There has been loads and loads of talk about Alpine and Renault returning to top class sports car racing and that is about to happen, in 2024, when the full-fledged Hypercar regulations come on stream. If you don't know about Alpine or a company like Gordini which was an imprint for specialty cars from Renault, do yourself a big favor and look up the history. It is unbelievable. I am a repository of this useless information. However, I don't know everything and cannot claim to know everything. Meanwhile, a battle is on for ninth spot in the LMP2 class between AF Corse and Nicklas Nielsen and Vector Sport and Sebastien Bourdais. Renault Sport has been replaced by Alpine. It is like Ford bringing back Cosworth in a way. It is that iconic name and brand association. Alpine, Gordini, Cosworth, and more.
Oh boy. #83 is loose and now Bourdais gets a bite of the cherry. Bourdais is fresh into the car on fresh tires and so is Nicklas Nielsen having taken over from Francois Perrodo. Pit stop time as one of the two new Peugeot's comes back on track. Let's have a Captain Cook at the running order in LMP2. WRT leads followed by the two United cars. Behind them are Jota, Prema Orlen, the second Jota entry, RealTeam by WRT, Inter Europol Competition, AF Corse, Vector Sport, Richard Mille Racing, Ultimate, APR, and ARC Bratislava.
Quick, young drivers come in and need to learn. A lot of our job is to teach people who are new at endurance racing, to teach them how everything works. There is more space to be yourself in sports car racing than in Formula 1 which is a far more intense environment. Speaking of intense, we have a massive battle on our hands in LM GTE Am for the 2022 title. This is AMR vs. TF Sport, car #98 vs. car #33. Paul Dalla Lana has the position and Henrique Chaves wants it. Chaves is going for it with a head of steam and now, Chaves makes his move but Dalla Lana has to fight this.
We can see the tire marbles, the spent rubber, building up like eraser shavings on the inside of the corner. We've talked about that time and time again because it sticks to hot and fresh racing tires like glue. This is only the halfway mark in the race or just past halfway. Paul Dalla Lana is weel aware that the cartoon anvil can fall at any moment. So, he is doing all he can and yet playing it smart and being realistic. Let us now go through the GTE Am order the same way we just did for LMP2. Iron Dames lead i their #85 Ferrari followed by the TF Sport #33 Aston Martin. Northwest AMR have the #98 Aston Martin in third spot.
Ferrari #54 for AF Corse is next in the serial. In fifth and sixth, are both of the Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19's, #56 ahead of #46. Then it is the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE ahead of the #77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche. GR Racing with the #86 Porsche is followed by the #21 AF Corse Ferrari. In the final class placings, we have the #777 D'station Racing Aston Martin, the sister #88 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche, and the #71 Spirit of Race Ferrari. So, that settles the entirety of the GTE Am field.
Robin Frijns is in the midst of the Aston Martin battle, dominating LMP2 followed by Oliver Jarvis. The #83 AF Corse Oreca is back in pit lane. Peugeot #94 is back on the pit lane and back on track hopefully with troubles resolved. The #7 Toyota pits from the overall lead and Mike Conway hands off the wheel to the team boss of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, the one and the only Kamui Kobayashi. It has to be strange for him to be driver and team boss. My gosh. How do you put your racing overalls over your business suit? Hardy har har. Kevin Estre has gotten behind the wheel of the #92 factory Porsche 911 RSR-19 he is sharing with Michael Christensen.
Again, this is the final event for the factory GTE Pro cars as Porsche and Ferrari are moving up next year in 2023 to the Hypercar class which will exponentially expand. Last year, in 2021, they saved more tires over the Ferrari boys. Porsche always playing the long game and look at where they are on the final lap. We have just under four hours of racing left. The gap is indeed closing. Toyota in the pit lane. In the GTE Am championship standings, it is the TF Sport #33 car of Ben Keating and Marco Sorensen at the top of the shop on 146 points followed by the three drivers in the #98 Northwest AMR factory Aston Martin, David Pittard, Nicki Thiim, and Paul Dalla Lana all on 130 markers. Henrique Chaves who is teammates with both Ben Keating and Marco Sorensen, he lies in third place on 118 points.
Iron Dames come next with their three drivers within a point of each other for fourth, fifth, and sixth. Rahel Frey ahead of both Michelle Gatting and Sarah Bovy. After this, it is the three drivers in the #77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19, all tied on 83 points. Christian Ried, Harry Tincknell, and Sebastian Priaulx. Sebastian Priaulx is trying to unlap himself from Sarah Bovy and Bovy, she holds a massive 47 second lead in GTE Am as we speak. Blimey! Iron Dames are riding the crest of a wave right now even in this final event of the 2022 season. Toyota #8 made a pit stop, and now Kamui Kobayashi in Toyota #7 leads the way from the sister #8 Toyota with Ryo Hirakawa at the wheel of it.
WRT and United Autosports are both pitting. Therefore, Prema cycle to the top of the pile in LMP2 temporarily. Sebastien Bourdais and Vector Sport recently stopped. Oh dear. A piece of debris out on the circuit, on the racing line and it appears to be a taillight off of one of the cars. Someone has collected someone else at some point and the cameras did not pick it up. There's debris strewn across the road and so we may get a Full Course Yellow out of this.
Bingo. Full Course Yellow in 30 seconds and the countdown continues as United Autosports has just pitted their #22 car. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow deployed. Marshals are working on track at the turn one exit. United Autosport just missed out. But now, the #98 Northwest Aston Martin is in the lane and the #33 sister Aston just left and the #54 AF Corse Ferrari is also in the box for service. Marshals are picking up debris in turn one on driver's left. So, all driver's bear right. It looks like car #28 for Jota Sport has just had a clatter with the #56 Project 1 GTE Am Porsche. Dear oh dear. Turn one, bear right.
Most of the debris came off the Porsche from the rear light cluster as the marshals make quick work of the cleanup job. Full Course Yellow will last two laps. This is why the Porsche's got unlucky as there is a quick pit stop for the #36 Alpine Hypercar. Marshals are collecting debris on the backstretch between turns ten and 11 on driver's left. Bear right please. The Iron Dames have just pitted and now so has one of the other Ferrari's in GTE Am. Still three and three-quarter hours left. Thomas Flohr and David Pittard assume second and third in GTE Am after both have pitted. Henrique Chaves stays out. The Alpine is the only Hypercar that has been able to gain anything on this and that means they should just about be back on the lead lap.
We see the #86 GTE Am GR Racing Porsche in the lane and the same is true for the #51 GTE Pro Ferrari 488 GTE. Alessandro Pier Guidi out and James Calado in, two time and reigning world champions. Bell Helmets has a facility building their helmets here in Bahrain, made in house. The o rings, the visor material, the paint, everything. They also make helmets for other companies. Bahrain is building a technical park here in Bahrain for many motorsports teams acorss many disciplines. It is not just racing drivers.
Corvette C8.R #64 is in for scheduled service. Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy sharing the driving chores. We know Tandy will be moving back over to Porsche for their LMDh/Hypercar effort for next year in 2023. Rest In Peace, British racing journalist for Motor Racing News, Simon Aaron. He covered Formula 3000, Formula 1, club racing, hill climbs, you name it. Porsche #91 has pitted, and the Full Course Yellow will be removed in 30 second. Simon's son Tom Aaron is the Public Relations director at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, England. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow removed. Green flag.
Kamui Kobayashi leads the motor race. The two Toyota's are about a second and a half apart as we have crossed over 128 laps of the motor race. 465 miles. After persistent tales of woe for the new Peugeot's, the #36 Alpine A480 has made its way to third spot in Hypercar as we speak. WRT lead Prema, United Autosport, and Vector Sport and I will likely have an update on GTE Am here in just a second. Iron Dames and Sarah Bovy are continuing to lead from Northwest AMR and the AF Corse #54 Ferrari. In GTE Pro, James Calado is indeed the world champion asking his crew chief how he ought to drive on his tires. He is told he has four new tires, and they will change two next time.
The pain of the first half of the motor race is coming back. The advantage is that he will not have to double stint the next set because there will be green rear Michelin tires, fresh tires with no mileage on them, ready to bolt onto the car. Clear as crystal, or so it seems. Calado was complaining about overheating the tires at the race start. All the pain he had to take in the first half of the motor race has built up a reserve at this point. Calado has anywhere from 25-28 seconds in hand over the rest of the top five in GTE Pro including the sister #52 Ferrari.
#51 is James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi while #52 has Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco driving. Car #51 has completed 122 laps, 443 miles. Calado can push the lefthand tires more than he was able to do before. It is easier to thrash the right-side tires on a clockwise circuit. Car #22, the United Autosport entry with Phil Hanson driving, got burned on a Full Course Yellow pit stop. He is in chase mode to catch Sebastien Bourdais aboard the #10 Vector Sport entry. We see Sebastian Priaulx in a battle for position with Matteo Cressoni.
Porsche vs. Ferrari. Dempsey Proton vs. Iron Lynx. Cressoni has been handed a drive through penalty for track limits by the stewards. In the meantime, Charlie Fagg as well, has been warned about track limits. He is in tenth in GTE Am at the wheel of the #777 D'station Aston Martin he shares with Japanese drivers Tomonobu Fujii and Satoshi Hoshino. Priaulx spun on lap one and rejoined stone last but is now seventh in class as the leading Toyota steams by. How will the gap hover around between the Toyota's? The gaps always change depending on who is in the car and the performance of each driver for each team.
Keep in mind, it is the same team at Toyota, but it is two different cars, and you can bet dollars to donuts that one of the teams will most certainly want to beat the other going either way. Each side of the garage is really in it for themselves even though they must play fairly to keep the company happy because of course you are obviously driving for one of the largest automakers in the world. Kobayashi is quite the experienced driver. Three wide, look with the GTE cars and the Toyota. Tire marbles on the inside of the corners play real havoc. Ryo Hirakawa has accounted himself very well replacing a Toyota legend like Kazuki Nakajima.
Gaps ebbing and flowing through traffic. Henrique Chaves is closing on Sarah Bovy and David Pittard too has speed. There is speed in the track as well in spite of the marbles. The track is continuing to get faster which makes overtaking harder and harder. The #54 AF Corse Ferrari pits for a new set of boots and meanwhile, the #60 Iron Lynx Ferrari is serving a drive through penalty. Just over three and a half hours of racing remaining. Driving through the pit lane can take away or add on lap time. This is the final race of season ten of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Again, we have Martin Haven, Graham Goodwin, and Anthony Davidson reporting on the race from the commentary box and Louise Beckett handling updates, interviews, and features, down trackside in the pit lane.
Toyota run 1-2. For Toyota, this is the last day they will be able to comfortably enjoy a race result before the competition steps up massively for 2023. However, don't underestimate how good they are because they have been at this for a whole decade now. In GTE Am, GR Racing are coming back towards Iron Lynx. Ricardo Pera closing on Matteo Cressoni in a battle of the Italians. Toyota are so good at what they do. They are the ones with the target on their back by a number of the newcomers coming in like Ferrari, Peugeot, Cadillac, and Porsche. Testing and racing are two different things.
The battle is now being turned on, too, in LMP2, for seventh, excuse me, eighth place. Inter Europol and the Polish driver Jakub Smiechowski vs. Jota and the South African driver, Jonathan Aberdein. Testing is always successful because usually nothing goes wrong and if something does break, it is supposed to, so it can be improved when the racing season comes around, the new racing season. The car is super reliable in testing and then things would fail in the races. Audi went to Sebring to test for good reason because the track is so punishing.
Aberdein looks to the inside on Smiechowski and cannot quite make the move work. Jakub Smiechowski is the son of the team owner at Inter Europol. Aberdein is all over Smiechowski. The cars and teams are so good and so are the drivers. It is very competitive and equalized. The cars are so evenly matched. The teams make a small, slight difference. It is the purest category in sports car racing. No Balance of Performance. The same chassis, the same Gibson Technologies engine, and the same tires. Aberdein makes his move and what we have seen today is #28 has had a scruffy race compared to their sister car after dominating proceedings last time out at Fuji in Japan in the LMP2 division.
Three and a half hours to go in the race and the season. What we have now is that both GTE Pro Ferrari's pit stops are under investigation by the stewards. Third place currently belongs to the #64 factory Chevrolet Corvette C8.R being shared by Nick Tandy and Alexander Sims. Sims is driving and the gaps are not where they need to be. But Tandy says they are pleased and got lucky on the first Full Course Yellow. They have obtained a 30 second cushion over their rivals and Tandy was fighting hard with the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Michael Christensen.
Everyone at Corvette Racing has enjoyed racing in WEC in 2022. Everyone is very pleased with what they've done, winning a race and being competitive at most of the events. Experience gained for Corvette Racing and at General Motors. A much bigger picture has been painted. It has been frustrating being at the bottom of the time sheets consistently. But they are still satisfied. This is very well the final time we will see Nick Tandy in a Corvette because he is headed for Hypercar/GTP for the 2023 season.
Meanwhile, in the pit lane we have the #10 Vector Sport LMP2 car. Sebastien Bourdais is at the wheel of it. The timing screen said that car was stationary. However, I don't believe that is the case. We will have to get to the team. Cressoni and Pera continue to battle in GTE Am. Ferrari vs. Porsche. The new Corvette coming in 2024 is not the same as the GTE car we currently see and it will be the first proper customer operation from General Motors in the GT3 era which has existed since around 2010 I believe if you look back far enough to see when the SRO was the group that put forth the GT3 regulations.
Corvette has always had people running private teams. Bourdais is in the lane in the Vector Sport entry he is sharing with Renger van der Zande and Ryan Cullen and it appears the starter motor is jammed from what we can see on camera right now. They've got the big lump hammer out there and if you cannot fix an issue with a lump hammer then, it is generally broken, and of course the other two trusty foot soldiers on the battlefield of motor racing are tie wraps and gaffer tape. You are not allowed to dril holes into the bodywork of the car. That will disqualify you automatically, or rather, instantly.
When oil gets into a starter motor, the Bendix gets jammed. The starter motor has not failed but the magnets and the wire windings in the starter motor have gotten stuck and totally out of order. Sarah Bovy leads in GTE Am in the Iron Dames Ferrari followed by Northwest AMR, Team Project 1 Porsche #56, the TF Sport Aston Martin, and the sister #46 Team Project 1 Porsche. Once Alessandro Pier Guidi into the car, you need dynamite to get him out. Sarah Bovy is the same way. She is headed to the end of a double stint and this will comfortably wind up her time behimd the wheel as David Pittard continues to run second in class in GTE Am.
Paul Dalla Lana and Ben Keating, I believe, have both done their maximum stints. Ben Keating did a triple stint. Again, gelignite required to get him out. Next year, in 2023, Ben Keating will be in a Corvette. It will not be a customer Corvette in 2023 but instead it will be run entirely by Pratt & Miller. It will also be yellow. Robin Frijns leads the LMP2 class in the #31 WRT car he shares alongside Sean Gelael and Rene Rast. Frijns has a good sized margin over second place Robert Kubica at the wheel of the #9 Prema Orlen Team car.
WRT are competing for their first full-time LMP2 season and the same is true for Prema. They are punching right at their maximum. That said, also punching at his maximum is the young kid, Josh Pierson, the teenager, who is in third place in the #23 United Autosport Oreca sharing with Oliver Jarvis and Alex Lynn. Phil Hanson and Antonio Felix Da Costa run fourth and fifth in LMP2. We have three and a quarter hours of motor racing left on the board.
However, Da Costa, has just been shown a warning flag by the marshals for the dreaded Sword of Damocles that is, abusing track limits. We have seen them racing a magnificent season in 2022 and these super teams have been dominating a season. Next year, Jota are moving up to Hypercar. We don't get endless seasons of someone being comfortably ahead in LMP2 because the cars are so close and so, so similar. All the cars are identical. The LMP2 cars don't break down necessarily. The deal is with the new Hypercars vs. the Group C cars that came out 40 years ago, so, in 1982, is that the damn things won't break down these days. The Hypercars are so reliable whereas in the days of Group C until the Porsche 956/962 juggernaut came about, there were some cool, albeit marginal cars, that just did not have that Swiss watch dependability.
That is why you could go out and buy a Porsche and it would run, and run, and run. But the more high-strung factory racers from brands like Mercedes, Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, and Peugeot, they were more fragile and more vulnerable to engines going bang or bits and bobs falling off the car. That being said, it is sort of unfair because you look at Jaguar, Mercedes, Mazda, and Peugeot, those four brands won every edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the second half of the era of Group C in a five-year span between 1988 and 1993. But we could indeed see a new arms races coming up as this new Hypercar class continues to grow.
In LMP2, WRT car #31 has now run 137 laps, 461 miles, and is running nearly 27 seconds up on the Prema entry. There is also an arms race in LMP2 for driving talent. How will Jota compete against the factory Porsche team? We are going to see Jota with a customer Porsche Hypercar running against the factory-based team that will have operations both stateside and in Europe, on the continent, run by Roger Penske. The early days of Group C had the factory Porsche's vs. a boatload of customer 956s and 962s.
Paul Loup Chatin and Alessio Rovera going for it in LMP2. Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera both had pole positions. We could very well see both of them peddling the new Ferrari 499P Hypercar in 2023. We are seeing Rovera and Chatin scrapping here in LMP2 for ninth place. Sarah Bovy leading GTE Am (coincidentally in a Ferrari) is saying, "no, no, no, no! You cannot pass me!" As a GT driver you need the bandwidth to see these cars racing ahead of or around you. Behind the #1 Richard Mille Racing Oreca is the #35 Ultimate car. Charles Milesi sharing with Lilou Wadoux and Paul-Loup Chatin, and then, the #35 is Francois Heriau sharing with the Lahaye brothers. Jean-Baptiste Lahaye and Matthieu Lahaye.
Four of the LMP2 cars in the field are part of the Pro-Am segment of the class. We should have 10-11 cars in Hypercar next year. Some of the Porsche and Ferrari GT drivers are slated to be promoted to their new Hypercar programs. This is only good for everyone in the field for teams, drivers, and media folks like me. A rising tide lifts all boats. Francois Heriau holding off Alessio Rovera with Josh Pierson next up. RealTeam by WRT have pitted. That was Phil Hanson, not Josh Pierson, who has lost out. Sorry, guys. Did not mean to make that mistake. Hanson making up a two and a half second deficit. They picked up a penalty for an off-track pass on lap one I believe.
Hanson has closed in on a group of cars in front that he is trying to lap. Francois Heriau is doing a phenomenal driving job right now. Matthieu Lahaye is the only real professional on this team. His brother, Jean Baptiste Lahaye has not been much of a professional racing driver and only more of an amateur, a hobbyist racer. Drive through penalty called on the #28 Jota car. He made contact with the #56 Project 1 Porsche in the hands of Gunnar Jeanette as Jonathan Aberdein stays at the wheel and takes a well-deserved drink.
The team is checking over the car, checking to make sure the air inlets for the engine are not clogged up with rubber and also checking inside the wheel arches, the wheel wells, to make sure there is no debris there. If there is balled up rubber in there, the vibration will be a nightmare. The #23 United Autosport entry is in the pit lane as well as the board shows via the lollipop man standing in front of the car. Francois Heriau hanging on ahead of Alessio Rovera in LMP2 Pro-Am. Heriau on fresher tires than Rovera is as Heriau wriggles the car just a bit. Another pit stop for the sister United Autosport entry stopping slightly out of sequence.
Just a tad over three hours of racing to go. LMP2 leader in the lane, the #31 WRT car in the hands of Robin Frijns with touring car and GT racer Thierry Tassin, a major part of the WRT team, looking on. WRT will switch from Audi to BMW in GT3 racing for next year and then, in 2024, they take on the mantle of being the World Endurance Championship factory team for BMW in the Hypercar class. That is the new M Hybrid V8. WRT and Audi have been like Ford and Cosworth, absolutely inseparable. But, next year, the partnership will swap from Ingolstadt to Munich. WRT have been with Audi for well over a decade, 12-13 years now I believe.
There are three hours to go in the race and in the season. Toyota #8 likely to take the Hypercar title and TF Sport Aston Martin #33 likely to take the GTE Am crown. Will Stevens is running strongly with Jota in LMP2 where he and co-driver Antonio Felix Da Costa are slated to take the car to the end of the motor race. Their teammate Roberto Gonzalez of Mexico, he has already clocked in his drive time for the event here in Bahrain and is in good shape in that respect. They are looking at a podium result while also being mindful of the championship and their chances for it.
Prema to the lane as Stevens mentions he does not think the Jota team can catch the boys at WRT.
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