Let's see how these Toyota and Peugeot pit stops shake out. Left side tires only on the #7 Toyota. They have done the undercut that Sebastien Buemi is so freaked out about. Jose Maria Lopez will have fresher Michelin's on the side of the car that receives more load around the track here at Bahrain. Four tires for Peugeot as the #94 is back into the race. One of the tires coming off the #94 Peugeot 9X8 had a massive, king size flat spot on it. #7 ducks out ahead of the #93 sister Peugeot. Ben Keating has brought the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin to the pit lane for GTE Am. We see in replay how the #94 Peugeot vibrates, shudders, and porpoises over the bumps as the #8 Toyota is now into the pit lane, look.
Buemi pits from the race lead. Buemi is in for a double stint as a mechanic checks the passenger side of the car. Two tires for Toyota #8 on the left side as the air jack is released. Tight stuff, and a close shave, look, for the Porsche and Ferrari GTE Pro battle between Bruni and Calado. Calado was setting up a pass down the inside but got the door slammed in his face. Well, well, well. #8 just ahead of #7 at Toyota. Lopez is moving in and Buemi is gapping, but he is not quite out of the woods yet. If he gains an advantage by turn four it will be done and dusted, and the Swiss driver keeps his lead over his Japanese teammate.
Oh boy! Calado pulls out to pass Bruni. Calado thinks he has the job done even adjusting something on his dashboard. But that is far from true. Bruni is not playing games and he is liable to give the Briton the stick. That is for dead sure. This is squeeze play ahoy here! Calado makes the pass and now the sister #92 Porsche is headed to the lane. The GTE Am cars are beginning to pit and so the GTE Pro teams also feel they must answer the bell. Spirit of Race pits from the GTE Am lead with their Ferrari. Now, speaking of Ferrari, you have Bruni once more, right on Calado's six. Bruni outside. Who is the king of the late brakers? Bruni wants the outside line, decides better of it, but isn't throwing in the towel.
He is coming back to the inside now, look. Bruni has a head of steam here into the turn. They scream down the backstretch as #92 is in the box for service. We have GTE Am leaders pitting too. For the GTE Pro lead, it is... hang on here. It is... Calado pushng with Bruni dipping two wheels over the white line on the outside! All four wheels over the line? Bruni may incur the wrath of the stewards for that one. Calado on his in lap, he is getting stymied big style here, look. Ditto for Bruni. But Calado is being cheeky here. Side by side. Bruni knew that Calado was going to do the old switcheroo and now, who is going to come out of this sword fight alive? Sword fight? This could be a gun fight. Honestly! Bruni is home and hosed for now. Fuoco in the sister AF Corse Ferrari is headed for the lane from the lead in GTE Pro.
Calado is playing mind games with Bruni. To paraphrase Graham Goodwin, Gods of motor racing, please let the Hypercar battles be as good as what we see now in the GTE Pro swansong! Please! Ferrari, Porsche, and Cadillac will be coming into this rubbing their hands together with glee. Calado has had enough of Bruni's shenanigans and here he goes! Just when you thought an eight-hour race was going to be boring! No chance, mate. This is good stuff here. Calado sets up a beauty of a pass! Now these two blokes are going to bish bash bosh it to the pit lane and then, we'll really see what is about to happen. 1:15 total time for the #92 pit stop that we saw before. Bruni slides wide into the turn as he is all over the marbles, the clag on the outside of the track, the little shreds of rolled up rubber, much like when you use a pencil eraser.
Pit lane beckons. Any takers? Bruni dives for the lane. Calado stays on track. Well, I'll be dipped. Ferrari have the pace and the fuel economy while Porsche may have the pace, but their fuel mileage isn't as good. Fuoco in #52 stopped first. He is leading in class putting 32 laps on the board, 108 miles. Left rear tire puncture for another of the Ferrari's. This is the #71 GTE Am Spirit of Race entry that is in a massive spot of bother with a flat. This is either a puncture or a loose wheel for Franck Dezoteux who has taken over from Pierre Ragues in the all-French trio. A puncture for poor old Dezoteux on his out lap and he might have bodywork damage on the left rear of the car as well.
Porsche #91 pitting. Bruni stays aboard and the nose of that car is filthy with all the dirt and rubber we are seeing. Dezoteux has his own troubles right now and so does Miro Konopka aboard the #44 ARC Bratislava Oreca in LMP2. Slippery surface at turn 14. Did he spin? Is that #44 car dropping fluids on the road? Right side, right rear damage. Here's it all again, in slow motion. That's a spin and he's gone around on something. There's fluid down in the corner. Fuoco and Estre right together on their out lap as the Race Director calls for a Full Course Yellow in 20 seconds. Full Course Yellow for debris in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow. Full Course Yellow deployed as there is a tire carcass on the track.
That is the shredded tire off the Ferrari, the Dezoteux driven #71 entry. James Calado in the meantime is about to dive for the pit lane. Okie dokie then. He will have a slow in lap and a faster out lap. The tire carcass is retrieved by a marshal. Please be aware, we have marshals working on track to driver's left in turn 15. Calado in the pit lane so #51 can pit while the other cars are in the crocodile behind the safety car and he is going to get 1/3rd of a lap back. Pitting under Full Course Yellow seems unfair. P.J. Hyett, the American driver from Chicago, he is making his first WEC pit stop in the #56 GTE Am Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19.
Corvette Racing will also benefit with the #64 now into the pit lane. Marshals collecting debris at turn 10.5 driver's left. Corvette, with their pit stop is going to gain track position and now, the #44 ARC Bratislava entry that spun, he is in the pit lane to change a set of tires that have probably turned into squares by now. Miro Konopka in the lane, the entry to turn 11 is clear. Ferrari #51 has the advantage coming onto the front part of the circuit as we see wholesale LMP2 pit stops happening right now as we speak, ladies and gentlemen.
United Autosport car #23 is in while the sister #22 car still has a penalty to serve but cannot do so under the Full Course Yellow procedure. Corvette Racing now comes out in third place in GTE Pro after their pit stop just a straightaway behind and so this throws GTE Pro up in the air. This is going to be a mad scramble for the professional production-based cars in their final hurrah at Bahrain when we go back to green flag racing. ARC Bratislava back to the garage. Konopka had damage and maybe holed a radiator. All of the Hypercars have now made pit stops. The GTE and LMP2 cars have been affected by strategy and we have seen four LMP2 cars take second pit stops during the Full Course Yellow period.
In GTE Pro and in Ferrari land, Fuoco is now 45 seconds in-arrears of Calado! Oh boy! This will put the cat among the pigeons. #35 in LMP2 is in. Hold that thought. This whole deal with the cars being able to close up is the caveat about pitting under Full Course Yellow. There's still six hours and 48 minutes of this race to run yet. The #35 by the way, is the French Ultimate team car, an Oreca 07 in the LMP2 Pro-Am section for the French trio of Francois Heriau, Jean-Baptiste Lahaye, and Matthieu Lahaye. #22 in the lane for fuel. They did not want to stack both cars in one pit box with one car having to wait for the other one to get serviced completely.
United Autosport #22 into the pit lane now. Fuel, tires, and a driver change. Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina are going to be on the back foot. They got snookered for trying to be more economical with their fuel mileage. The longer you can stay out, track position is the other factor, just like in IMSA. If you don't have the right luck, you do not win. You don't necessarily need good luck, but you don't need bad luck. Three tires for the Corvette #64 and Tommy Milner stayed in the car. Prema Orlen also pit the #9 Oreca in LMP2. That is the Lorenzo Colombo, Louis Deletraz, Robert Kubica car. An Italian, a Swiss, and a Polish driver.
A four-tire change for Francois Perrodo in the #83 AF Corse Oreca LMP2 as well and he too is down and gone, back on track. We are under Full Course Yellow still. Stand by to remove Full Course Yellow and we are set to go back to racing in half a minute. Sounds good. 20 seconds to remove Full Course Yellow. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Green flag. As soon it is green after Full Course Yellow it is green for everyone. Kevin Estre has bolted and is pulling away steadily now from Antonio Fuoco. You have a maximum time to get to the 80 kilometers an hour maximum and cannot release the speed limiter until the countdown gets to zero.
James Calado followed by Tommy Milner in GTE Pro. Kevin Estre and Antonio Fuoco follow the top two, and there's 36 seconds covering these four cars. So far, so good. Nothing too out of the ordinary. The two United Autosport cars are some 23 seconds apart. We are watching Prema and Lorenzo Colombo racing Vector Sport who did not stop under Full Course Yellow. They have decided on track position over fuel. OK. That is another strategy approach. It wasn't a short Full Course Yellow, but they wanted track position. Got it. GTE Am cars running wide into the corner. Full Course Yellow allows for elongating driver time.
Ed Jones, the British driver born in the UAE has taken over the #28 Jota Sport LMP2 entry after co-driver Jonathan Aberdein, the South African, started it. Both of the Jota cars have done a driver change and taken on fuel as now the #54 AF Corse Ferrari has run 34 laps and taken the lead in GTE Am from the identical car in the hands of the Iron Dames. 34 laps, 114 miles. The two Ferrari's and two Porsche's in GTE Pro were separated by three seconds not long before the Full Course Yellow and the Covette was 18 seconds down. 21 seconds separated the GTE Pro field and now that margin has ballooned to 43 seconds. To quote the Steve Miller Band and one of their famous songs "time keeps on slipping into the future". Well, it sure does with this GTE Pro race.
The gap between James Calado and Tommy Milner is a genuine 17 seconds. Oh boy! More fun and frolics in GTE Am for third place as Ben Keating gets mugged by Gunnar Jeanette, two of the top Pro-Am drivers from the United States in recent memory, going at it in a real wrestling match. Ben Keating's former teammate Ricardo Pera, the Italian, is also set to give the American car dealer and racing driver the rough end of the pineapple. Well, well, well. Ben Keating still has the same set of tires since he started the race. Ricardo Pera took over #86 from Mike Wainwright and Gunnar Jeanette took over from his pal and co-driver P.J. Hyett.
We did not see it, but there was contact between Franck Dezoteux's #71 Ferrari and Miro Konopka's #44 Oreca LMP2 and so the stewards are investigating that little fracas from earlier on. This is the second consecutive weekend Gunnar Jeanette has run a Porsche RSR, a modern one, since he was also racing a slightly older 911 RSR-19 in the Classic 24 Hours of Daytona sanctioned by IMSA and HSR (Historic Sports Car Racing). Eight hours is a long day to be in a race car. When you are not in the car, you still have to run on adrenaline. Matthieu Vaxiviere is being given information by the Alpine crew after he is passed by the Peugeot. He is being informed that the Peugeot has extra pace because it has four new tires.
There are only two new tires bolted onto the Alpine and the other tires are already used, scrubbed tires and we can see on the pitot tube that measures the speed of the car, there a clump of rubber sitting on that sensor which may cause it to glitch. Peugeot are set to test Yann Erlacher, the French touring car veteran. There is a rookie test after this race is over and you will hear more about that in due course once yours truly can get the information about it and post it on the blog. Stay tuned for that. Erlacher has run in Euro Le Mans and in Michelin Le Mans Cup with prototypes, under the direction of his uncle Yvan Muller. Erlacher will be driving the Peugeot 9X8. AF Corse now in the lead in GTE Pro as the Full Course Yellows we have seen have handed them 1/3rd of a lap and so they are up on their sister car as well as on the Porsche duo and the Corvette.
This is Ferrari #52 vs. Porsche #92 and the two of them pitted prior to the Full Course Yellow. Before the yellow the four cars we have been talking about were all in the same picture. The Corvette is still fifth, remaining 18 seconds down. However, the Corvette might be moving ahead because two of the other cars for Porsche and Ferrari lost out. Imagine you are in a marathon, and you are running but you are knackered and thirsty. If you take a swig of water while other runners are walking and using less energy, you gain time back. That concept is the same as how the pit stop strategy in an eight-hour race like this one, works.
Fuoco is now making his way past Kevin Estre and we can see Gianmaria Bruni keeping a watchful eye in the background, look. Fuoco makes his move. He had thtee tires while the Porsche also took three tires. They stopped on the same lap but Fuoco's tires were qualifying tires. All have saved one tire by not saving the right front and you get a new set of tires if you do a whole stint, I think. Filipe Albuquerque at United Autosport says that everything has not been going according to plan through the season. Everything is going well in today's race so far. But there's still six and a half hours to go.
Albuquerque has had penalties here in Bahrain before. He had been battling hard with the #41 WRT entry. He says he believes his team is still ahead despite a penalty. Renger van der Zande wiggles aboard the #10 Vector Sport entry and now this is going to put Lorenzo Colombo right on his tail before too long. #10, #9, and #31 have been battling each other in LMP2. Renger van der Zande lost eight seconds in sector two. Did we see contact between van der Zande, Lorenzo Colombo, and Rene Rast? Or was it just a matter of a GT car getting in their way? This here, ladies and gentlemen, is a mystery we may solve.
Rene Rast does make his move past Lorenzo Colombo. Maybe it is not as much of a mystery as we think and perhaps ye olde racing commentator is just playing up the drama here for a good story. United Autosport started with their Platinum rated driver in Filipe Albuquerque. However, the other two cars in question from Prema (#9) and WRT (#31), didn't. Sean Gelael started that car and drove the opening stint before Rene Rast took over. This is the battle for fourth in LMP2 and Rast has just gone around the Italian. Renger van der Zande is having a spot of trouble in the Vector Sport #10 LMP2 car. He's stopped and the car has switched itself off. Time to do a Control, Alt, Delete, just like your computer or any electronic devices you have at home.
van der Zande has to be muttering curse words in the cockpit and yelling, "come on you stupid race car! Why won't you just let me drive?, you infernal bucket of bolts!" The pit crew are ready to receive the #10 and it is their in lap. Is that fuel surge? Maybe he panicked and hit something on the dashboard. He has accidentally touched a button to activate the windscreen wiper. The Oreca 07's are now eligible for historic racing. Wow. They were racing at Daytona last weekend and will do so in the historic 12 Hours of Sebring as well. #10 is in the lane and van der Zande will be assisted by the Vector Sport team.
The #10 chose track position and therefore did not stop for fuel under the most recent Full Course Yellow. Maybe there is a reserve tank but when you are out of gas, you are out. There isa reset button but the whole system ought to be automated. van der Zande has just completed a double stint. We shall have to take a squizz and see what on earth happened to the #10. It is not one of those giant red buttons where some writes a note that says "don't push the red button, whatever you do!" An all-Porsche battle for third place in GTE Am as the GR Racing #86 is the meat in the sandwich between the two Team Project 1 cars, #56 in third spot, and #46 in fifth spot.
We still have a Ferrari 1-2 in GTE Am as Francesco Castellaci leads for AF Corse in the #54 car and in second is the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari 488 currently in the hands of Michelle Gatting. Vector Sport's Gary Holland explains that Renger van der Zande hit the pit lane speed limiter button by mistake. So, it wasn't the big, red button in a super advanced spy car that allows you the choice of oil slick or smokescreen. It was simply the pit lane speed limiter button. Aha. Your mission. You are a secret agent, and you just stole a super advanced spy car from the enemy. Now, you have to parallel park it and go undercover.
There isn't a big red button on the dash that has a sign under it that says, "don't push this red button, catastrophe will result." They had precautionary tires on standby but did not use them. Renger van der Zande had been driving a DPi Cadillac. Box, box, box. Copy, copy. In a panic, van der Zande forgot which car he was driving and in a panic he goes "oh no! I've pressed the wrong button!" In the aforementioned GTE Am scrum we have Gunnar Jeanette, the vastly experienced American sports car ace leading Riccardo Pera from Italy and Danish driver Mikkel Pedersen. Two Team Project 1 cars and GR Racing the meat in the sandwich.
We will see GTE Am for one more year even though we are bemoaning and lamenting the end of GTE Pro when this race is over. Sniff, sniff. Oh no! Why must such wonderful racing end?! Ben Keating and Marco Sorensen are tied for the lead in the championship at 135 points apiece and then for second place there is a three-way tie between the three Northwest AMR Aston Martin drivers at 112 points, so that's David Pittard, Nicki Thiim, and Paul Dalla Lana. Henrique Chaves who is team mate to Keating and Sorensen is next on the list at 107 points.
Aston Martin boss David Richards knows one driver will win a title, either Paul Dalla Lana or Ben Keating. Oh dear! A spin for the #1 Richard Mille Racing Orca LMP2. Lilou Wadoux, she is pointed in the wrong direction and is making her way back onto the road. Whichever car wins the title after this race tomorrow, Lilou Wadoux will test with that team and become the first woman to drive a Le Mans Hypercar. Good luck to her in the test session and we shall talk about that tomorrow or whenever yours truly is able to. In replay, she got tagged by the #86 Porsche 911. The GT cars have higher mid corner speed than the prototypes, somehow. We heard and interview with Alpine's Nico Lapierre and he expressed an ambition, after his driving career is over, he wants to be a team manager.
One point separated Ferrari and Porsche in GTE Pro. Porsche need to catch up. The manufacturer's cup in GTE Pro currently has Ferrari first with 277 points, Porsche second with 249 points, and Chevrolet Corvette third with only 102 points. #51 Ferrari and their team may win the driver's title. Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado are currently tied at 158 points with Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen tied for second at 127 points followed by Gianmaria Bruni third on 122 markers and fourth is Antonio Fuoco on 116 points. So, yu have a wash of Porsche and Ferrari drivers and only four of them, the top two drivers for each team, are in contention for the title which we will know the winner of later tonight.
There are two cars between the Ferrari and the Porsche and at the end of the event the awarded points are points and a half. Sebastien Buemi, the Swiss driver, is now four and a half seconds up on Argentine teammate Jose Maria Lopez and on Peugeot man, Paul Di Resta, the Scotsman. Car #7 usually has the pace edge over #8 but they have not gotten the results compared to the #7. In the first half of the 2022 season, we saw the #7 run quicker and saw a bucketload of retirements for #8. #7 though, will not be able to defend their 2021 championship I don't think, but there's still six hours and 20 minutes to go.
Paul Di Resta, though, is 17 seconds behind the Toyota's. So, the Peugeot is still playing catch up. #94 is down in the basement and have had flat spots on their tires. Gustavo Menezes remains at the wheel of the sister #94 Peugeot 9X8 with 12 seconds in hand over Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #36 Alpine. A big brake lockup there, look, from Ben Keating, and his tires are being tortured as he is near the end of his double stint, I think. Bahrain is the second most abrasive track on the tires in the WEC only behind Sebring and well, Sebring is it's own beast of course.
Contact between the #1 Richard Mille Racing Oreca LMP2 and the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 is under investigation by the stewards. I think Lilou Wadoux was stymied by one of the GTE cars on corner entry and that is what sent her spinning. Meanwhile, the lead battle in LMP2 is now between both of the United Autosports USA entries, the #22 in the hands of Phil Hanson from England, and the #23 with American hot shoe Josh Pierson at the wheel of it. With Wadoux, it was a complete mistake, as we see Oliver Jarvis and Alex Lynn looking on, Josh Pierson's co-drivers. Pierson took over from Alex Lynn as the #23 will assume the lead of the class as #22 has a ten second penalty in it's future. Josh Pierson is the youngest ever starter of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at age 16.
Wow! Nearly three wide between the trio of GTE Am Porsche's! This is the same lot we saw a couple minutes ago. Jeanette vs. Pera vs. Pedersen. Equal machinery and a fabulous nose to tail scrap in the Am division. The sound of these cars is extremely loud and absolutely astonishing to listen to. Amateur drivers can make more mistakes than can professional drivers who have driven lap after lap after lap through their careers while the amateur blokes are businessmen who are successful and love to go racing, businessmen and women. After next year, GTE cars will be gone and the Porsche RSR will bring to a close, a half a century of racing in sports car championships throughout the world. Wow. I never thought of it that way.
So, enjoy the GTE Am class next year while you can before the Porsche RSR is relegated to the museum. Porsche RSR's have been around in many forms since the 1970s. We may see RSR return as the next generation Porsche 911 GT3 car. Right now, I believe it is the Type 992, or the 991 II. Yours truly has been following GT3 cars in a few championships here on the blog, so I ought to know. In the meantime, the LMP2 scrap is getting spicy! We can see Rene Rast has caught Joshua Pierson thick and fast and wants to make his move on the American standout racer. Rast vastly experienced in production based and prototype sports cars, both.
Rene Rast was winning Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup races when Josh Pierson was a 4th grader, an elementary school student. That really puts things into perspective! Pierson is of course now a high schooler, but not many high school sophomores can say that they are world class racing drivers receiving their education of driving a race car in one of the top echelons of endurance sports car racing. Aye yaye yaye. We can see it is trouble in paradise for Peugeot 9X8 #93 pulling off leisurely on the grass. It seems there could be a hybrid issue on that car, perhaps. The headlamps go off and then back on again.
Is the gearbox busted? Does he have a box full of neutrals? Local Yellow. Now, the driver of the Peugeot has not shut the car off yet. What will this be? How will this Peugeot conundrum shake out? Jean Eric Vergne has to be cursing his luck thinking, "why do I have to run into trouble with my car?!" "Porquoi dois-je avoir des problemes avec ma voiture?" Paul di Resta makes the call over the radio. "The gearbox is busted." Game over for Peugeot #93! Dear oh dear/
The team does not understand. di Resta is asked if he can power cycle the car. He replies on the radio "gearbox is completely broken." Attention, team bosses at Peugeot, ze gearbox is kaput! On the onboard camera you can hear how the car just slowed down all of sudden, and there's nothing there except for the engine coughing and idling. The rear wheels spun. So, wait a second. It sounds like the final drive is toasted. Maybe he was releasing the clutch. Local Yellow. Will we go to a safety car?
We could go to a safety car. If the cars are spread out, you cannot get marshals across the track. Full Course Yellow. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow. Full Course Yellow. Wait a minute. Paul di Resta is moving again. He has somehow found a way to get the Peugeot restarted and should trundle back to the pit lane. Well then, I guess we won't see this FCY for too long, will we. Peugeot back to their rallying roots for a wee while, reminiscent of the awesome Group B 205 or the WRC class 206 and 307 cars that ran oh, 20 some odd years ago.
Peugeot won the Indianapolis 500 way back when and, anyone out there, correct me if I am wrong. But I think they won the first Grand Prix race at Le Mans in what, 1906 or so? Peugeot have been racing since the dawn of the motorcar. More pit action with one of the GTE-Am cars coming into the lane. Louise, take your time getting to the box. He's just about there. So, we shall hear from our colleague Louise Beckett about the Peugeot conundrum in a wee while.
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