GTD traffic is very difficult on cold tires according to Nico Varrone. But he is managing traffic well. The temperature is climbing. We are going to have some hot racing drivers out there and could see raindrops before this motor race is done and dusted. Maybe we will see rain in the final half hour. The high will be close to 90 degrees, feeling lik 100. Four layers of Nomex and a helmet in a hot sports car, you are like a roasting chicken. Thank heavens you can keep the visor up. It takes getting used to, if you switch from an open wheel car to a sports car, a fully enclosed GT car or a prototype and you have no sense of where you are, save for out your windscreen. Tune in your spatial awareness.
Drag race in the lane in LMP2. Be careful. Steven Thomas ahead of Ben Keating. Were there driver changes? No. Keating still in the #52. Watch the stoplight at the end of pit lane as the safety car passes the blend line. They have a little contact on pit lane. #52 caught the red light. Thomas was maybe not looking at the light and Ben Keating, class winner at Le Mans, he had to wonder what was going on. 1/6th of the way and we are back to green. Tom Blomqvist leads the motor race. Blomqvist is eking a gap out. Blomqvist, Albuquerque, Bamber, Bourdais, Pla. Oh no! The #13 AWA LMP3 car, Orey Fidani gets on the whirligig before the Inner Loop. Looks like he may have dropped a wheel. In replay, big lockup on the rear brakes and gets biffed by the Andretti Autosport car.
Fidani back on the road now. A wee bit of damage on the left bumper, the cheese wedge is missing. Yes. The left side cheese wedge is gone. The wing is askew. The left side dive plane on Jarett Andretti's car is askew as well. #36 had a clatter earlier on as well. AWA will evaluate the damage. They are going to evaluate the damage and go behind the wall. Maybe they can make the rest of this race a test session. Kyle Marcelli is the Gold driver along with Orey Fidani and Lars Kern. Kuno Wittmer no longer in that seat. Are the tires warm yet? Not yet. Blomqvist punches it and here comes Albuquerque. Five Cadillac's and two Acura's.
Find out where the weaving limit is, and you eventually do. We have seen it in sports cars, IndyCar, and Formula 1. Andretti Autosport back on the button in turn eight. Keating passes the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports LMP3 leader, Dan Goldburg. Tom Blomqvist a second ahaead as the #11 PR1/Mathiasen car has a stop plus 60 second hold penalty. There was contact, and an unsafe release for #52 and while Keating stops, #11 runs the red light. The is a stop + 60 second hold from the pit lane traffic cops. Ben Keating, passing under yellow also gets a ticket from two yellows ago. A local yellow, look, in corner one.
Lexus off the road and back on. Only a drive through penalty. #11 released back to the race. Tower Motorsports #8 has penalties for pitting in a closed pit and speeding in the lane. A double whammy. Now then, #20, Dennis Andersen, the Dane, in the High Class Oreca leads LMP2. Andersen sharing with Anders Fjordbach and Fabio Scherer. Clear road for Tom Blomqvist in the lead of the motor race, the son of World Rally and Audi Group B legend, Stig Blomqvist. Trouble for the #6 Muehlner Motorsports LMP3 on fire! Dillon Machavern bails out. That car is on FiYah! A slang term for fire. Wow. Full Course Yellow. Thank God the marshals are there to put out the fire.
This car grenades a motor. Bang. Smoke spewing out both exhausts. A catastrophic explosion for that Nissan 5.6-liter V8. A four wheeled volcano. Dillon Machavern bailed out. The Heart of Racing Aston, he can't see anything through all that smoke and look at the oil on the windscreen. Dillon Machavern, thank God he found a corner station to bail out of that automobile. Renger van der Zande watching teammate Sebastien Bourdais. Only a two-driver lineup. van der Zande knows how fast his teammate is. Three driver teams have had harder times trying to get practice. Maybe Ganassi has an advantage with the two driver teams.
It is not as hot as we thought here at Watkins Glen. Cloud cover helping the drivers keep cool. No rush for some of the DPi drivers. But the three driver teams are getting set for their driver changes. We have four races left in the championship for prototypes after today. This is round seven of ten for DPi cars. #31 pits with Olivier Pla in a closed pit. Emergency service? Fuel top up. Did something go awry on strategy? Did Tim Keane and Iain Watt have a plan? Maybe they are looking at the bonus points for the Michelin Endurance Cup. Olivier Pla at the wheel of the Cadillac. 30 minutes minimum in DPi and GTD Pro while the others are an hour and a half with a maximum of four hours.
Pits are open. #31 stopped early compared to the other DPi's. Emergency fuel necessity for Action Express. #10 staying out on track while others are in. #60, #48, #01, #02, #5. #31 back in. They came down the pit lane for fuel and now are back putting Pipo Derani in the car. Pipo was standing here and he had no clue he had to be ready. Maybe an audible called by Tim Keane, crew chief Gary Nelson, and team boss Bob Johnson. Pipo Derani may have to serve a penalty if the caution stays out. Jimmie Johnson picked up some places on the pit exchange in the #48 Action Express Ally Cadillac. Jimmie Johnson came close to winning here in NASCAR Cup but could not get it done.
One road course win for Jimmie Johnson in NASCAR. Most NASCAR races were done on the short course as well as a 2011 sprint race here with the Gainsco team. GTD Pro and GTD pit stops up. Everyone in the lane. Holding off, at The Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Tires and fuel as Ross Gunn will do a double stint to reach minimum drive time. New tear off as well. Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas, just a two-driver team, and they lost track position on their stop in GTD Pro. The sister GTD #27 has Roman De Angelis, Maxime Martin, and Ian James.
At Action Express, Olivier Pla says that the strategy has been decided for passing the car to Pipo Derani. Olivier Pla will take over after Mike Conway's stint. Track position is what the team wants. You need to be aggressive but careful and keep your time deltas in mind. it is all about running to a routine. The Acura teams are staying out and with fuel saving they can get a longer run. 17 laps into this stint under yellow with fuel save and 14 sans the fuel save under green flag conditions. On full attack it is 24 laps 90 second lap time 37minutes. 45 minutes 27 laps on save. 41 43, 62, 70, 59, 69. These are the attack save margins for LMP2, LMP3, and GTD.
Shaking up strategy. Back timing the race. These are parts of the strategy. Now, turn 11 is the spot where the stewards are judging the restarts. Action Express are now back to fourth for #48 and seventh for #31. If you visit Watkins Glen check out the track and the old street course. This place closed for a few years and was resurrected. In 1971, the Boot was added and the inner loop, 30 years ago in 1992. F1 ran here from 1961-1980. The old street course was 6.6 miles long and the great Cameron Argetsinger put all this together. This is a world renown track. Rob Ecklin Jr. who raced Michelin Pilot Challenge, his family has helped resurrect this great track.
Race Control is saying "come on, gents, clean up the driving a wee bit, please." Jarett Andretti leads LMP3, Dillon Murry leads LMP2, and then it's Connor De Philippi in GTD Pro and Richard Heistand in GTD. Green flag again! Clean the tires. Bamber wide through one and side by side between Vautier and Johnson with Pipo Derani pushing. Derani ahead of Johnson. He is learning from some of the best. Derani is a past champion of course, thinking back to last year and the great second half of the year from AXR. Blomqvist on old tires and full fuel.
In GTD Pro and GTD, two class leaders in Connor De Philippi and Richard Heistand. No emergency service for Pipo Derani. Penalty for pitting and gaining an advantage taking fuel as emergency service. #31 will go a lap down. Derani will have to push. He is on track and now has Filipe Albuquerque bearing down. He is on cold tires. In replay, we see contact between the #36 and #74. Damaged cheese wedge for the #36 Andretti Autosport car with Jarett Andretti still leading. Filipe Albuquerque is about to put Pipo Derani a lap down.
Ricky Taylor waiting for his stint. He is analyzing and calling the strategy. Pipo Derani hopes for another yellow to get back on the lead lap or stay there and he knows that the #10 will stop before he does but then has to stay ahead of the #60 of Blomqvist. The #70 Inception Racing McLaren has showed pace in the enduros and they did race at Long Beach. Jordan Pepper, Brendon Iribe, and Ollie Milroy. The #59 Crucial Motorsports entry is also there. Drive through penalty for Jarett Andretti for incident responsibility.
The other McLaren is the #59 Crucial Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3. Jon Miller sharing with Paul Holton and Pat Gallagher. The Mercedes cars are strong and showing good lap times in GTD as Josh Sarchet leads LMP3 in the #58 MLT Motorsports sharing the Ligier JS P3 with Dakota Dickerson and Tyler Maxson. Albuquerque closing up on Derani trying to put #31 a lap down. This feels like the race start and more lapped traffic. More cars there just to be passed. Running wide, the GTD #99 Hardpoint Porsche 911 GT3R of Rob Ferriol, Katherine Legge, and Stefan Wilson. Another massive hit for #13 AWA LMP3 car of Lars Kern headed through the esses!
This is at the exit of turn one. What on earth happened? The AMR safety team is attending to the driver. This looks like it was a one car incident. Lars Kern climbs out under his own steam. So he is fine. Kern is a GT man and does all their testing of production cars at the Nurburgring. Recently he ran with Pfaff Motorsports in GTD before the GTD Pro class was added this year. In replay, it is a long way away. Kern loses it through the turn one exit and he got up on the curb and clobbered the wall. These cars are so low to the ground, all four wheels can come off the ground and pitch the car into a strange angle and the car stopped abruptly. Do not pinch the crest of the curb.
Is that car compromised? It is now. That car is compacted. It is a short week before we head to CTMP for the home race for AWA, from Canada. Kyle Marcelli replacing Kuno Wittmer in that car and he has also run Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Michelin Pilot Challenge already this weekend. We are turning it over to a driver's only booth. Townsend Bell, James Hinchcliffe, and Calvin Fish. OK. Brian Till and Dillon Welch in the pit lane. We have not been able to find a rhythm in this race.
No comments:
Post a Comment