Prema in the lane, car #9. Fuel, and a driver change at least. #34 in the lane too, into the second half of this race. Full Course Yellow with Toyota leading overall and Alex Lynn leading LMP2. Glickenhaus and Alpine second and third in Hypercar. United the bread in the sandwich with WRT second in LMP2. AF Corse a lap up in GTE Pro and Team Project 1 in GTE Am. Driver change, in the #7 Toyota as Robin Frijns runs in the lead. Will we see an LMP2 car win this motor race overall? The LMP2 cars are making inroads on the Hypercar field. Corvette #64 in for the second pit stop. Nick Tandy hands the car over to Tommy Milner, who is racing his first one at Spa under wet conditions. 20 seconds before Full Course Yellow ends. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Green flag. Full Course Yellow removed. Matteo Cairoli all over the #91 factory Porsche for position overall but look at the aquaplaning on the Kemm straight! He has "tucked him up like a kipper" so to speak. Oh no! #34 in the fence after Riadillon! Esteban Guttierez has spun and wrecked and then clattered along the wall.
Broken right rear suspension and drive shaft. One wheel turning. Game over for #34. The conditions are sketchy right now. This is ugly. Safety car back on track. Good grief. Safety car on the road. Safety car on the road. Both United Autosports cars have passed the #36 Alpine and now run fourth and fifth in the overall. Ooh! Mike Conway slithers up Eau Rouge! Yikes! Right at the top of the hill, there's a rivulet of water. The Oreca for Intereuropol is stuck against the barrier and Esteban Guttierez may have to get out of the car on the passenger side. Ah. Kamui Kobayashi in Toyota #7 and had the wild moment. Mike Conway has finished his stint which was a long one and the weather has gotten much worse in just 20 minutes, aquaplaning all over the place.
The rivers are building up all over the circuit here at Spa. Alex Brundle was in the #34 Intereuropol car and he was on his out lap when he crashed! Goodness me! I've got this. I've got this. I haven't got this! Crunch! Antonio Felix Da Costa takes to the grass to avoid Christoph Ulrich in the Ferrari and no way was he going to make it. Smash! Alex Brundle is distraught. Your heart goes out to the drivers because they are human and make mistakes just like the rest of us. Streams of water, standing water as well, all over the circuit. Standing water on stone cold tires, is not good. We are going back to red flag because the safety barrier is not safe.
The water is so deep. It is unraceable. #34 is being craned away. It is impossible for a race car to cover the bases a road car can in these conditions. That is why you can't drive a race car on the road. Red flag. Race stopped. Dark clouds continue looming over the Ardennes. Remember what I said about this track having moods? It is in a mood today and that mood, as we said at the top of the show, is a gray, clammy, rainy, gloomy mood. Under safety car everyone slides off the road and poor old Christoph Ulrich went off the road again. We should not have gone green that first time 'round. This motor race is turning into a nightmare. The track is like a piece of mahogany with grooves cut in it. This is the third red flag of the race and this is the second straight race where I think we have had three red flags!
There's bits of blue skies all over. Heaven on one side and hades on the other. The deciding factor is the barriers have been pushed back. If they move away to dissipate energy they work, but if not, they don't. This is Spa at it's best, and worst, all at the same time. Fans, welcome back! Oh, by the way, have a free shower! Race will resume at 16:40. The Endurance World Championship motorcycles will come here for the 24 Hours of Spa Moto in a month and they want to see World Superbike and/or MotoGP come here as well. Nick Tandy says that the conditions are awful at the moment. He says "I've been here enough to know that when the hill soak in water, the rivers come and cause all the problems. It's not much rain, but we have wide tires that are grooved but can only dissipate so much water. It could be clearing up. Corvette had it easy last year with no mixed conditions.
Obviously I have been here more times than Corvette has. Be sure you have all the tires ready in the ovens. We got caught out by the red so badly and the pits closed when we were in the final corner and we lose a whole lap plus all the track conditions to get around the 52. Race on I guess. Tommy is a top driver and knows how to deal with things but this will be his first time in the rain at Spa. We have to try and move forward." Ladies and gentleman, Nick Tandy. He has to be frustrated. Use a hydraulic hammer for the barrier. Break out the rain tires. The crews are allowed to change them.
The race is stopped for safety not for service. This does not make sense. Why are the teams changing tires? Hot tires will help but I shall make a wager that the tires will cool off and be stone cold when we get back into the game. Tisk, tisk, tisk. Eau Rouge is called that because of iron ore in the water, like rust. The water seeps in as rust. Andre Negrao says he had a terrible start and began getting used to it, but now the conditions are undrivable. Negrao says he almost crashed five times, driving half the race. Wow. The timing screen is a jumbled candy dish. Pick your flavor. Just finishing the race is everyone's goal.
OK. Competition Director Lisa Eroit says we are five minutes away from resuming the race. Oh boy. One minute to start and resume the race behind the safety car. Engines may be started. Please clear the grid, immediately. Last time a non-factory team won Spa, was in 2006, Emmanuel Collard and Jules Bouillon won in their Pescarolo C60 Judd in 2006. That was back in the LMP900 era, the open cockpit prototype era. We are back under the safety car before the restart. Can the Toyota exploit their dry weather pace advantage? In the dry, 190 kilometers an hour is the hybrid deployment threshold. What is it in the wet? We'll have to ask and find out. Christina Nielsen has finished her stint.
She says that she has seen all the conditions in today's motor race. It has been a rollercoaster and not how they intended to start at Iron Dames. She was a last-minute call in on Thursday and has not raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 2018. We welcome Oliver Gavin to the broadcast booth. Last year it was a lot drier. Today has been treacherous. There's rain and then Spa Francorchamps rain. Filipe Albuquerque is told that all cars are in position in LMP2 except for the #45. Engineer Gary Robert Shaw is telling Albuquerque what is going on. Rene Binder at the controls of the #45 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca.
Tommy Milner was the guinea pig in the rain for Corvette. How do you work with your own rhythm? Drivers could very well have driven this track in open wheel cars like Formula 3 or Formula Renault? But coming in cold turkey having never been on the track before, Tommy Milner is the guinea pig as we said. He is relying on Nick Tandy's circuit knowledge and experience. Nico Lapierre is worried about visibility and being told to focus forward. But Nico is not worried about visibility. He'll be able to handle it. We have had snow and rain at Spa in the past. Years ago, there was a race in Shanghai, China at Shanghai International Circuit when it bucketed down with rain. Just don't bin it in this rain as we are getting close to the end of another racing hour.
We have lost three cars. ARC Bratislava, Toyota #8, and Intereuropol. Horrid for Alex Brundle having no idea of where the rivers were, driving slowly, feeling like he was in reverse and about to be overtaken by his own shadow. If you were in the safety car along with Pietro Couciero, safety car driver in WEC, you'd think the car was going to spin. The prototype cars are so highly tuned and have so much more performance than a road car. We are back to green as D'station is in trouble again for violating safety car procedure. Alex Lynn harrying Pipo Derani in the Glickenhaus in third spot. Alex Lynn and Filipe Albuquerque are pushing, pushing, pushing.
Robin Frijns leads the motor race and that has not changed. Lynn down the inside of Albuquerque I believe. Albuquerque lets Lynn through on the inside line through turn eight. Henrique Chaves passes Christoph Ulrich. Gianmaria Bruni passes the #60 car. Richard Lietz still needs to drive in Porsche #91. In replay, there was contact between Albuquerque and Lynn into Piff Paff. Michael Christensen trying to pass Alessandro Pier Guidi in GTE Pro. #1 is off the road, Sebastien Ogier still at the wheel of it and has not driven in the dry. Left front corner damage and he loses all grip on the front end locking up in La Source and running wide.
A battle for fourth in LMP2 between Prema and Vector Sport. Robert Kubica vs. Nico Muller. Ogier told to hit the lane for repairs. Nicklas Nielsen is now chasing Norman Nato and AF Corse have cycled through to their third driver I believe and they are the first team to have done that because of force majeur for the red flag. #1 in the lane for a driver change and a nose change. Tires changed as well as AF Corse and Nicklas Nielsen moves by RealTeam and Norman Nato for sixth in LMP2. Lilou Wadoux takes over the car from Sebastien Ogier. Now, is the track drying out? In theory it could if it does not keep raining. David Pittard, record lap pacesetter at the Nurburgring Nordschleife recently. Ferrari 1-2 in GTE Pro.
But the Porsche's are coming back. The Inception Porsche moves ahead.
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