All 62 cars still running as we start the fifth hour. That said, Alpine are still in the garage. Andre Negrao, the Brazilian, says that there is a clutch issue. Lose pressure, lose fluid. This is early doors and a major issue for Alpine, dropping down the order like a stone. How many laps can they afford to lose against the LMP2 cars if they want to regain placings? The #709 Glickenhaus is a lap up on the leading LMP2 car. That is Will Stevens in the #38 Jota car. The plan is to drop the LMP2 cars away from the Hypercars. It must be working. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Slow Zone five is now removed. When you are in a slow zone, you can release the Full Course Yellow button without even passing the green flag. A massive cluster buster here in LMP2. If you don't release the button, you are swamped.
Charles Milesi, Felipe Nasr, and more, scrapping. #36 back into the race. The Alpine will have to push, push, push to stay ahead of the LMP2 cars and the Alpine boys are three laps down but they will have to be in recovery mode for most of the rest of the race. Charles Milesi and Felipe Nasr will be scrapping hard in LMP2. How quickly will the Alpine catch and pass? Just behind this pack, the #708 Glickenhaus will be putting another lap on the Alpine. Can the Glickenhaus scream past the LMP2's? The LMP2 cars are flashing the Alpine. He should be getting the blue flag. Romain Dumas aboard the #708 Glickenhaus.
LMP2 has offered the best battles of the motor race that we have seen to this point. Felipe Nasr is reeling in Charles Milesi who is on old tires while Nasr has fresher rubber and can dash past Milesi in the #1 Richard Mille entry. Ferdinand Habsburg too, is in recovery mode. #28 in the lane for Jota. Ed Jones at the wheel of it right now. The battle between Dries Vanthoor and Felipe Nasr is for third. Milesi screams past Nasr on the Mulsanne straight as Nasr is bottled up behind a Porsche and there goes the Glickenhaus too. Nasr up the inside of Dries Vanthoor and he makes the pass. We have not seen Emmanuel Collard or Rolf Ineichen, the Silver drivers for Penske and WRT respectively.
What is the relative pace of the lower ranked drivers? Emmanuel Collard has raced 25 Le Mans events. Henri Pescarolo, the four-time winner here at Le Mans, holds the record with 33 starts. Battle for fifth in LMP2. Julien Canal vs. Nicklas Kruetten vs. Louis Deletraz. Julien Canal bounds over the curbs taking evaisive action over the D'station Aston Martin! Car #777 in the way. Charlie Fagg, Tomonobu Fujii, and Satoshi Hoshino, sharing that car. Team Penske have an incredible racing history in all forms but it is their first Le Mans appearance in 51 years, since 1971.
Esteban Guttierez in the #34 Inter Europol entry in LMP2 could be joining the party with the top seven as we see the #708 Glickenhaus from third spot, in the pit lane. Romain Dumas will hand the car to Pipo Derani. Jan and Kevin Magnussen were on the reserve list but Kevin Magnussen had to race for Haas in Formula 1 at Azerbaijan this weekend. Kamui Kobayashi now takes over the #7 Toyota. Louis Deletraz is now being chased by Oliver Rasmussen. Prema Orlen Team vs. Jota. More LMP2 troubles, the final runner in 62nd place, the Duqueine car on the jack stands with an electronics issue as they are taking the floor apart.
One minute stop and go penalty for the #1 Ricard Mille Racing car of Charles Milesi, for crossing the white line at pit entry and forcing a car off the road. Roberto Gonzalez in the #38 Jota entry alongside Will Stevens and Antonio Felix Da Costa. Pit stop time fr Toyota #8. Roberto Gonzalez ran IndyCar and then retired and went to do business for a dozen years before coming back to racing and WEC went to Mexico City, Mexico, because of Roberto Gonzalez. Ryo Hirakawa takes over the #8 Toyota from Brendon Hartley. This is Ryo Hirakawa's moment racing against his boss, Kamui Kobayashi. Will Stevens has Felipe Nasr crawling all over him for the lead. This is the battle for top of the shop in LMP2.
The second Jota entry is in the lane. Too fast into Indianapolis for the #10 Vector Sport LMP2 entry. Paul Lafargue passes for 19th in LMP2 passing the Algarve Pro entry. Pietro Fittipaldi wants by Sean Gelael and Oliver Jarvis is closing in, fast. From second in class, Felipe Nasr is in the lane as we can see an incredible battle once more in LMP2. Rolf Ineichen is out of pit lane and Gelael, Jarvis, and Fittipaldi are closing up and fast. Jarvis tries Nasr on the outside. No dice there. Nope. Pietro Fittipaldi is passing Rolf Ineichen and here comes Jarvis who gets balked by the Iron Dames Ferrari GTE Am car! Blimey!
Sean Gelael the cork in the bottle indeed. Ryo Hirakawa is holding the gap over Kamui Kobayashi. The gap is four seconds between them with Pipo Derani third in the #708 Glickenhaus followed by the #709 sister car in the hands of Ryan Briscoe. Nicklas Kruetten and Oliver Rasmussen meanwhile, are up behind Louis Deletraz as we see the shadows growing long and soon we are going to see the sun dip down in the sky and blind the drivers with the sun shining right into your eyes and the flies, bugs, and other junk on the windscreen will make it even worse. Soon you will smell barbecues beginning to burn in the evening twilight.
The weather has been perfect to this point in the race. Hydrate, use sunblock. You might end up sunburned tomorrow and not even know it. The #22 United Autosport Oreca in LMP2 is still indeed in recovery mode. Louis Deletraz presses past Julien Canal and a lapped Ferrari to the inside of Mulsanne corner. Another penalty, five seconds added to the next pit stop for the #44 ARC Bratislava LMP2 way down in 27th place with Tristan Vautier at the wheel of it, making his Le Mans debut. Rolf Ineichen being monstered by Sean Gelael as we see in the camera shot. Will Stevens is happy with how his drive has gone thus far. He says the team has had a great package.
The balance on the car is bang on the money. Alpine back to the garage. More woe for the home team, the French Hypercar team. The two GTE Pro factory Porsche's second and third, chasing down the #64 Corvette C8.R. #92 ahead of #91. The Alpine is dropping like a stone once more. They will come to Hypercar, with an Oreca LMDh in 2024. Hypercar will be composed of two types of car, Le Mans Daytona Hybrid, and Le Mans Hypercar. Manufacturers get choice of bodywork and engine with spec hybrid units. Four wheel drive for Hypercars, rear wheel drive for LMDh. Bespoke body, chassis, engine, hybrid system, and performance upgrades. Next year we will see Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari, two Porsche LMDh cars, and maybe one Cadillac plus possible North American Cadillac's. Lamborghini LMDh with Ligier and Alpine with Oreca for 2024. In IMSA WeatherTech Championship we will see Acura and BMW with Oreca and Dallara.
Sports car racing is really being put on the map. The Alpine is a very grumpy car. The exhaust system needs to be changed as the clutch is fine but the Alpine boys are going to plummet off a cliff here. This car will be in strife. Game over for a good finish, for a podium, for the Alpine boys as we are about to complete the fifth hour. We could indeed see Glickenhaus get on the podium if their pace and reliability holds. The two Glickenhaus cars are a lap up on the leaders in LMP2 for Jota and others. Alpine reattaches the airbox and they are fixing the fuel sensors and the exhaust firing the motor. So we called off Alpine too early. They are coming back from the dead it appears.
It is likely a sensor that has been replaced. They will be delayed and have dropped way down out of the top 30 and in the midst of the GTE Pro cars. It will be a serious slog, a serious mountain to climb through the order. Pietro Fittipaldi, Oliver Jarvis, and Charles Milesi, still running right together on the same piece of tarmac for ninth spot in LMP2 behind Esteban Guttierez and Rolf Ineichen. Pietro Fittipaldi is a third generation racer. His father, Christian, and his great uncle, Emerson. Milesi had a long pit stop for full service and has new boots on the car in addition to a full fuel load and we have now seen a couple of these LMP2's doing double stints. They are burning more fuel, a new fuel, with less caloric value.
Oliver Jarvis is pressing hard, lapping another slower LMP2 car on the Mulsanne straight. Milesi dives inside of Sebastien Page leading the LMP2 Pro-Am class for Graff Racing who is being chased down by Nicklas Nielsen in the #83 AF Corse car, Sebastien Page, a Swiss real estate broker. In GTE Pro, the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 has taken the lead. In the midst of pit stops the #91 has gotten shuffled. Laurens Vanthoor in the lead over Alexander Sims in the #64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R and this car was delayed with shifting trouble. Milesi is pushing it and goes past Oliver Jarvis on the Mulsanne through the chicane, just with a cigarette paper between them. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
#92 and #64 in the lane. Porsche vs. Corvette. Driver change for #64 and trouble for CD Sport which is off the road languishing in 31st spot. Through the Porsche Curbs, he runs off into the gravel trap and onto the slip road but did not hit the tires. Porsche beat Corvette out of the lane. Bish, bash, bosh. Ferrari #51 in the lane as well, look. Fittipaldi, Milesi, Jarvis, this scrap in LMP2 continues in earnest. The strategy computer has coughed and sputtered. Well, well. Jarvis on the inside and Milesi will try into the chicane but Jarvis claims the apex and slams the door in Milesi's face.
Tire change for the #51 AF Corse Ferrari. That move was wild that we saw in LMP2. OK, sunbeam. What do you have? Carry on. Whistle off into the distance. The trees down the Mulsanne straight reduce the glare on the straight. Oliver Jarvis is now gaining on Milesi and on Fittipaldi. This motor race is flying by, but there's a long, long way to go. Poor old Milesi is blinded into the shining sun with all the bugs and other detritus on the windscreen. Boatloads upon boatloads of time. Yikes. A professional Porsche slides over and balks Milesi! He will lose gobs of time and now the #63 Corvette is leading GTE Pro as the scrap continues between Vanthoor and Sims with Fred Makowiecki 25 seconds down.
#91 got ye olde squeeze play there. Jarvis on Fittipaldi down the Mulsanne.
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