Man oh man. If you put an orange stripe down the middle of that Glickenhaus it will look just like a Gulf Oil John Wyre Porsche 917! Now that it is not red with the white nose trim, it changes the shape of the car! They did not short fuel the car at all. So, we have completed 1/3rd of this race and are onto the second third of the event. We scroll through the running order. Sebastian Priaulx has taken over the #77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 and Michelle Gatting has taken the wheel over, in the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari after Sara Bovy finished her stint. Green flag. We see a pass for position as the WRT car passes the #1 Richard Mille Racing car of Lilou Wadoux. We have had three Full Course Yellows and no safety cars as Rene Rast chases Lilou Wadoux.
Mike Conway passes Andre Negrao as we watch the fight in LMP2 between Jota and Vector Sport. Ed Jones vs. Nico Muller vs. Rene Rast. Drive through penalty coming for the #777 D'station Racing Aston Martin Vantage. Ditto for the #44 ARC Bratislava car for a Full Course Yellow infringement, and both Peugeot's will also get pinged. We watch the Toyota and the Alpine, threading the eye of the needle through the LMP2 scrum, and Pipo Derani leads the motor race by 49 seconds. Derani clear of Mike Conway. Then comes the Alpine followed by the #8 Toyota and the James Rossiter driven #94 Peugeot.
How ironic, as for a number of years now, Derani, and Conway, have been teammates in IMSA for the endurance races at Action Express Racing. The Toyota has the straight-line speed to pass the LMP2 cars like they are standing still. The Alpine makes its speed through the corners as opposed to on the straightaways and so, when #36 gets stymied in the traffic, it will lose time even to an LMP2, maybe. Maybe I am just saying things without true evidence, and I apologize. But I am only listening to what the commentators on the world feed have to say and seeing what I obseve on the iPad screen here while calling this motor race.
The Toyota is eking out a gap and Nico Lapierre went off the road as well. The Alpine makes up the speed in the corners instead of in a straight line. Conway ahead of Negrao. Andre Negrao has now passed the LMP2 cars. There is no high downforce spec bodywork in either LMP2 or in Hypercar in 2022. You cannot have different spec bodywork. As you homologate the car, you can have one adjustable aero device. It is the rear wing for both the Glickenhaus and the Toyota, and the Peugeot has adjustable elements on the front end as that car was built without a rear wing of course.
All you can do is balance (marginally), the Center of Pressure. More woe for Peugeot. Rookie error for crossing the white line splitting the pit lane from the track. You just don't cross the white line exiting the lane. I don't care if you are testing or racing. It doesn't matter. Five classes of cars in this race including the sub-class in LMP2. The GTE Pro and GTE Am battles are beginning to heat up and we can see Michelle Gatting might be caught in traffic. Lorenzo Colombo is catching the leading duo for ealTeam by WRT and United Autosport.
Colombo is pushing hard. They were leading comfortably by 11 seconds not too long ago. United lead, after starting on pole. Glickenhaus being investigated by the stewards as Pipo Derani may have been driving too fast under Full Course Yellow. You have five seconds from the start of FCY to bring the speed down to 80 clicks, 50 miles an hour. Derani, still leading by 48 seconds. Goodness gracious. All it takes is a penalty and you have tossed all the hard work out the window. Marshals are doing their jobs and they don't want to be in danger. It is a safety issue.
Whack! A bit of carbon fiber just hit the very front end of the Alpine A480. Oh dear. Lorenzo Colombo is closing in on the LMP2 leaders. Ferdinand Habsburg goes down the inside of Filipe Albuquerque into the first Lesmo and makes the move stick. Lorenzo Colombo does not want to burn up his tires. Habsburg is placing the car rightwhere he wants to be and poor old Albuquerque gets stymied. Colombo, out of Lesmo due, into Ascari, Albuquerque dives to the inside. Move half a car length towards the center of the road. Now then, the GTE Am battle is still hot as well, look.
In traffic, Albuquerque is going to get buried by the GT cars. Colombo is right on his six and here comes Colombo. He has a head of steam. They fly past the #98 Aston Martin. Fast traffic, slow traffic, any traffic, will affect this LMP2 scrap. Sara Bovy is next in line in GTE-Am. Sebastien Buemi says that the issues he has experienced are electrical. He could not brake or use the traction control and no dashboard display for a stint and a half before boxing the car and doing a power cycle. Anyone who has ever used a computer or a phone, it can also affect a race car. Electronics hate noise, vibration, and heat, the three key ingredients of a race car.
Albuquerque squeezes past more traffic and is turning it on, trying to stop the headway of the rival #9 car on fresh Michelin tires. As the stint gets longer, Albuquerque's tires will wear. Strike while the iron is hot. Well, the iron is cooling, and the tires are aging and hitting a cliff. Lorenzo Colombo is a Silver rated driver and is not taking undue risks to go full send down the inside. Albuquerque is blunting the potential speed of Colombo. But by the same token, Albuquerque is catchin GTE Pro cars as he slides past the #92 Porsche in GTE Pro. Colombo could advance to Gold rating by next year.
Prema had an 11 second lead and could get it back. Robert Kubica has yet to drive the Prema car and now, Will Stevens in the #38 Jota entry is right on top of the #44 Inter Europol Oreca with Alex Brundle at the wheel of it. Kuba Smiechowski started the Inter Europol entry. Antonio Felix Da Costa will be the closer at the end of the race for Jota and the #38 team. Stevens is looking, probing, trying to pass Brundle, flashing the lights! This is for position and is an intimidation tactic that's just not working. Two more races to go yet this season. A six-hour race in Japan at Fuji and an eight-hour event in Bahrain to round out the championship.
Stevens is doing all he can to force Brundle into a mistake. Distract the driver in front. Andre Negrao is now beginning to catch Mike Conway again. Alpine chasing Toyota. In GTE Pro, Tommy Milner in the Corvette C8.R #64 is closing on the Porsche. The leaders are scything past GTE cars and getting close to the LMP2 scrap. Lorenzo Colombo is hampered by the Hypercars coming through headed down to the Ascari chicane, the Variante Ascari. This is the third place Porsche vs. Corvette scrap in GTE Pro heading through the Lesmo curves, Curva de Lesmo. Milner is closing on Michael Christensen hand over fist.
Monza is a clockwise circuit. A new set of four tires helps with traction and braking and those advantages really add up. Into Variante della Roggia and into Ascari you turn left and brake at the same time. Glickenhaus lead Toyota and Alpine at the top of the shop while the leading LMP2 cars head for the lane. The Toyota has gotten a break in traffic and, wow! The Alpine closes right up on the LMP2 car and he should have gotten past through Curva Grande but no. Lesmo 1 and Lesmo 2 are really one long turn and it is hard to just skate through there. It seems now the #8 Toyota is fine. The #94 Peugeot is running up to snuff in fifth spot.
The Porsche's in GTE Pro are not performing to expectations according to Porsche GT program manager Alex Stehlig. The drivers are good with the balance of the car, and everything is performing right but they know they have a performance gap to the Ferrari's and the Corvette. TF Sport is pinged with a 50 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. On the pit stop exchange in LMP2, the #9 Prema car has passed #22 for United Autosport. Someone has made the best of the inlap and their pit stop. TF Sport have taken their penalty and Henrique Chaves will resume fourth in class in GTE Am. Negrao closing in on Conway for second spot overall.
Ben Keating, and Marco Sorensen are the Am class leaders and Chaves has copped his penalty. Michelle Gatting and the Iron Dames have taken the GTE Am lead and now, Sebastian Priaulx in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 is moving up as well. Priaulx sharing that car with Christian Ried and Harry Tincknell. Peugeot #93 is in the pit lane. For the sister #94, no further action on the pit lane line crossing issue. More trouble for the #93 as the car is refueled but now, Paul Di Resta is being rotated into the garage. They are getting ready to be a part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year.
Argy bargy betwen the #51 AF Corse Ferrari leading GTE Pro and the #56 Inception Racing Porsche in GTE-Am. Brendon Iribe had to start that car fro the pit lane. One of the crewmembers is giving a shave to one of his colleagues. Hmmm. Glickenhaus, Toyota, Alpine. They were top three on the grid and remain in that order as the race continues. Pipo Derani has now run 80 laps, 288 miles. Make that 81 laps, well, beginning the 81st lap. Yikes! Wriggling all over the shop there, and getting into the gravel, it is indeed Filipe Albuquerque! That's a hairy moment! #9 makes a run for it.
#93 now in the garage. Jota #28 in the lane from the LMP2 lead. Ed Jones handing the car over to one of his co-drivers and Nico Muller also in the lane. Oh no! Drive through penalty for the #708 Glickenhaus and Pipo Derani for a Full Course Yellow infringement! Oh my God! Oh my God! We have a massive crash! The #33 TF Sport Aston Martin of Henrique Chaves! The Portuguese driver is over on his head! The car has experienced a massive barrel roll and the door is gone the passenger side door is off the car! This is exiting the Variante della Roggia and the safety car is deployed immediately! Yup. Clear as day, mate. He spins the car backwards and gets absolutely catapulted over the sausage curb!
The cars are traveling way too fast and that's why these sausage curbs are terrible! The car is inverted and the driver has been shaken. Game over for #33. Over and out. Is the driver OK? We've seen similar incidents before, and Glickenhaus will tumble down the order. They won't be able to make it. Toyota will close in the queue. Henrique Chaves, thankfully, is out of the car and he will feel this tomorrow. Holy cow! The curb rips the door off the car. These sausage curbs at Monza are horrid! Just too dangerous. The FIA really need to look at the sausage curbs. We saw the Formula 1 crash at Silverstone last weekend with Zhou Guanyu. This is the same deal.
We should be under safety car for 20 minutes or so and I would not be surprised if they red flag this race. The local marshals will know. Now, I believe something has failed on the car. That was live in real time. Did the brakes fail? Were the brakes cold? Were the tires cold? Poor Henrique Chaves. He'll be freaked out after that one as we now have the safety car on track. Three hours and 20 some odd minutes remaining on the clock. The pit entrance is now closed. You have three laps during green to serve the penalty or doing it under caution. John Gaw, the head of Aston Martin Racing and is managing director at Prodrive.
He and his company build these cars, the Aston Martin's. OK. Full Course Yellow currently as the cars circulate behind the safety car. That wreck couldn't have been just driver error. We are almost to the midway point here at Monza. We continue under safety car and saw Nicklas Nielsen pit the #83 AF Corse LMP2 car. Glickenhaus, now that the lane is open, they have to serve their penalty. Their lead has evaporated, and they will have to stop and then join right at the tail end, caboose on the field. So essentially, their chances of winning the 6 Hours of Monza, are nil. The safety cage has protected the driver in the accident even though Chaves was sliding on his lid.
That is a very frightening situation. The following drivers' eyes are like saucers! Oh my word, a car is flying through the air, right above my head! Andre Negrao is asked by the Alpine crew and his crew chief do you think one more stint on these tires is possible? One more stint with you driving? Copy. Sure thing. They are doing all they can to pass up Toyota and they know the Glickenhaus is completely out of the picture. They will be stone last on the field, the boys at Glickenhaus. In Peugeot land, they are having to monitor temperatures on every part of the car.
When you are in development mode, they have not gone around during testing for 20 minutes on the speed limiter. This is something you just can't accomplish in a test session. The Glickenhaus may or may not be able to serve their penalty under a safety car. It is not much of a penalty. Or is it? You come in 38 cars behind the leader. There is less consequence under a safety car. The new plastic sausage curbs have been replaced. They are bolted into the ground, so, hopefully one of the bolts does not get sheared off. Harry Tincknell says the footage of Chaves' flip was terrifying. Either a stuck throttle, or, the car had no brakes.
We saw at Silverstone in Formula 1, the halo saved the drivers' lives and the whole idea with closed cockpit sports cars, that is safe. But these sausage curbs themselves are a true safety issue. Now then, the #83 AF Corse LMP2 car came to a stop in the pit lane before his pit stall. GTs and prototypes in the lane alike. Now, Glickenhaus #708 have lost the lead after taking petrol and is now behind Toyota #7. Pipo Derani remains at the wheel of the Glickenhaus. Toyota #7 paases. No tires for the Toyota, and tires for the Glickenhaus which has served it's penalty I am pretty sure.
We just a tad over three hours to go, coming up to the halfway mark. Halfway home, and Glickenhaus was ahead by 50 seconds. There's still half the race remaining. Can Glickenhaus hang on? They will lose 30 seconds with a drive through penalty and on pace they could win, but they balanced their brake issues to extend their lead and do their level best to maintain it. Will they be able to save the brakes? Romain Dumas believes that they might still have brakes. Mike Conway is at the controls of #7. Again, this is round four of six in the 2022 FIA WEC.
Andre Negrao has finished his stint and handed Alpine #36 to Nicolas Lapierre. Olivier Pla has taken over the #708 Glickenhaus from Pipo Derani, and so, Olivier Pla will be the one to take the penalty. Henrique Chaves is OK after the accident and will be taken for a checkup to the medical center. Brendon Hartley has now moved past Nico Lapierre. Toyota #7 is the new leader in the overall. But they have to have taken tires. In the queue, the Glickenhaus is down the order. Lots of gouges in the track pavement where the Aston Martin barrel rolled.
We have seen two cars roll here at Monza. The car sat so long in the pit lane the front brake discs for the Aston Martin were too cold. Jim Glickenhaus says that they feel just fine and know they had to serve a penalty. They know they lost the gap under the safety car and the car is running well and the drivers are perforning optimally. Jim Glickenhaus believes they have to wait to take the penalty and then go like the clappers to make up track position. We know the Glickenhaus pulled a 50 second gap in the lead in the opening three hours.
They don't want to be stuck behind a wad of cars and lose time after the restart. That is the biggest concern for Glickenhaus and especially for Romain Dumas who has now taken over the car from Pipo Derani as we discussed. Safety car in this lap as we are completing another racing hour and now, the #7 Toyota is at the top of the shop. Safety car lights out. The sister Toyota is now third with the Alpine breathing down his neck. We've got a green flag shown at the start/finish line and are back underway at Monza!
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