Well, well, well. Ladies and gentlemen, we have crossed over into the second half of the six hours of Fuji now beginning the fourth hour of this motor race. I think we needed a well, well, well, and there you have it. Castellaci and Flohr have both driven one stint apiece in the #54 and so, that means Davide Rigon is now at the controls. Both Toyota's are in. Actually, it is #8 now and we did not see the pit stop for the #7 but it did hit the lane on the previous lap. Brendon Hartley has been doing a sterling job. They are very careful with the tear off on the windscreen, so it doesn't rip in half. It is like putting cellophane tape on Christmas gifts. Hartley is doing a sterling job and is a minute and 16 seconds up on the sister Toyota, putting 116 laps on the board, nearly 331 miles. Toyota #8 is decisively quicker but both cars are truly getting entangled in that GTE Am battle we have been watching between Nikki Thiim and Rahel Frey.
We look at the order and, in each class, here are the leaders. Hypercar and overall is the #8 Toyota. WRT leads LMP2 with the #31. AF Corse with the #51 Ferrari is at the top of the shop in GTE Pro. In GTE Am, it is the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin which either has Henrique Chaves or Marco Sorensen at the wheel of it right now. I cannot say which one. I do not know, besides the fact that I believe Ben Keating has already completed his allotted driver time in this race. It appears every one of the 36 cars that started this race are still running.
Mike Wainwright is stopped on course in the GTE Am GR Racing Porsche. There is damage to that car he shares with Ben Barker and Ricardo Pera. He stopped in the middle of the final corner on the circuit and had some issue coming out of turn 15. We are going to see a safety car scramble for this incident. Wainwright has the car moving, albeit slowly. Well, they waited, and we will stay green. In 2016, this race ran fully green with no safety cars or slow zones. #86 had been the leading Porsche in GTE Am but no longer. Salt rubbed into a bit of a wound there, sadly. Sebastian Priaulx in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche is now the highest placed GTE Am Porsche.
I think this car probably had electrical trouble because it just stopped and at some point it was stopped on the road, too. It is now five laps down. There is a second part of the pit garages for this race because of the entry being bigger. There are eight additional garages beyond the pit lane. Will they come in handy? Will we have a 44-car field for this race next year? It seems likely with the growth of WEC thanks to the Hypercar class. A great tribute to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II., on the rear wing of the GR Racing Porsche, another British team in the championship. It says 1926-2022. Rest In Peace, Your Majesty. GR Racing have just had a fraught race this year.
How odd that the #7 Toyota is just not as quick as the #8. Maybe Kamui Kobayashi let go of his right-side tires. The gap has ballooned to 18 seconds between #7 and #8. Brendon Hartley vs. Jose Maria Lopez who is now at the wheel of #7. In GTE Pro it is also a battle of the teammates at Ferrari for AF Corse. Alessandro Pier Guidi running just ahead of Antonio Fuoco. Sounds like an Italian race to me! Two Italian drivers in Ferrari's. Kobayashi (now Lopez) is still three tenths to half a second behind. Fuoco right behind Pier Guidi. Maybe Ferrari has an answer to one driver clicking the radio and saying, please let me by because I am faster than the sister car.
Jonathan Aberdein has uncorked yet another fast lap in LMP2 in the 1:33 bracket, with a 1:33.678. Three tenths of a second between Pier Guidi and Fuoco. Jota though, are loaded for bear with the #28 and Antonio Felix Da Costa, 11 seconds down and he just cut a 1:33 dead. Da Costa is quicker. But we are still watching the Ferrari fight. Wow. One of the cars goes onto the curb. Mike Wainwright's troubles aboard Porsche #86 are gearbox related. The car is stuck in gear, and he cannot shift out of it to find anything. Does he have a box full of neutrals? We'll have to find out more. That is gear selection trouble.
Paul Dalla Lanna too has made a pit stop and stayed behind the wheel for another stint. Fuoco is pressing Pier Guid9 even though this might not be a positional battle. AF Corse differentiates their cars by the front splitter. #51 is all red and #52 has a yellow painted splitter on it. This race took place the same weekend Formula 1 ran the Italian Grand Prix at Monza and yellow was a theme for the F1 team. So it is for the sports car team as well. Fuoco is unlikely to be waved past Pier Guidi. Fuoco and his Spanish co-driver Miguel Molina are 20 points in-arrears of the sister car in the hands of Pier Guidi and James Calado.
Gianmaria Bruni, on his own, is one point behind. Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen are a further point down and Bruni is all alone on his points because Richard Lietz missed the Spa race in Belgium in the spring due to a positive virus diagnosis. All three contending Porsche drivers are a point behind the Calado/Pier Guidi Ferrari. Alessio Rovera now in the pit lane for AF Corse with their #83 LMP2 Oreca. I believe #83 have made a mistake on drive time with Francois Perrodo. He needs 14 more minutes and has 61 so far. He has been very calm about it and not worried, saying that yes, he has done his time in the car. A battle for seventh in LMP2 is ensuing as well between Phil Hanson for United Autosport and Charles Milesi for Richard Mille Racing.
So, we are having a wee bit of trouble trying to find regulation changes for drive time. Three and a quarter hours, of this race has already been put in the books. Plenty more to come. Don't go anywhere. Back on track, Toyota Gazoo Racing continue dominating their home race at their home track. A gap of 18.3 seconds separates a storming Brendon Hartley, the race leader, from teammate and second place man Jose Maria Lopez. Nicolas Lapierre is a minute in-arrears of the Toyota's. 48 seconds behind that is the #93 Peugeot 9X8 Hypercar. The sister #94 car has been beleaguered and beset by a litany of problems, and they are way down in 34th place in the hands of Loic Duval.
Holding James Rossiter back at the start of the race was a major strategic error on the part of the Peugeot TotalEnergies team. Pit stop time for another one of the cars in this race that has seen trouble, the #71 Ferrari 488 GTE for Spirit of Race, the Swiss team. They are having a regular pit stop. Toyota are such a well-oiled machine, having been in FIA WEC for the last decade, from the inception, the rebirth of the World Endurance Championship. Peugeot though, will learn lessons hand over fist, and in the future, they will not be counted out. We look at the right-hand side of the screen, and a table of the number of overtakes among the leading cars.
This table shows 234 overtakes throughout the race for Toyota #8, 236 for the #7 Toyota, and 213 for the #36 Alpine. Peugeot's biggest lesson from today's race is that double stinting tires on this particular circuit at Fuji is too much of a risk for their car. Said strategy has been paying dividends for Toyota. Peugeot also must learn that if one car is faster than the other, let that car go and have its head and let that driver do what he needs to. In GTE-Am, the leader is still the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari as the #33 Aston Martin pits for tires and fuel as well as a driver change, I think, from second in class.
Every driver has idiosyncrasies in their radio communication and the Peugeot team is still working on picking up those little things. The #777 Aston Martin, the D'station car is pitting now as Satoshi Hoshino is relieved to have completed his minimum drive time and he put in a few yeoman stints today. So, the rest of the race it will be up to Tomonobu Fujii and Charlie Fagg to get the car home in one piece. We still have two hours and 40 minutes to go, the standard duration of an IMSA sprint race. We also saw that great battle between Rahel Frey and Nikki Thiim and for her to race Thiim, Rahel Frey definitely earned her money today. Girl power, as they say. She did a fabulous job.
Nikki Thiim is a World Champion. Frey too, has a lot on her CV. She has been successful in open wheel (single seater) racing and has driven for Audi in DTM in the days of the old Class 1 touring cars before DTM went to a GT3 formula as they have temporarily, presently. She is solidly experienced and right now is going longer on fuel loads than is the Aston Martin. We have to check the gap. Before the last pit stop, Rahel Frey was 27 seconds ahead of Henrique Chaves. In LMP2, Jonatahn Aberdein and Antonio Felix Da Costa are volleying fastest laps around and the gap between them and Dries Vanthoor in the class lead is four seconds or so.
Da Costa is now 11 seconds down on Aberdein. Aberdein is flying! Did he put sake on his corn flakes at breakfast this morning? Did he drink a specially brewed tea? Jonathan Aberdein, we have been calling him "the dynamo" today and he is indeed. He got cereal from Family Mart or something. No rice. Cereal it is. Rahel Frey is now headed to the pit lane for routine service. This is the end of her first stint, but she should stay in the car for a double. There is no question of that. #98 has seen a driver change and now Paul Dalla Lana, the veteran Canadian, is behind the wheel. Northwest AMR has done single stints between David Pittard, Nikki Thiim, and Paul Dalla Lana, and that will continue for the rest of the race in their rotation.
So, as #85 is, bingo, it is indeed a driver change at Iron Dames. So Rahel Frey is getting out and Michelle Gatting is getting in. They are going for single stints to the end of the race. That same trio has been really close, in the European Le Mans Series to winning races and are knocking on the door. Forgive me! I just haven't had the time to cover ELMS. I promise, I shall do more of that if the time does indeed permit, maybe as a bonus, during the offseason, there will be time to double back and check those races out. Right now, the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari in 12th in GTE Am has Giancarlo Fisichella at the wheel of it.
In the battle for fifth in GTE-Am, Davide Rigon is right on Charlie Fagg's six right now and the Italian in the Ferrari wants by the Brit in the Aston Martin. Rigon, a factory Ferrari driver in Maranello and he could very easily be a part of their Hypercar team for WEC next year. Don't forget that The Prancing Horse is returning to top level prototype racing for the first time in some 50 years plus, next year. Charlie Fagg is doing all he can to hang on and Rigon though, for that silver AF Corse Ferrari, he has a sprinkle of magic dust in his pocket and is showing that as we speak.
In the background, look, it is still Jonathan Aberdein in hot pursuit of Dries Vanthoor for LMP2 honors. Fagg tries the over/under and he makes it sitck. The Ferrari has better corner exit speed than the Aston Martin and the fact that Charlie Fagg is ahead of Rigon, means Rigon is getting stymied like no tomorrow. Next lap by, if Rigon really wants to go for it, he shall do a diving lunge down the inside into turn one. We shall see. For now, he may be keeping his powder dry. Then again, Jonathan Aberdein is spoiling this little party as he is now the meat in the sandwich between these two blokes and their battle for GTE-Am honors.
Wow! Look at Satoshi Hoshino! He is spent! Hottest race at Fuji since 2016 and it shows. He is being given something (I cannot tell what it is) to cool down. He's like "I'm spent. I need to cool down and take a nap! I deserve this after my stint." He had a wonderful stint at his home track and is as pleased as punch about it, understandably. Faster cars just do not know who is at the wheel of a GTE-Am car with the orange number plates. Into the final corner, and Fagg and Rigon are going to have a little drag race. 4-liter turbo V8 in the Aston Martin. 3.9-liter turbo V8 in the Ferrari. Very similar displacement. One front mounted and one rear mounted. How will this one shake out?
They are neck and neck, and the Aston just hangs on. Fagg goes completely off the road. What are the stewards going to say on that one? It looks like "track limits" to me. Hmmm. Rigon has the preferred line and makes the move stick around Charlie Fagg in the Aston Martin. You have to have all the possible knowledge you can when you are racing a car. Who is it? Will they lunge at me? Will they be considerate? You have to give them more margin, just like a student driver on the road. Henrique Chaves in the GTE Am lead has run 120 laps, 342 miles. Sector three is completely different than any other place on the track.
Could, while he was drawing the circuit map, the track designer had a massive sneezing fit and he couldn't see what he was doing? Some drivers really do not like this track. But others really dig it. There is a good downhill sweeping section with key braking zones. Any clown can go fast downhill. What about going fast uphill? The LMP2 battle for lower places continues between Phil Hanson and Charles Milesi. This is United Autosport car #22 vs. Richard Mille Racing car #1. Hold the car on the brakes and be patient to get the front end to bite. Don't hustle the car.
Brake earlier and roll into the apex. Or trail brake into the turn? Get on the brakes early and don't upset the pitch of the car too much. Elongate the brakes. Don't out brake yourself and run wide. Let the tire do what it wants to do. Use the braking to steer the car more than the tire. You cannot force a race car to do things that are physically difficult for it to do especially if you are working with a car that is front wheel drive. Set up the car and let it have it's head. Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter are having a conversation.
James Rossiter has been rewarded with a race seat at Peugeot after being a test and reserve driver with the team initially. Rossiter is putting his money where his mouth is. Loic Duval is far more experienced and has World Championships and Le Mans triumphs under his belt. Gustavo Menezes has been in the WEC for a while. But all three are pretty much on equal footing. The #64 Corvette C8.R is in the pit lane for routine service as we go back to the Hanson and Milesi scrap in LMP2. Two and a half hours to go in the race, so we are on the back half of this thing.
A 27 second gap existed between TF Sport and Iron Dames and has shrunk to 24 seconds. Iron Dames had a three second quicker pit stop. Richard Lietz is warned about track limits at Porsche in the #91 911 RSR-19. We are about to hear from Francois Coutron who is the engine builder for Peugeot as the #94 is back on track. There was an oil leak apparently. They did find said oil leak in their data. Everything is working but this is the first time they had an oiling issue. The team is monitoring the data and the feedback, losing 13 laps, 20 minutes.
Peugeot are very open about what is going on. The turbo failed because of an oil leak. There was not an internal failure within the turbocharger itself. Something was bleeding into the inlet tract and oil was being sprayed into the engine. We continue watching the Hanson and Milesi battle as Phil Hanson runs wide into the turn in replay. Milesi is doing his best to catch Hanson. Hanson has been at this sports car racing thing for a while. Wise move as Sebastian Priaulx in the Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 gives the two LMP2 cars their space. Milesi is bobbing and darting to try and ake a move and he does go to the inside and he has to back out.
Milesi sent it. Hanson did not see him. He is going to do it one more time into turn 15. How will this pan out? He cuts back across behind Hanson and will try to take a stab at it down the front straight. Whoops. False alarm. No dice. Milesi hits the pit lane. ROFL! Lead engineer at United Autosport Gary Robertshaw looking on. Priaulx gave the LMP2 cars all the room in the world, but now has lost 21 seconds behind the D'station Aston Martin! This is a wash and brush for the #1 car. Tires done after fueling and windscreen cleaning.
At the top of the shop in GTE Am it is TF Sport Aston Martin ahead of the Ferrari's for Iron Dames and Spirit of Race. Michelle Gatting being followed by Pierre Ragues and then comes the AF Corse Ferrari #54. Davide Rigon runs ahead of the Aston Martin's and now, Paul Dalla Lana is caught by Charlie Fagg. Driver door open in the #28. Jonathan Aberdein will do another stint. He will do two double stints in this race and now, Charlie Fagg passes Nikki Thiim, behind one of the Toyota's. Pit stop time for LMP2 cars as both United Autosports cars are in. Charles Milesi will stay aboard the #1 Richard Mille Racing entry as well. The status quo continues in LMP2. As you were, gentlemen.
Into the lane, Dries Vanthoor in the LMP2 leading #31 WRT Oreca. The LMP2 cars are out of sync with the GTE cars. The Goodyear tire technician gives a thumbs up to the tires. After the fuel, we may see two tires. Or is this fuel only? Ah. It was fuel only. As the circuit rubbers in, you can leave cars on track and don't have to worry about using another set of tires. Antonio Felix Da Costa, it has been announced, will race in Formula E with Porsche. Will that lead him to being a part of Porsche's WEC Hypercar program? They will have a two-car team in the United States in IMSA and will have a two-car team in Europe in WEC.
Da Costa could drive for Porsche in WEC for JOTA as well. The Peugeot stretches it's legs and rockets away. The LMP2 cars are working their way through the GTE Am traffic. Check that. Da Costa is about to lap Ferdinand Habsburg in the #41 RealTeam by WRT LMP2 car that qualified third for this race! Holy smokes! Meanwhile, pit stop time in GTE Pro for AF Corse as car #52 is indeed in the lane. Antonio Fuoco pits from second place. If #52 gains, Fuoco will take the lead. For #51 that will not matter. #51 can catch up. Fuel in the tank and the tires are changed. That was quick. He is down and away.
When the GTE cars are running in tandem, the overtaking cars give them a wide berth. #51 in from the lead of GTE Pro. Cleaning the windscreen and the grille, taking off a tearoff. Michael Christensen now at the controls of the #92 Porsche and my oh my he has tire clag all over the windscreen on the righthand side of it! Can he see clearly through that thing? Porsche too will have to remove another tear off ASAP. #51 in the lane for left side sticker Michelin tires and is down and away. Ferrari have really had a strong season but they started the season way off the pace at Spa Francorchamps until it rained and they got the win.
#38 in the lead of LMP2 in the lane. Antonio Felix Da Costa stays in the car and actually he was 12 or so seconds down on Aberdein a wee while ago. Aberdein did not take tires. In GTE they a stint and a half and or a double and then the LMP2 boys do two and a half stints. Robert Kubica and Prema lead LMP2 as Jonathan Aberdein is back out in second place and he will have to negotiate the Peugeot. Antonio Felix Da Costa is the one following the Peugeot. Despite issues we have seen today, all cars are still running and now, Kubica heads for the pit lane.
GR Racing's Mike Wainwright is racing again but is many laps down in the #86 Porsche. Wow. The gap has increased between the two Toyota's and is now up to, gulp, 27 seconds! What makes zero sense is how this margin is opening up over another Toyota, because that kind of gap is really only reserved for opening up over an Alpine or a Peugeot. Something is definitely wrong with the #7 Toyota in this race, ladies and gentlemen, and we shall likely find out what that something is before long. #9 for Prema Orlen in the lane in LMP2. Track temperature rising steadily, 46-47 degrees Celsius. It is not as hot as it could be. We see a replay of Dries Vanthoor exiting the pit lane.
Do everything to keep the tires alive through your stint. Vanthoor now leads Aberdein by four and a half seconda with Antonio Felix Da Costa now in third place. Michael Christensen has now brought Porsche #92 to the pit lane. Oops. A bollard has fallen down in the pit lane. For a second I thought that was a caterpillar. Well, that'd have to be a massive caterpillar. It isn't. It is indeed a bollard that has become a sleeping policeman. A sleeping policeman? Yes. A speedbump. The bollard has taken a flop in turn six, not at pit in.
The GTE Pro battle will come down to Porsche #92, Ferrari #51, and Ferrari #52 as Porsche #91 and Corvette #64 have both copped drive through penalties already. Richard Lietz is on a final track limits warning, though. He has not copped a drive through yet. My apologies. #91 is in and there is a driver change. Gianmaria Bruni will get back into the car. Meanwhile, speaking of Porsche GTE cars, Sebastian Priaulx has had the #77 Dempsey Proton Am class entry in the lane for a good chunk of time. What is going on there? We shall follow with that story, I hope.
Apologies from earlier to Francois Perrodo and AF Corse as the minimum LMP2 drive time I believe in both sections of the class, is 60 minutes per stint. There was a March bulletin about drive time before Sebring but it has not been integrated into the overall FIA WEC series regulations. Uh um. FIA, please get on the stick with that one so we as journalists and bloggers know what on earth is going on. Thanks. Motor racing is complicated and so is sports car racing as a genre, a discipline. So, the #51 Ferrari leads GTE Pro after pit stops, two seconds is the advantage for Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Toyota claims the #7 car does not have a problem. Yeah right! It has a pace issue. They are not slow drivers. Something is wrong with the pace on #7 and we'll see what happens when Mike Conway takes over the car and I think it will be Ryo Hirakawa taking the wheel in #8. The team claim there is a setup issue on the #7. OK. Understood. But that sounds like an excuse to me and not an actual problem. Racing team's book of excuses number... well, the number is not important.
Toyota are jolly lucky they are racing themselves. If #8 has a better setup than #7 then why aren't #7 using that setup? How will they play this game next year when the competition steps up and we have the likes of Porsche, Peugeot, Ferrari and others coming on the scene? One side of the garage wants to outrun the other of course. Kevin Estre at Porsche is none too happy. The tires are not working right. They tried both compounds. One is better than the other, but they cannot fight with Ferrari with whatever tires they use. They need a large slice of luck. Ferrari are quicker everywhere compared to the Porsche's.
They are losing time and speed on the straight and they lose speed in time in the corners too. Track limits has been a sticking point at Porsche for the #91, as Alpine #36 comes to the lane. Anyhow, the corner exits all are paved with asphalt. There are no gravel traps at Fuji like we see at Spa or at Monza or even at Le Mans. The track limits are the white lines on the road. It is easy to go over the limits in a blind corner like turn three and the final turn has flow, but it is a second or third gear corner, and you can slide the car wide. They get information on track limits late in the corner. Hard to react without making a mistake.
Mikkel Jensen, the Danish driver, is currently third in the #93 Peugeot he shares with Paul di Resta and Jean Eric Vergne. All the warnings add up at once and then the driver realizes, dang it! I have a drive through penalty! Peugeot, the sole remaining Peugeot runs third a lap down to the leader. It is still Toyota 1-2 with #8 ahead of #7 by 30 seconds having now run 148 laps, 422 miles. Toyota, Toyota, Peugeot, Alpine, Peugeot, the top five in Hypercar. Matthieu Vaxiviere is now at the controls of the #36 which is the Hypercar points leader. The internecine battle at Toyota, going to Bahrain, #8 are in the pound seats to be World Champions compared to #7. Race Director Edoardo Freitas on the radio observes fluid pouring out of the #64 Corvette.
The driver's championship would be 122 points to Toyota #8, 121 points to Alpine #36, and 94 points to Toyota #7. One point would be the gap. The Alpine in third would dictate this and of course there is a bigger number of points distributed in Bahrain as it is an eight-hour event as opposed to a six hour. The battle is on in GTE Am with two of the Ferrari's as we see Michelle Gatting doing all she can to hold off Pierre Ragues for position. Michelle Gatting in her second stint at Iron Dames and they are very near the top of the tree, but the TF Sport Aston #33 holds an advantage. The battles behind are helping as they lap past the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche.
Dempsey Proton have struggled. #88 is down the order in GTE Am and the #77 has been in the garage. Speaking of the garage, the #86 GR Racing Porsche is back on track with Mike Wainwright nat the wheel. Wainwright given a final warning by the stewards for track limits. Henrique Chaves is at the wheel of the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin tht leads GTE Am. Oh no! Another Peugeot's motor is cooked! The #93 car has gone bang! It has to be the exact same issue that the #94 had. Forlornly to the pit lane comes the #93. The team will know about this failure and should be able to save time and not fuss with the diagnostics.
So, Alpine are somewhat in the clear. They have less of a threat of them not going to Bahrain with a joint points lead as Michelle Gatting is being harried by Pierre Ragues. It is going to be either Frank Dezoteux or Christoph Ulrich I believe who will have to drive the final stint in that car. Paul Di Resta has brought the #93 Peugeot to the garage. Ragues goes by Gatting and now, Gatting can control the line into the turn. This is going to be a challenging overtake. This is a Mansell and Senna moment, and Ragues cannot answer the bell. Gatting wisely lets the #9 Prema car through, the faster LMP2 car and does not get held up.
Ragues is trying his best to go by. This is for second in GTE Am. All four tires are the same with the exception of the right rear on #85 which is ten laps fresher. Guess what else is going on? The Phil Hanson vs. Charles Milesi LMP2 boxing match we were talking about is still raging! These two blokes must be going ten rounds! Ah! Ragues bish bash boshes his way around the outside of Gatting. So does that make this battle done and dusted? Here comes the #41 RealTeam LMP2 on the outside, on the straight. Oh. She can't make it stick. Ragues slams the door in her face.
She wanted a bite of the apple, but it turned sour, and she knows discretion is the better part of valor. I keep saying it but it's true. Big development in Hypercar too and that is, the Alpine has been lapped. OK. That reshuffles the deck a wee bit doesn't it. Points don't matter but if the #8 Toyota runs into trouble, then the Alpine will be a lap up over the home team's second car.
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