It is preferable to be on the flat side of the pit lane, the F1 pit lane as opposed to the downhill of the heritage or endurance racing pit lane. The heritage pit lane goes all downhill. One hour is now in the bag and we start hour two here in Belgium. Luca Stolz pits from third spot in the #2 Mercedes AMG Team GetSpeed car. Stolz is sharing with Steijn Schothorst and Maximilian Gotz. Valentino Rossi is going to take over the #46 WRT Audi from Nico Muller. Loosen your belts and be ready. Muller out, Rossi in. He is a very slender motorcycle racer, turned car racing driver, a greyhound-like individual. Pit lane is like Grand Central Station right now. Ah. Team manager to the stewards for speeding in the lane. Kelvin van der Linde, Charles Weerts, and Dries Vanthoor in trouble. Mercedes #88 to the pit lane.
So, Raffaele Marciello comes in sharing of course with Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella. Iron Lynx double stacking the pit stops. Driver changes for both cars. Luca Stolz will stay at the controls of the #2 Mercedes. Nick Tandy and Jordan Pepper are trying to move up and Tandy has been far more successful than has Pepper. Porsche #54 is back on track and might just barely stay in the lead. Come Ledogar now at the controls. #88 got trapped behind a lapped car. Marciello still at the controls. Driving deep into the Brussels corner. #47 KCMG Porsche takes a pit stop. Nick Tandy stays at the wheel of it sharing with Dennis Olsen and Laurens Vanthoor.
Nicki Thiim in Aston Martin #95 being examined for speeding in the lane. The order is shuffled. Luca Stolz leads Come Ledogar who has Raffaele Marciello right on his six. The Porsche is not leading for the first time and Ledogar goes off the road at Les Combes! Yikes! His tires are still cold, probably. Raffaele Marciello runs wide again, look. Ledogar has the undercut done on him by Marciello indeed and a wee bit of contact. Come Ledogar off in the dirt. The race is beginning to come alive and into the final turn, Marciello wants past Ledogar down to La Source! Ledogar hanging on by his fingernails! Yikes! Down the hill to Eau Rouge, Marciello takes the spot away. Come Ledogar has to cool off a wee bit. Onto the Kemmel straight, Marciello has the preferred line and holds his ground against the Frenchman.
Stolz is a lap further into his stint in another Mercedes. Klaus Bachler, the Austrian, observes that the team does not want trouble and does not want damage. Car #32 cops a five second pit lane speeding penalty. That is Kelvin van der Linde. Into La Source again, Come Ledogar trying to get back on terms with Marciello with Luca Stolz leading the motor race. Eddie Cheever III., 26th in the overall. Valentino Rossi, deep into the chicane with cars all over him. Wow. Eddie Cheever III. brave through Eau Rouge and Raidillon chasing Jens Liebhauser. Mercedes vs. Mercedes. Cheever better through the entry to Pouhon and he dives around Liebhauser who has Nicholas Scholle and Neil Verhagen really pushing hard.
#50 is celebrating half a century of BMW M. The Audi passes the Mercedes. Trying to see which one it is. It looks like the #99 Attempto Racing entry. Valentino Rossi is being monstered by one of the other Audi's. Trying to tell which one it is. Loris Spinelli's car just took over the lead in the Gold Cup. Spinelli part of the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing entry. Spinelli, Eddie Cheever III., Chris Froggatt, and Jonathan Hui. Eddie Cheever III. has clear road. The #38 Jota Sport McLaren of Marvin Kirchhofer is making progress as he is chasing Benji Goethe in the ROFGO Audi, the #30 and Kirchhofer makes the move. Goethe wisely allows for the pass and knows discretion is the better part of valor.
Kirchhofer sharing with Oliver Wilkinson and Rob Bell. We could see rain in ten minutes. Egad! Hopefully it is light rain. It is overcast and cool as we speak. 34 laps now completed. Car #95, five seconds for speeding in the lane, for Nikki Thiim. Taking drive through penalties will lose you bucketloads of time. Valentin Pierburg has taken over the #20 SPS Automotive Mercedes from Tim Muller. Reema Juffali and George Kurtz also on that team. More contact for one of the Mercedes cars. Kevin Estre has overtaken Come Ledogar. But Ledogar now third and Estre fourth. Stolz leads Marciello. Two Mercedes AMG GT3's leading, 35 laps now in the bag.
Ledogar third behind Marciello and they are followed by Estre, who is right on his gearbox. The dynamic between the Porsche's is shifting. Dinamic? That's a pun. Now then. Kevin Estre in the GPX Martini liveried 911, it is incredible! The Porsche 917 in 1970 had success with that very livery in 1970. #221 has it's number because of the Martini 917 wearing the #21 back in the day. Estre is a very fast driver and is a joy to watch. Estre will be a factory Porsche prototype driver next year. He, Michael Christensen, and Richard Lietz raced here earlier in the year with the FIA World Endurance Championship but with a very different tire. A totally different manufacturer.
Estre closes back up on Come Ledogar accelerating across the finish line to the next lap through La Source. Davide Rigon in the Ferrari is hovering around the tail of the two Porsche's. The Porsche boys do not want Davide Rigon in the Ferrari 488 GT3 to catch them. Ledogar will ride shotgun trying to protect Estre. There was a massive accident here at Spa early doors last year that eliminated many good cars. Iron Lynx won this race last year. Ledogar behing harried by Rigon. Ledogar under attack from Rigon through Blanchimont as we see Valentino Rossi in 24th being chased by Nick Tandy while the #32 Audi of Kelvin van der Linde, he is right behind Rigon right now with a penalty coming. So he has the Damocles sword hanging over him, but it isn't so bad. The sword will be laid down.
Ledogar holds on as Rigon backs off a wee bit. Ledogar has to make the Dinamic Porsche very wide between Brussels and Jacky Ickx corner. Right rear tire gone for the #87 Akkodis ASP Mercedes of Casper Stevenson. There is something mechanical. No flat tire. That is a very lumpy suspension that might be busted. Rigon wants by Ledogar thundering up to La Source. The Porsche has strong traction with the engine hanging out over the rear axle with the Ferrari a ture mid engine GT car. Benji Goethe fastest at the top of Raidillon at 245 kilometers an hour. Rigon diving around the outside and Ledogar slams the door in his face into Jacky Ickx corner.
The #26 Audi has crunched itself and the front nose is gone. Cesar Gazeau of France in the car for Sainteloc Junior Team, spinning in Blanchimont, and... ker-runch! He slams the wall and damages the front bodywork and the suspension. Does it go into the pickup points on the chassis? Gazeau thankfully drove it into the lane. Gazeau sharing with Nicolas Baert, Gilles Magnus, and Aurelien Panis. The battle still on hot and heavy between Rigon and Ledogar. Rigon does not have enough juice to pass the Frenchman but the Italian is getting flustered, clearly. Through Pouhon they go, 40 laps in. Kelvin van der Linde is closing up on these two blokes.
The battle is on indeed. Estre running quicker than the top running Mercedes AMG GT3's. Marciello behind Stolz. Kelvin van der Linde is gaining on these two and now, Rigon is going to go through into La Source and makes it work! Ledogar fights back and goes back ahead of Rigon! Yikes! He takes the spot back at Eau Rouge! That was good motor racing. Rigon was compromised at the exit of La Source. Rigon thought he had the place, but not now. Kelvin van der Linde is catching these two. He is still running quicker than both Ledogar and Rigon. Running wide, right, left through Fangnes and into Campus corner with the tech college on the other side. Clumps of traffic all over the road.
Potential danger time here, look with six or seven cars scrambling for position, lapped or not. Rigon is still chasing Ledogar. Neil Verhagen now the fastest man on track at 258 clicks in the #50 Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3. 42 laps now completed by the leaders and a huge train of cars still racing each other as the traffic will split apart and in another hour they will come back together scrapping for track position. Miguel Molina now in the #51 Iron Lynx Ferrari. Jordan Pepper is now in 16th spot. Albert Costa is now passed by one of the Mercedes cars. Albert Costa has to move over and let other competitors pass.
Raffaele Marciello has a penalty now building for five track limit warnings. 20 people in race control issuing the penalties when the marshals on track radio them. So, the penalty has been earned and must be served. 25 seconds is putting yourself down the order into the danger zone. Amazingly, almost two hours on the board, and we have not seen a safety car yet. Harry Gottsacker is taking the #28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 around. Gottsacker sharing with team boss Samantha Tan, Nick Wittmer, and Maxime Oosten. Rigon still stuck behind Come Ledogar. This battle continues to rage on. Come Ledogar using all the power and drivability of the Porsche and the traffic jam is still squeezing out many drivers.
Two Mercedes' battling, #20 of Valentin Pierburg and #4 of Janus Fittje and now, Jens Lieberhauser has spun at Brussels corner after being bished and bashed, and possibly boshed, by Henrique Chaves in the #188 Garage 59 McLaren. That was an avoidable incident indeed. Yellows out in sector two. Chaves went in backwards and embedded himself in the gravel trap. Excuse me. That is the #57 Mercedes AMG GT3. Come on, guys. Push it. Push it. OK. OK. I'll push it! Luca Stolz in the #2 Mercedes leads. Now then, Henrique Chaves went for a gap that was not there and Liebhauser gets stopped. How do you get out without a snatch vehicle like a tractor or a crane?
Kelvin van der Linde is coming after Davide Rigon in a hurry and Rigon has breathing space to see if he can take a lunge at that pesky green Porsche. Something has to happen to get that car out and so we will see a Full Course Yellow. Boom. I was right and now it is on the screen. Gosh, I'm good. I can predict these things. Hardy har har. Preemptive pit stops now that we are under Full Course Yellow. The #26 Sainteloc Audi R8 is now retired from the motor race. Game over for the Panis, Gazeau, Baert, and Magnus entry. Maximum two laps Full Course Yellow before the safety car is dispatched. Richard Lietz has taken over Porsche #221 and Daniel Juncadella has now taken over the #88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes from Raffaele Marciello.
Still under yellow as we are getting closer to the end of the second hour. Daniel Serra now at the controls of the #71 Iron Lynx Ferrari. Raffaele Marciello, the Swiss licensed Italian says his race is going well despite going down the order and for sure the track conditions are going to change as the car has some oversteer, a spot of oversteer. Richard Lietz now third in the #221 GPX Martini Racing Porsche. Dries Vanthoor is now in the #32 Audi and Thomas Preining now in the #54 Dinamic Motorsports Porsche taking over from Come Ledogar. Mercedes are doing double stints while everyone else seems to be going through single stints.
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