We have gone ten minutes into the fourth hour and are now seeing GTD Pro pit stops. Felipe Nasr brings the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R into the lane. More and more GT cars are coming in. 35 GT cars in this field. The #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche is in with Ryan Hardwick at the controls. Hardwick sharing with Zacharie Robichon, Jan Heylen, and Richard Lietz. The #57 Winward Mercedes has been in and the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3. Robby Foley sharing with Michael Dinan, Bill Auberlen, and Jens Klingman. When do I put my amateur driver in and make sure that they can go out, not damage the car, and run consistently? Crucial Motorsports has also pitted the #59 McLaren 720S GT3. We are getting set to go back to racing.
The cars are now formed up behind the safety car, in the crocodile, weaving back and forth to heat and clean the tires. Yellows breed yellows. So, be very careful on the restart. LMP2 pit stops. We have the Era Motorsports car and the United Autosport entry in. A driver change at the #22 United Autosport car. This entry being shared by Jim McGuire, Guy Smith, a former Le Mans winner for Bentley, Phil Hanson, and Will Owen. Pit stop time too for the #97 WeatherTech Mercedes AMG GT3. The late, great actor and driver Paul Newman started this race six times between 1977 and 2005 and won in class in 1995 in a Jack Roush GTS-1 Ford Mustang. Mikkel Jensen is now at the controls of the #52 PR1/Mathiasen LMP2 car, the Dane.
Mike Rockenfeller is now in the #48 Ally Action Express Cadillac. They lost a lap to the #60 MSR Acura. Crew Chief Chad Knaus had them take the wave by to get on the lead lap and back on the same fuel sequence. The rear damage is of no concern. Action Express will have a fuel advantage now with the #48. "Rocky" will catch up with the field. He has had loads of success and has won here overall in GT and overall, with Action Express on their debut at the Rolex 24 in 2010. Chad Knaus was a spectator at the 24 Hours of Le Mans to observe. The #48 has their crew sourced from Hendrick Motorsports of NASCAR fame. #48 has a broken rear wing and will fix it soon. Stevens, Nunez, Castroneves, and Ericsson, the top four. WTR, AXR, MSR, and CGR. We join now, Dave Burns and Brian Till, along with James Hinchcliffe for the next NBC Sports broadcast stint.
Green flag! Will Stevens now leads Tristan Nunez. Marcus Ericsson next followed by Helio Castroneves. Cold tires after a restart and less grip. Gently, boys. It's a traffic jam out of the International Horseshoe. LMP2 and LMP3 battles. Mikkel Jensen passing Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon. Helio Castroneves passes Will Stevens. The #47 Cetilar Ferrari off the road again at the Le Mans chicane. Alessio Picariello passing Michael Dinan. BMW M4 GT3 vs. Porsche 911 GT3R. GTD Pro and GTD. James Calado leads GTD Pro in the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari.
Helio Castroneves has a flat left rear tire and now, oh! The tire is gone on the #60. Will Stevens in the other Acura leads Tristan Nunez. Castroneves' left rear tire is wobbly right now,online in the Le Mans chicane, the Bus Stop. The tire is not flailing around on the #60 MSR Acura. To get laps back, stay out and let the leaders pit. Get the wave by. Michael Shank is very impressed with Helio Castroneves, at age 47, having won the 2021 Indianapolis 500. Full Course Yellow. We have a spun, crunched Aston Martin on the banking. There is also a crunched LMP3. That is the #6 Muehlner Motorsports LMP3 and the #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes!
Kenny Habul has spun and so has Alex Riberas. Ayrton Ori at the wheel of the #6 Muehlner Motorsports entry. Ori is crushed. He will probably be out and so will SunEnergy1 who did so well at Dubai in Creventic racing a couple weekends ago. Out of turn six, we saw the Lambirghini tag the Aston, the #63 TR3 car and Maro Engel was a lucky chap to avoid thatmess. One of the LMP3 cars goes to the garage as well. Yellows breed yellows. The LMP2 and LMP3 cars have rudimentary traction control while the GTD Pro and GTD cars have very good, advanced traction control along with antilock brakes.
Turn six is calamity corner. You want to get the power down early. The sun is setting, and it is in the driver's eyes. So, the drivers are having a massively difficult time seeing. They're blind into that corner. The track surface is massively cooling down as well as we are going to be headed for the hours of darkness in a wee while. We remain under yellow for the time being so you have missed nothing since the incident with the #60 car's tire. Acura #10 leads the motor race at this point as the sun continues to set. Amazing that we don't have more cars in trouble during the sunset time. At Sebring it is the same way through Sunset Bend, and we will see that in March for both the World Endurance Championship and for IMSA.
Alex Riberas is OK. He says he had the run on the #75 Mercedes who did not see him. It is heartbreaking for him and his teammates Ross Gunn and Maxime Martin. Riberas, from Barcelona, Spain. The sun continues to set. Russell Shepherd from Michelin explains about sustainability for their tires. 46% sustainable racing tires will be around by 2025 and they are advancing that to street going cars as well, to make the world a better place. Kudos to Michelin. We have to look at keeping the environment clean in the world of motor racing. We are near the end of hour four and the yellow remains out. This is the third Full Course Yellow of the motor race.
The shade in the trioval has cooled the track. There is a warmer track on the road course section as Will Stevens leads Renger van der Zande and Tristan Nunez. Nunez is really pressing hard. The Cadillac's are very stable under turn-in and under braking. They get great traction on cold tires. Mike Rockenfeller scrapping with Helio Castroneves. Renger van der Zande is doing all he can to make his escape while Filipe Albuquerque is being chased by Tristan Nunez. In GTD Pro, we see Jordan Taylor in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. A couple of GTD Mercedes' are around as well with Mikael Grenier for Winward and Linus Lundquist for Alegra Motorsports.
The Corvette has a different differential and the weigth distribution is different as the car is much heavier than it was.
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