GTE Pro battle. Porsche #92 has now run 121 laps, 407 miles. Davidson had to shift the brake balance forward. Filipe Albuquerque runs second in LMP2 just ahead of Tom Blomqvist. As we do another distance check, the leading #31 WRT LMP2 entry has now run 125 laps, 420 and 3/8ths miles.
Blomqvist is back in that #28 entry and Antonio Felix Da Costa has the wheel of the sister car. Whoops! We've got a spinner, look, and it is Juan Pablo Montoya taking his turn on the whirligig. Into the first corner, and the Pro-Am LMP2 points leaders are just not having a good day today. He might make contact with the Iron Lynx Ferrari, car #85. That is the Iron Dames entry. Yup. He just taps seventh place GTE-Am runner Rahel Frey, and loops it. A racing deal. That's all that is. Yikes! Montoya isn't in the clear yet! He almost gets run over by one of the factory Porsche's! The D'station Aston Martin is back in the garage with lots of d amage (damage), to the front end of that automobile.
What remains of the front fender is being removed off the car. There's bits of floor that also need to be ripped away. Earlier in the motor race the rear decklid blew off of course. Now, Sebastien Buemi is upset about what has been going on with the #8 Toyota They are way too slow compared to the sister car. It was tough to keep up, while losing ground to the sister car. Buemi says he is not sure what happened with the tire, but the team did lose time stopping under Full Course Yellow. They are chasing the sister car and the #8 delivered pole yesterday with Brendon Hartley. Hartley is now driving. The #8 car had not had a pole in two seasons, and more than two years.
October 2019 at Fuji Speedway in Japan was the last pole for the #8 Toyota. Sebastien Buemi is a very talented driver, but he also wears his heart on his sleeve and will let you know how he feels. Today, is his birthday. Happy Birthday, Sebastien! Alpine #36 in the lane. Happy Birthday, Ben Keating, as well. Racing is a physical exercise, honestly. These guys and gals are athletes. In the meantime, the gap now between Tom Blomqvist and Filipe Albuquerque has closed to just 8/10ths of a second. The gaps in LMP2 are very tight. Gabriel Aubry, on stint old tires, was impossible to pass when Renger van der Zande, on fresh tires, was huntin him down earlier on.
Now, we can see a gaping hole in one of the tires, and that looks like the one Montoya tortured earlier. Or, maybe it is a tire from the Alpine. That thing could have come off the car in the shape of a cube after the braking incident. Whoever was driving the Alpine Hypercar, he locked the brakes for five to seven meters jaunting into the lane, and that has what has absolutely trashed that tire. United and Jota, they could be running tires that are in the same condition range, or mileage range. Tom Blomqvist was on pole, and really did well in practice, but in the race they just haven't had the performance. Senore Pregliasco, your lunch is served, Sir.
So, Ferrari team manager Batti Pregliasco must be taking his lunch break before the end of the race. He has a banana tucked into his pocket, like a gunfighter with his .44 tucked into the side of a holster, like a cowboy. A couple lapped LMP2 cars are ahead of the main battle. #1 and #44 are not the cars we should focus on. They are down the order with #1 seventh in class and #44 ninth in class. High Class Racing got snookered on one of their previous pit stops which leaves the #44 entry of Oliver Webb ahead, for ARC Bratislava. ARC Bratislava on the Pro-Am pdoium, as we watch Ben Barker chasing Rahel Frey in GTE-Am. Iron Lynx Ferrari (Iron Dames) vs. GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19. Rahel Frey has only just started her first and only stint of the race, and she will take the car to the end of the race.
Ben Barker is catching her hand over fist. Frey has experience in single seaters, in open wheel cars, as well as DTM, in the old Class 1 touring car formula which has now given way to GT3. Ben Barker sees an opening, and walks right through the old door there. This is a swap for seventh position. Francois Perrodo also has to finish out, and he has run just 48 minutes in two stints. Maybe he did do a stint earlier on. He started the race. Maybe the timing is goofed up. The timing is indeed screwed up here. Hold the phone here, everyone. Wait a second. The timing and scoring is screwed up, because Perrodo has indeed driven two stints in this motor race. Okie dokie. We see the #52 AF Corse Ferrari cutting the curb in the battle with it's sister car.
We speak about how the tires can be punctured by the curb on the inside. But the far side of the curb can do damage, too. The tire is dragged back up over the sharp edge by Miguel Molina. The inside shoulder is usually punctured by the curbs. Watch out for damaging the inside of the wheel rim. Now, United Autosport and Filipe Albuquerque, he is still being harried by Tom Blomqvist. Catching is one thing, passing is something completely different. Job van Uitert is six seconds behind Renger van der Zande/. van der Zande's tires are knackered. It's the battle of the two Flying Dutchmen. WRT, United, Jota, Jota. That's the LMP2 top four order at the present time. van der Zande for the moment is right behind Antonio Felix Da Costa. We can see the division know between LMP2 and LMP2 Pro-Am.
Frijns leads the LMP2 class by 1.2 seconds. 132 laps, 444 miles completed by the LMP2 leader. Meanwhile in GTE Pro, Porsche #92 has completed 127 laps, 427 miles, and leads the sister car by three seconds while the Ferrari's are more than half a minute down at this stage. Kevin Estre is in the #92. We thought the Alpine was a lap down. Nope. Not true. It is still on the lead lap. In the meantime, Gianmaria Bruni issecond. Aye yaye yaye. Let me correct myself. The Alpine is not on the same lap. It is a lap down. Job van Uitert is now on his second stint, after handing over to co-driver Frits van Eerd for a single stint.
Job van Uitert may or may not get back in the car. Ah. He's done. Box, box, box. Giedo van der Garde is ready to go into the car and he will have to drive the final hour and a half of the race. Robin Frijns leads LMP2 as Job van Uitert must be catching Renger van der Zande. The fuel is low on the Racing Team Nederland car. Renger van der Zande has more gas in the tank. Jota Sport came in with a two point lead over WRT. They will be a wee bit behind and Phil Hanson will move up in points before the finale here in Bahrain next weekend. The scrum for second is on now between Filipe Albuquerque who has it, and Tom Blomqvist who wants it.
The #20 High Class Racing LMP2 car is pitting for fuel, tires, and a driver change. Dennis Andersen has fnished his stint and hnds the car to Robert Kubica, the former Formula 1 driver. An hour and a half is two and a bit stints that are left in this motor race. Four tires for Kubica. Maybe they will have some spare left side tires still to use. ARC Bratislava and High Class battle in LMP2 Pro-Am. RealTeam are four points ahead of Racing Team Nederland for the LMP2 Pro-Am championship. RealTeam, as of now, could jump to the lead, but #70 is only ahead by dint of the fact that #29 has just been in the pit lane.
Fuel strategy here is going to be a tight squeeze. Felipe Fraga, aboard the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin, is leading GTE-Am and is being overtaken by the leading Toyota. Many of these teams are praying for a Full Course Yellow right now. That's the way they think they can get back in the game with less than an hour and a half on the board. But, as fans, we are yelling at our mobile devices now, going, "no! Don't bring out any more Full Course Yellows! Don't even think about it!" Provisional points in GTE Am see AF Cose leading TF Sport now by 19 and a half points. 110 points for AF Corse and 90 and a half for TF Sport. That is a reduced margin at this time.
There will be 38 points granted for victory next weekend and 27 points for second spot in the finale next weekend. We are a long way from deciding championships right now. ARC Bratislava car #44 in LMP2 is in the lane. The biggest points spread in any of the classes is 36 and a half points from first to second in GTE Am, and the smallest is two points in LMP2. Wow! Ferrari #83 leads in GTE Am. In GTE Am, the quicker guys have not been in the cars yet. Matty Campbell and Matteo Cairoli, along with Nicklas Nielsen, in #77, #56, and #83. In the #44 car that we saw in pit lane, Ollie Webb has finished his stint, handing the car to Kush Maini.
Gabriel Aubry has the #1 car. Take care of the crew and they take care of you. Charles Milesi, being cooled down with the leaf blower that is used to cool the brakes on the car. Oopsie Daisy, we have a spin again and it is the #34 that has made like a top or a record this time. Renger van der Zande has rotated. We have a local yellow at turn one for van der Zande's spin. Cairoli, Campbell, and Nielsen, are the top three in GTE-Am. van der Zande was assisted by the #22 United Autosport car. Yikes! Filipe Albuquerque at the wheel of it, allowing Tom Blomqvis through. So, the stewards will have a Captain Cook there.
Alex Brundle will be the next driver aboard #34. A damaged dive plane on the front of the #22 car. Filipe Albuquerque was doing his level best to stay ahead of Tom Blomqvist as Sophia Floresch is getting ready to get into the #1 Richard Mille LMP2 car, fist bumping the camera, psyching herself up. She gets in as Gabriel Aubry has finished his driving. Renger van der Zande on pit road as well. Renger van der Zande stopping early after only 14 laps into his stint as we watch a battle brewing in GTE Am. Matteo Cairoli is not in this fight. He is third, a few positions ahead of the scrap we see between AF Corse Ferrari #54 and GR Racing Porsche #86.
Francesco Castellaci scrapping away with Ben Barker. This battle we are looking at on track is for sixth place. The #56 Porsche is pressing to move into range of Marcos Gomes. So, that is the Project 1 Mentos Porsche chasing down the #98 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR. Barker wants to make a move. Discretion is the better part of valor. Castellaci has to negotiate the #20 High Class Oreca LMP2 up ahead, and there isn't a great deal of a speed differential between a GTE and an LMP2 car. Barker chasing in the slipstream. Here he comes! To the outside, as Castellaci defends, but Barker makes the pass.
Remember the giant hole punched into the right side fender of the #54 Ferrari? Well, the mechanics patched it with gaffer tape and that seems to be working, to a point. Barker was cleared from Castellaci and he is quicker, honestly. But Castellaci, he is going for it. However, he does not have enough oomph. Renger van der Zande is still in the #34 car. Alex is actually driving now and he has an issue with the door opening. The driver's door is usually the one you open but the passenger side door, if that's open, then you're in trouble, mate. That was on his out lap. Meantime, we can see the Ferrari GTE Pro battle steaming along.
Alex Brundle is seventh in class in LMP2 running ahead of Sophia Floresch. Nico Lapierre runs third aboard the Alpine, but the Alpine is over a minute and a half behind the Toyota's. Car #7 leads the motor race, while the sister #8 in second spot, is 44 seconds behind. Toyota #7 has now run 144 laps, 484 miles. Alpine have had to make two extra pit stops, and they were caught out on a safety car scramble, too. So they are without doubt playing catch up. Next year in 2022, Toyota will have the advantage even more over Alpine because Alpine will still have a small fuel tank.
Alpine looks towards 2024 for the debut of their Hypercar. Next year, it looks like we are going to have Toyota, Alpine, Glickenhaus, and Peugeot on the grid. The radical new Peugeot 9X8 is slated to make it's debut and the car is unbelievable. Pit stop time for the #21 Dragonspeed Oreca and Ben Hanley is going to take the car to the finish as Juan Pablo Montoya and Henrik Hedman have already completed their drive time allotments for this race. This should be a double stint for Hanley to the end of the motor race.
It is the only pit caller we have on this hot afternoon in Bahrain. Something is wrong, as the DragonSpeed entry remains in it's pit stall. There's trouble with the aerials and antennas on top of the car. Some are for the pits to car team radio and others are used by the FIA for scoring purposes. When it is not your day, it's not your day. If you lose connection to the FIA systems, you have to fix that, and they had a light out as well. Filipe Albuquerque and United Autosport runs third now. One of the Jota cars is still second, and WRT leads in LMP2 with an hour and a quarter left to run today. RealTeam and Loic Duval lead the Pro-Am portion of LMP2 over Giedo van der Garde and Racing Team Nederland by nine seconds.
Matteo Cairoli is under ten seconds behind Marcos Gomes for second in GTE Am. Our class leaders are Kamui Kobayashi in Toyota #7 for Hypercar. Robin Frijns is at the wheel of the #31 WRT LMP2 entry. Kevin Estre leads GTE Pro in the factory #92 Porsche. Felipe Fraga leads GTE Am at the controls of the TF Sport Aston Martin, car #33. The gap is growing between the two Toyota's, since the second time #7 was waved by. Good grief. More door woes for the #34 Intereuropol entry in LMP2. The stewards and the Race Director won't be happy about it. Yikes. #34 will have to pit. The left door is open, and so they are reported to the stewards. Either the driver definitely closes the door, or, it should be brought in for repairs.
The team may have to change the door, and hopefully it isn't the latch on the door that is broken. van der Zande said he too had door issues during his stint. The team strategy will allow them to move forward as Alex Brundle is now driving. The more you bang something not closing, the more damage you do. van der Zande still has to race for 15 laps with this door problem. He either gets the door shut or he will be told to pit. We are also keeping an eye on the third place GTE Pro battle between the two factory AF Corse Ferrari's. Great slow motion action of the Porsche's and the Aston Martin's racing in tandem. Sit back and watch. Drink it in.
Sports cars in slow motion = poetry in motion. Ten seconds added to the next pit stop for car #22 for contact with car #34. Sophia Floresch is still scrapping with Alex Brundle. Why would they not come in immediately? Well, they don't want to do an extra stop to fowl up their strategy. Back in the Group C days in the '80s (which yours truly blogged about on a different blog, extensively, years ago), the factory Rothmans Porsche team wuld lose doors off the 956 and 962 quite frequently, and they always pitted for a new door because the door assisted with airflow into the radiators.
Filipe Albuquerque and company have a reasonable gap over the Jota car. Matteo Cairoli continues to reel in the gap towards Marcos Gomes. Filipe Albuquerque will be punished with the next pit stop and Giedo van der Garde is farther behind. He and Loic Duval are in a sizzling battle, while Sophia Floresch will capitalize on Alex Brundle's misfortune. The door looks closed as the #34 is in. They still have to fix the latch on that thing. It's still not staying latched. They will have to rebuild the door lock or there is debris in the door catch.
They slammed it several times. It is no different than working on a classic car and having little things go wrong. Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche in GTE Am. Iron Lynx have not recovered from their earlier troubles. Matteo Cairoli has his target acquired and he is pushing like crazy to get by Marcos Gomes. It used to be if you wanted to flash the lights at a competitor, that you press the button and the lights would flash endlessly until you pressed it again. This was distracting but also unsafe, and so now, there is a limit of the amount of time from the push of the button, for how long the lights can flash. Cairoli makes a late lunge on Gomes! Wow. What could come out of this? Let's hope this doesn't end in tears.
That was enough of a gap for the Aston Martin. But, it is very dusty offline and the LMP2 car, the WRT machine, has to run wide to get past the GTE cars. Gomes hangs on by the skin of his teeth while Cairoli has the preferred line into the final turn. Cairoli is the fastest non factory Porsche driver. But Gomes isn't through with him yet! No dice. Cairoli slams the door in his face, but Cairoli runs wide! So he drops behind the Aston Martin, hooking the tires up with mega skid marks! Yikes! This is getting spicy! Cairoli tries again but no dice there.
WRT pits from the LMP2 lead and they will need a splash and dash before the final hour is over. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. As far as Cairoli is concerned, it is like "nope, you will have to go the long way 'round, sunbeam." Gomes drifts wide and Cairoli hooks up the traction and moves by on the outside. Cairoli thought he had it made, but he's off the road, way in over his head there! Yikes! Cairoli it seems has gained a long and lasting advantage, and so there may be a penalty in his future.
WRT and the other LMP2 teams on the saem stint strategy will have their plans as we approach the final hour of the race. Gomes wants the spot back. If it were me, I'd be on the radio, hollering to the team, "he overtook me off the circuit! He overtook me off the circuit!", which in reply, the crew chief would say "understood." Don't take unnecessary risks, keep your tires alive. You don't need to race. Do not force the issue. The team though will be fuming mad when they get on the horn to Race Control.
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