So little to choose between the two cars and drivers here. We can see damage to the #88 Porsche and they are changing the door to one for WeatherTech Racing. A late change came to the livery on that car. Fred Poordad at the wheel of it. Nasr and Stevens fly past the GTE Am cars. The #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari has pitted. The top LMP2 drivers want rides in Hypercar and they are looking at that category blossoming in the next few years. Glickenhaus is out of sequence and that is why they have been losing time to the Toyota. Ryo Hirakawa will probably not pass the Glickenhaus before pitting. Ryo Hirakawa vs. Olivier Pla. Felipe Nasr must make hay while the sun shines if he wants to pass Will Stevenjs and he is going to throw caution to the wind, balked by Michelle Gatting in the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari. Will Stevens wants a double draft to get by into Sunset Bend.
Toyota #8 in the pit lane. Traffic ahead. Debris on the road, and that is a Porsche wing mirror. The Ferrari is a pick between Nasr and Stevens. The GTE boys know that they have to preserve the car because they know they can be bashed around by LMP2's as Sebastien Buemi has taken over Toyota #8 from Ryo Hirakawa. Traffic is an organic deal and we have another Full Course Yellow for this mirror that has come off. Is that mirror from a privateer Porsche or from the Glickenhaus? 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow. This is a two lap Full Course Yellow. Nasr is close to the end of his fuel stint. Sebastien Ogier, Jean Baptiste Lahaye, Ed Jones, and more have pitted. David Pittard leads GTE Am and pits. Nasr in for Team Penske for fuel.
Ben Barnicoat is second in GTE Am aboard the #56 Project 1 Porsche. This was an LMP2 mirror that fell off. It is from the #10 Vector Sport entry, likely. The mirror was off the Inception Racing Ferrari. Alpine lead this motor race... ah. Hang on. It is the left hand door mirror of the #56 Project 1 Porsche of Ben Barnicoat followed by David Pittard in the #98 Aston Martin. #23 went over the line in the pit lane and there is a driver change. Mike Wainwright must be writing a note from Switzerland to say that is my mirror. Both Josh Pierson and the sister United Autosport car have lost time on a pit stop mix up.
Robin Frijns meanwhile, is in the #31 WRT LMP2 car. He has just pitted. We have yet to see Alpine stop under this Full Course Yellow. Glickenhaus in the lane for full service. Romain Dumas is into the car it appears. Olivier Pla has finished his stint. Are mirrors mandatory? They should be. Will that be a meatball flag from the marshals? The meatball is the mechanical black flag, a black flag with a red dot. Two rallying drivers are on track now... Sebastien Ogier and Robert Kubica. That's a fascinating prospect. Alpine needs fuel more than Toyota does. Buemi is now in the sole remaining #8 Toyota. The Glickenhaus has pitted according to the Toyota team radio.
Toyota need a splash and a dash and Alpine are staying out to save doing the old splash and dash. Sebastien Buemi does not care about the Alpine. He is only worried about the Glickenhaus. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow removed. Green flag. We have just over an hour and 40 minutes to go. Matthieu Vaxiviere is looking to lap Romain Dumas in the Glickenhaus. Charlotte Lumley, after nine years, is leaving United Autosport after this race. She will be headed for a new position of some kind. Meantime, Richard Lietz is right on Tommy Milner's six. The other #92 Porsche is ahead. Corvette got their track position erased and wiped out by the red flag after the crash of the #7 Toyota.
The Corvette has more new tires than they can chuck at it for the rest of the race. It's raining a few miles away from the track. Hmmm. This will put the cat among the pigeons. Aston Martin #98 does not have a working pits to car radio. Nick Tandy looking on, head skyward to see where the rain is. Milner and the Corvette team are concerned about an overcut by the #91 Porsche. Maybe the engineer meant to say undercut and not overcut. That's a wee bit confusing. I think he meant undercut. No rain in the next half hour according to Toyota. We'll see. The #52 AF Corse GTE Pro Ferrari is about to be lapeed after being delayed for a long time.
The #23 United Autosport LMP2 car has passed the GTE Pro cars. No rain for 25 minutes and then we might see more, so, about 6:55 or 7:00 P.M. Eastern Time. Pit stop time for Alpine. Matthieu Vaxiviere at the controls. Antonio Felix Da Costa is hoping and praying for rain in the last hour and a half here. Paul di Resta in the #23 leads LMP2. Alpine could win and then, Glickenhaus would score their first overall podium. What a place to do it, on home soil. 182 of 268 laps now completed. Porsche #92 team, they are telling Michael Christensen that they have one final set left. Could they split them intio two pairs, one for each side of the car?
We'll see. Should rain arrive in the final hour you need a buffer. Taking risk is a risk in and of itself in the rain if it comes. There is no guarantee that everyone will stay on the island and we could very well get a red flag if the rain comes and it is tipping down like cats and dogs just like in 2019. Aston Martin #98 leads Porsche #56. #56 with Inception Racing and Project 1 have done very well today so far. Brendon Iribe, Ben Barnicoat, and Ollie Milroy. David Pittard leads GTE Am and has uncorked the fastest lap of the race for the #98 entry. Richard Lietz chasing down Tommy Milner for second in GTE Pro.
Harry Tincknell and Sebastian Priaulx have really been running well too. Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, defending World Champions, they will take what they can get. Corvette had this race in the bag before the red flag appeared. Now they are behind the eight ball. Where has the #92 Porsche found this extra turn of speed? It seems Nick Tandy has indeed been far faster than has Tommy Milner. We watch Sebastien Ogier circulating in 12th in LMP2. The red flag has really jumbled a lot of people's and team's races and it benefitted nobody. What a sad situation for the #7 Toyota as well. The red flag diluted much of this motor race today althougn it has given us other battles that we were not expecting.
Glickenhaus will do another stint and a half on tires and they have a pit stop under investigation. So, the race is hanging together, but they need to turn it around. The #34 Intereuropol car is in the lane. Alessio Rovera has been quicker in pure terms than Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley as well as Ryan Briscoe. That #83 AF Corse LMP2 has had the speed today and did so in qualifying yesterday too. Esteban Guttierez has brought the Inter Europol car to the lane which is now on the dollies and perhaps headed for the house. We continue to watch the Porsche as the Iron Lynx Ferrari goes off the road briefly.
Kamui Kobayashi, Toyota team boss says he is good with being on TV and he says being the team principal and being a driver is an interesting deal. It is tough but he enjoys it. They are focusing on making the Toyota an easier car to drive and that is what Kobayashi wants. It is a tough race, but Kobayashi is realistic. They can still go for a podium finish. In the end, they are doing a good job first time out for 2022 except for what happened to the #7. It is a tough job being the overall team boss, guiding and motivating and so on, and then, separate being the team leader and be a race driver at the same time. That is a wild deal.
Battle for second in GTE Am between Brendon Iribe and Marco Sorensen. Such pressure if your team mate is also your boss. So, we have Marco Sorensen, as mentioned, not being able to pass the gentleman driver Brendon Iribe. He throws it down the inside and Iribe has to jink off the road! Yikes! That was a bear and a half! In replay, Iribe gets caught out by Sorensen late, and Iribe runs way, way wide! Egad! He left no place for Brendon Iribe. Get the bleep out of my way! There is rain falling. Clutch issues for Inter Europol. Alex Brundle was due to be driving and of course he tested positive for the virus.
Now, the team is out of the race. Game over for Inter Europol. Safety car. Is there debris? Is there an accident? There is rain by Sunset Bend. Rain slated to begin in 12 minutes, but it is dry now. Red flag. Race stopped again. There is a cloudburst. So, there may be lightning out there. Head for cover if you are at the track. Stay safe ladies and gentlemen. During the prologue test there was a Biblical rainstorm. This is a local law in Florida due to lightning in the area. It is Florida law that the race must be red flagged, or local Sebring law statute. We see rain but have not seen any lightning yet. Stay safe out there folks.
There's blue sky on the left side of the horizon but gray on the other side. There could be an electrical epicenter to this storm. This race could end under red flag. We will have to see. Alessio Rovera, from AF Corse in LMP2, I think this is his first prototype race and the same is true with Nicklas Nielsen. So wonderful to see new star drivers coming into the world of sports car racing. Alessio Rovera has run no LMP races until today. Yet he was fastest. This red flag is due to the law about lightning and thunderstorms to protect the marshals. That is what we are dealing with.
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