Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth in LMP2 are all in sight of eachother. United Autosport #22, Prema Orlen #9, Jota #38, and RealTeam by WRT #41. Six hours down and two hours to go. We have no idea who will win any of our titles. Stevens shooting past Colombo late on the brakes and makes it stick in turn two! He's kept the momentum. Will Stevens in the slipstream and Lorenzo Colombo defending. Done and dusted. He has made the pass. These two blokes have been nose to tail and could be getting closer to Will Owen. Despite the two cars fighting, Steven is closing rapidly on Will Owen. We ought to mention that half the engineering staff of the Prema Orlen #9 car is being provided by the Iron Lynx team. WRT lead the motor race in the LMP2 class in the #31 car having completed 176 laps, 592 miles. They have a season of LMP2 racing under their belt. Prema's single seater experience, Iron Lynx's GT endurance experience, and putting both together in one package.
They have come into endurance racing, and prototype racing with a bang and have had tremendous success in GT3 racing particularly in Europe. It is the Will and Will show, in the meantime, for third spot in LMP2 with Will Stevens harrying Will Owen at every opportunity. Iron Lynx are becoming a very viable contender in GT racing and in LMP2. Watch for them in Hypercar in 2024. Pit stop time for Renger van der Zande at Vector Sport. The #56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19 is in as well. Gunnar Jeannette is staying in the car even though the door is open.
Check that. It was a driver change and will be P.J. Hyett in the car. A battle ensues now for eighth place in LMP2 between Alex Brundle at Inter Europol Competition and Charles Milesi at Richard Mille Racing Team. Car #34 vs. car #1. They pass Antonio Fuoco in the GTE Pro leading #52 Ferrari 488 GTE. The Will and Will show continues apace in LMP2 and before we take another look at that, let's go through the current LMP2 points standings. Jota #38 are still the points leaders on 129 points, 13 ahead of second place, the #31 car for WRT on 116.
Only three points behind at 113 markers is the #23 United Autosports entry followed by Prema Orlen Team and RealTeam by WRT who are 19 and 20 points behind, respectively. At the same time Prema and RealTeam are a single point apart for fourth place in the points 94-93. The sister Jota #28 car in sixth place is on 70 points, 23 points away. So, unlike their teammates, I don't see the #28 crew even getting a look in as we approach the end of this motor race in Bahrain this evening. Will, will will himself, past Will. OK. That's a confused tongue-tied mess if I ever heard it. That is a quote from Graham Goodwin, not from me. Omit repeated word? Not in this case, in this context of the LMP2 battle.
So, the LMP2 points at this juncture appear as a three-way tie for first place between the three Jota drivers aboard the #38 car, Antonio Felix Da Costa of Portugal, Roberto Gonzalez of Mexico, and Will Stevens of course from England. Second place on 116 points, in their own tie, are the WRT #31 co-drivers, Dutchman Robin Frijns and Indonesian driver Sean Gelael on 116 points. In third, all alone on 113 points is American Josh Pierson, the lead driver for the #23 United Autosports entry. So, that clears up most of the relevant runners and riders in the LMP2 fight.
This is no contest. Will Owen will have trouble holding off Will Stevens. Owen has the skills I am sure, but Stevens has more experience. He has grown into sports car racing. Pit stop time for the #36 Alpine A480 Gibson. Stevens has become more relaxed. He is a great character. He tried Formula 1 and it did not work for him. He should have a Hypercar drive for 2023. Charles Milesi, meanwhile, uses the faster Toyota Hypercar as a pick, to force his way past Alex Brundle, his chief rival in LMP2 in this motor race. Milesi has made his move and the Owen and Stevens scrap continues in earnest. Owen runs wide in turn 11 and is feeling the pressure, not defending two corners later into turn 13.
The dirty air gets kicked up and then really disturbs the aero of the following car. Brundle and Inter Europol to the pit lane. There is a driver change going on at Inter Europol as we speak. I am not sure who will be stepping aboard the car just yet. Peugeot #94 back in the lane. Stevens is indeed going for it. Control it, control it. That is hat he is doing. He slides down the inside of Owen and makes it stick. It's easy to fling the car to the inside but get the car to stop in the braking zone to make the pass stick or you are just going to be sailing off into the desert sand on the outside of the circuit.
Owen gets crossed up in turns six and seven and so, now is the chance for Stevens to again have a bite of the cherry. Owen can see where he is but Filipe Albuquerque now knows his job will be even harder. No news yet on the contact between Rene Rast in the #31 WRT car and Alex Brundle in the #34 Inter Europol machine. Esteban Guttierez of Mexico is now at the wheel of the #34. For WRT they do have a damocletian sword dangling above them. United #23 in second with Alex Lynn at the controls. Will Stevens is going to have a harder time with Alex Lynn.
The drive through penalty will halve the lead. It is not 26 seconds lost because it is a drive through penalty where they don't have to stop but the p[ressure is on. It gives a ray of hope to the chasing car. So, the four-way battle for third spot in LMP2 looks like this. It is Will Stevens, Will Owen, Lorenzo Colombo, and Norman Nato. The two Brits, the Italian, and the Frenchman. You lose 20 seconds, not 26 seconds, although the actual drive through is 24-26 seconds but not lost to your opposition. It will not do anything to change the lead of the race.
Moments ago, we heard from Jean Eric Vergne. It is game over for the #93 Peugeot 9X8. They are out. That said, the team at Peugeot TotalEnergies is still very much doing development and so, we ought to see the Peugeot come on song and be a full-fledged race car, next year, in 2023. For now, they are a test car and a test team still. Over the winter they are going to do as much as they can as far as homework is concerned. There is something untraceable in the electronics or the transmission is broken. Vincent Vosse looking on under the flat hat.
We continue to watch this fourth-place battle in LMP2. It remains Owen vs. Colombo vs. Nato. Will Stevens is free to chase. This is a three-way chess match. Prema's evening, sadly, is going from bad to worse. Kubica has caught Owen. We have a driver change going on at Toyota. That is car #8 that is in for full service. Sebastien Buemi back in the car and he is serviced and sent. They remain ahead of the Alpine which must win the race tonight with Toyota as low as third place to take the drivers' championship. That seems less and less likely. They still have to finish ahead of Toyota and race for an hour and 50 minutes.
Now, the #7 Toyota is in. But there's drama in GTE Pro! James Calado calls in on the radio and says, "something's loose". We can indeed hear on the in-car microphone something below the underbody of the car scraping around. Something has come through the floor. One minute stop and go for #34 causing a collision with #31. Now, #41, the sister WRT car is in the lane. We have had a second penalty on this car and there's likely a wrong decision being made here. #41 leaves the pit lane as we debate the merit of the #31's penalty.
"Something is touching the ground, there is no fourth gear" says James Calado. I thought (as did Martin Haven in the booth), that the undertray on the car was coming loose. Clearly, that isn't what's happening. The side bodywork is flapping and if the car is revving freely in fourth gear, it's not good. This is a sequential, paddle shift gearbox that isn't supposed to miss gears. With an H pattern box or a slush box, it is common to sometimes miss a shift and over rev the motor. But with paddle shifters and a linear sequential box that isn't supposed to happen. Oh dear. Endurance racing has taught us not everything is as easy as it looks.
Lorenzo Colombo is now pouring on the steam catching Will Owen hand over fist. Charles Milesi in the pit lane in the #1 Richard Mille Racing Team Oreca 07. Norman Nato has been in and out for RealTeam in LMP2. An hour and 45 minutes to go now. Calado has lost seven and a half seconds to the GTE Pro leading Porsche in the last two laps. This does not sound like a fixable issue without going to the garage. AF Corse Ferrari are in trouble. Nick Tandy is next up, 33 seconds down on Calado in the #64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. Gianmaria Bruni and Michael Christensen are next up in each of the two factory Porsche 911 RSR-19's, cars #91 and #92. My apologies. Christensen is not in the fight at all.
He is way down the order. Meanwhile, Esteban Guttierez brings the #34 Inter Europol LMP2 entry to the pit lane. Inter Europol are serving their stop and go penalty for being clattered off the road by WRT. In the meantime, the #23 United Autosport car is in the lane as well. Alex Lynn will do a double stint as they tear the windscreen tearoff, off. Things are looking bleak at AF Corse. Many glum faces in that garage. The reigning champions, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado are doing all they can. Calado is trying to drive around the problem but it's not good. He is running very slowly. The engine is laboring in fifth gear, coughing and sputtering.
Everything was looking peachy for AF Corse and team boss Batti Pregliasco. But now, the wheels are falling off the wagon and their race is turning pear shaped. Calado is running laps in the 2:05 range and now the sister car and the Porsche are both running bang on two-minute lap times. So, Calado's woes are going from bad to worse. This is swinging in favor of Gianmaria Bruni and Porsche very rapidly. Colombo continues chasing Owen for third in LMP2. It is a little too late to speak to the stewards about these penalties that have taken an hour to apply. They are non sequiturs. They don't follow the situation.
51 seconds is the gap between James Calado and Gianmaria Bruni in GTE Pro in the Ferrari vs. Porsche battle. Make that 52. That is the gap to look at closely. However, the Gianmaria Bruni Porsche, he is not the next car behind James Calado at this stage. He has to get by the Corvette but that has not worked out for him because as we clearly see and are aware of, the Ferrari is down on power with it's gearbox issues. United Autosports #22 is in the lane. The Corvette C8.R is now in the window insofar as performance with tire selection and with changing settings on the suspension, the front and rear sway bars.
If Calado can push, the gap is vast between he and Michael Christensen. Some push and shove, hip and shoulder between the #54 AF Corse Ferrari and the #86 GR Racing Porsche in the GTE Am class. This is the inside of turn nine and the two are balked by the #41 RealTeam WRT LMP2 and the #777 D'station Aston Martin. Meanwhile, the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin of Marco Sorensen is in the lane as is the #98 factory GTE Am Aston Martin Racing car with David Pittard at the controls. United and Jota's battle is also in the lane, Will Owen vs. Will Stevens. Paul Dalla Lana replaces David Pittard aboard the #98 and will run a full stint.
Warning light on the #51 Ferrari. Gearbox oil at 131 degrees. The gearbox is laboring and is going to overheat. This is big, big trouble and could be curtains for the Ferrari. AF Corse are setting up to bring both cars to the pit lane, but they ought to just retire the #51 before the gearbox completely blows itself to pieces. An hour and 40 minutes left on the board. Uh oh. The gearbox oil temperature has not risen so James Calado believes there is no oil left. This is the death rattle for the gearbox. No oil, no lubrication, metal on metal friction. The gearbox in the car is cooked.
Calado is third behind Nick Tandy as Calado is pulling off to the side of the road. The gearbox in the Ferrari 488 GTE factory car has cried enough. #52, the sister car now leads. Calado gets a free place anyhow, but it is all a moot point as the gearbox is burning itself up. He has to be skating around on his own oil. That gearbox has to now be imploding and, in the process, it is puking oil all over the road. Strangely, the Porsche still cannot find its way past the Corvette. That's a head scratcher, believe me. If all the cars in GTE Pro keep running, the reality is that the #92 Porsche must finish second, not third, to take the title.
We see the completion of a scheduled pit stop for the #31 WRT Oreca in LMP2. They cannot be caught if the #51 continues to run. Conversely, if the #51 retires by lunching the gearbox completely, and somehow the #52 runs into terminal trouble, the #91 factory Porsche might have enough points in the bank to beat the sister #92 car. These permutations are hypothetical of course. The longer this race goes on the crazier it is getting. Nick Tandy is 11 seconds behind and in the next couple of laps should overtake the Ferrari without a doubt. I mean, as I was saying, there is just no way that Ferrari is going to last without the transmission going boom.
Calado is in fifth gear on this part of the circuit. Ugh. Stupid onboard camera! The director had to cut away from it to show us a replay of something else! Arrrgh! Oh no. Calado straight off over the sand. I am telling you, this Ferrari is doomed to retirement. There is just no way this car is going to keep going without expiring in a plume of very expensive smoke. That was an earlier replay we just saw. Calado in big, big trouble. Nick Tandy is now second. Someone has a telemetry problem and I am saying it is James Calado. It cannot be Nick Tandy.
That transmission in the Ferrari is giving up the ghost. Now maybe, the electronics are putting the kibosh on themselves and maybe the gearbox is perfectly fine. However, we did hear that the gear oil temperature was through the roof. Calado, 2:11 and Tandy is right with him. Michael Christensen has lost a lap. Gianmaria Bruni is 14 seconds down on Nick Tandy. Corvette could wind this race. Calado is going offline and he is trying to keep the car in the same gear because shifting it ultimately will either make the transmission go bang or the electronics will go totally on the fritz.
He is stuck in gear. Stay on the onboard Mr. Director! Sheesh! The Porsche team are all over this like bees to a flower. Calado shifts to third, and has to jump a gear to fifth which is at a lower ratio even though it is a higher number. This means only one thing. Fourth gear is totally gone. The fourth gear has been stripped out of the transmission. He's barely pulling any revs. He is at 2,000 RPM, crawling. It is a disaster for the #51 as the sister #52 hits the lane. Antonio Fuoco is out of the car replaced by Spaniard Miguel Molina.
The only way Ferrari wins the title is for the #51 to stay out and hobble along with this toasted transmission and for the #91 to finish no better than third. #51 must win. For #52 to win, everyone else needs to retire. So, the #64 Corvette leads the motor race in GTE Pro as the #51 is in with Calado handing this wounded bird of a race car over to Alessandro Pier Guidi and Pier Guidi will have to suffer now through these gearbox maladies. They cannot be sending Pier Guidi back out. They have to pull the car back into the garage and fix this problem. They'd be foolish to send him out with that transmission going bonkers.
That said though, they have to win it or bin it. There is nothing they can do. They will have to send Pier Guidi out with a dud transmission and drive the son of a gun until it blows itself to pieces. The Peugeot retired with a stripped fourth gear. They are changing tires. The car is back on track. You have to be all in for everything. It sounds like the car is in neutral as it rattles like a bugger until you put the clutch in. It sounds like silverware in a blender. At what point, does something else break in that car? The input shaft is no longer being driven by that stripped gear and that is making the car ten seconds a lap slower to the GTE Pro competition.
It is daunting. Calado has made Alessandro Pier Guidi aware of what is going on, but this is still massive trouble. To get any kind of pace out of that car, Calado was driving off the circuit to keep the car in gear and let me just say that Race Control will not tolerate that. I don't care if he has a problem or not. You know Edoardo Freitas will get on the radio to the Ferrari team and say that driving off the course and cutting the corners is unacceptable. Michael Christensen is chasing Alessandro Pier Guidi and you can bet the Porsche driver is well aware that the Ferrari is ailing up ahead.
It will be the meatball flag, the mechanical black flag with the orange disc on it. Calado and Pier Guidi were in the pound seats earlier with the Full Course Yellow but now, the wheels are figuratively coming off the wagon. Until the last lap last year, the Ferrari was losing the title and then they did. Kevin Estre is well aware that it is not his year for the championship. Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni are not going to win either. Lietz had to miss a race thanks to contracting the virus. Thanks for nothing, COVID.
Michael Christensen is being told he is still in the race and to manage his tires. He is 37 seconds back on Alessandro Pier Guidi to put pressure on the ailing Ferrari. The #91 sister car is in position but out of sequence on pit stops. It is a dead giveaway that #91 is where it needs to be but that the #92 will also overtake the Ferrari. The two Porsche's will be fighting each other and the #64 Corvette too. The #41 RealTeam by WRT car of Norman Nato is 11 seconds quicker even with a tire change. He is ahead of the #38 Jota car which I think was the one that took tires. Please forgive me, but I am a little confused on this pit strategy.
Ferrari #52 makes a positional pass on Porsche #91. OK. That is the critical position now with an hour and a half of racing remaining in the 2022 FIA WEC. Christensen is told at Porsche GT Team that he is still in the race. That said, he is now running 37 seconds behind Alessandro Pier Guidi and crucially he must get by his rival. It is all about gaps and points differences. Currently, as we explained, the #91 is in position but it is out of sequence on pit strategy. So, it is a given, that everything may catch up to Stuttgart if their plan goes sideways.
The trouble for #92 is the sister car ad well as the Corvette. I think I have straightened out the pit strategy after claiming to be confused earlier on. #52 Ferrari putting the squeeze play on Porsche #91 into turn eight! Wow! Job done. A second-place finish, #91 are the 2022 GTE Pro champs. A third -place finish, and they aren't. This is the last chance. No more GTE Pro after this race because we have the Hypercars coming for next year and Porsche and Ferrari will both be a part of that evolution and revolution in prototype racing that has continued this year. They nearly had contact with the GTE Am class Ferrari. #54.
It is someone else's accident coming and finding you. That's the Italian, Francesco Castellaci, having to take avoiding action. You need to be aware of other cars coming up behind you and Castellaci had to bail out of it to avoid being clattered into oblivion. Now, we can see the running order and the intervals. Corvette #64 is leading the category with 186 laps completed, 625 and a half miles. So, the GTE Pro class have crossed the magic 1,000 kilometers mark in this race which back in the 1980s these international endurance races, a lot of them, ran to that distance in the old Group C prototype era. There is 15 seconds separating he Covette from the sole remaining #52 AF Corse Ferrari.
Third is still the sister Porsche #91 1.1 seconds back. Now, I said sole remaining Ferrari, but the #51 car can't still be in this race after it's troubles. They are listed as a minute and 11 seconds behind, but it has to be more than that. That reads like a false gap to me. The #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19, the second Porsche GT Team factory car is a further 32 seconds out. If the #51 Ferrari does finish in fifth, the #91 car has to be second. Into the lane comes the #91. Poor old Francesco Castellaci is expected to get out of the way of the GTE Pro battle. But, he has no place to go. Come on, guys! Give me some room here!
Let's have another look at the driver's standings in GTE Pro. Currently Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado are tied for the lead at 138 points. They have a four-point margin on Gianmaria Bruni who has 134 points. Ten points behind him at 124 points are Kevin Estre, Michael Christensen, and Richard Lietz, all of them are tied on 124 points in fact. Check this out, too. Porsche is now a single point behind Ferrari in the GTE Pro manufacturers' standings, 258-257, with Corvette a distant third, with 113 points. The manufacturers' points are defined by the top two finishing cars of each brand and includes the GTE Am class cars in the whole equation.
Two Am class Ferrari's are running. Pier Guidi is struggling. The Ferrari sounds like a bucket of bolts, stumbling and fumbling with the transmission running out of steam. In a sequential gearbox you go into the gear that has trouble but get out of it as quick as possible by upshifting or downshifting, whereas, with an H pattern gearbox, you can bypass it. On the previous lap Pier Guidi still cut a 2:04. Corvette from the lead is in the pit lane. They were out of it earlier but are now back in the fight and have had good pace, buoyed by the Ferrari's troubles.
This is their first time racing in Bahrain. They did not race here in 2021. In American racing, you are constantly working on the car all the time without a set race setup in the can. In American racing, you run to a pit strategy even more crucially than you do in global motorsports at least on the endurance sports car side of things. Corvette in the pit lane and so the #52 Ferrari leads GTE Pro. Alessandro Pier Guidi is being caught by Richard Lietz and this is all about the manufacturers' championship for Porsche and the driver's championship for Gianmaria Bruni. Kevin Estre is not happy.
Ferrari have to somehow keep that bucket of bolts, the #51, from destroying itself for the next hour and 25 minutes before this race ends. If your road car sounded like that Ferrari does with a clattering transmission, you'd leave it in the driveway and call a tow truck. A good mechanic would firmly tell you, "Don't drive the car!" You know nothing good can happen. If the car makes it to the checkered flag, they will be jolly lucky. There is something rattling around and with no fourth gear, when he upshifts the car, you can hear it skip and stumble. It's lurching every time probably.
Ferrari #51 and Alessandro Pier Guidi, they are in survival mode here. Come on, baby. What's the Italian for 'come on, baby'? We'll, we're about to answer that. Dai, piccola. Dai, piccola. When Jaguar won Le Mans in 1988, the gearbox went boom before the end of the race and they had to hold the XJR-9 in top gear to bring it home to victory with the trio of Jan Lammers, Johnny Dumfries, and Andy Wallace.
Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen might help Porsche win the title, but it will be their team car. Christensen and Estre will not win. The pit stops are equalized, and Christensen is 19 seconds down and four laps up on Pier Guidi. Pier Guidi has to nurse the Ferrari home without the damn thing imploding and eating itself alive like the grim reaper. Pier Guidi in fourth and Christensen fifth. It is only Pier Guidi, his Ferrari, and the gearbox. Ferrari are helpless and so are Porsche. Porsche can pass #51 and it won't be enough. Richard Lietz is making inroads on Nick Tandy. That is the gap for the championship.
No doubt in my mind Christensen will pass Pier Guidi. Pier Guidi has no lifelines left. He is a shot duck. The battle is between Nick Tandy and Richard Lietz. One hour and 22 minutes to go. What we are watching out for, is catastrophic loss of pace for Alessandro Pier Guidi, again, if that transmission goes boom and has nothing but metal swarth inside of it at the bitter end of this motor race when the team receives the car in the garage, packs it up for the trip back to the factory, and then tears the car down discovering nothing but metal shavings inside the gearbox when they uncouple it and take the bell housing off.
Richard Lietz is catching Nick Tandy and could take second if he gains 13 seconds. Pit stop under investigation for the #83 LMP2 Pro-Am leading car, the AF Corse Oreca of Nicklas Nielsen. Rene Binder is reeling him in. By the way, Matteo Cairoli leads in GTE Am for Team Project 1 aboard the #46 Porsche 911 RSR-19. The Italian sharing that automobile with Mikkel Pedersen of Denmark and Switzerland's Nicky Leutwiler. Binder in the Algarve Pro car. Now the debate rages. Which Italian racing driver has the most Italian sounding name?
Is it Francesco Castellaci? Is it former Formula 1 driver and former Ferrari sports car driver Giancarlo Fisichella? Is it Alessandro Pier Guidi? No. It isn't Alessandro Pier Guidi. Meanwhile, Michael Christensen is closing up for fourth place. This nudges things a bit, but the key is not what the #92 can do. The ball is not in their court. The ball is in the court of the #91 car. An hour and 20 minutes left on the board. #91 will have to climb the mountain and make the hard yakka to win this thing. As I use that term, I find out doing a search through DuckDuckGo, that is actually a brand of Australian work clothing.
12.3 seconds lays 13.7 seconds to Richard Lietz. Lietz is catching Tandy. The GTE Pro race has the most jeopardy. Jose Maria Lopez is now aboard the #7 Toyota in the lead of the motor race. He is 37 seconds up on his teammate Sebastien Buemi in the sister #8 car. Matthieu Vaxiviere third, in the #36 Alpine and Gustavo Menezes is aboard the sole remaining #94 Peugeot 9X8 after we lost the #93 sister car earlier on due to gearbox troubles. In the GTE Pro manufacturers' standings Ferrari are 18 points to the good over Porsche, 272-254. Corvette still a distant third on 102 points.
After a few troubles Gustavo Menezes is four laps down in the sole remaining #94 Peugeot. In the driver's standings in GTE Pro, provisionally of course, it is Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, with their ailing transmission in the Ferrari, tied for the lead on 138 points. In second place it is a tie between their teammates Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina in the healthy AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE on 131 points. Third place is Gianmaria Bruni in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 a single point away from the Fuoco and Molina duo on 130 points and six points behind in fourth on 124 points lies Kevin Estre in the #92 Porsche.
Rene Rast leads LMP2 aboard the #31 WRT car ahead of Alex Lynn in the #23 United Autosport entry by 42 seconds. Norman Nato is third in the #41 RealTeam by WRT car. Farther behind is a close-knit group of LMP2 cars from ninth and class on down including the #38 Jota car, the #9 Prema Orlen entry, the sister #28 Jota car, and the #1 Richard Mille Racing entry. Then comes Oliver Rasmussen. Rasmussen is 11th overall. Nicklas Nielsen leads the Pro-Am subclass of LMP2 six seconds ahead of his rivals aboard the #83 AF Corse Oreca 07. He runs six seconds ahead of Rene Binder at the wheel of the #45 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca.
Nielsen and Binder are the contenders. Matteo Cairoli leads the GTE Am class for Team Project 1 ahead of Rahel Frey in the Iron Dames Ferrari. Cairoli owes us a pit stop. The Iron Dames have been leading much of this race, but are 2.7 seconds back and then are ahead of Marco Sorensen and Ben Keating ahead of the #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin factory car. Then we get to GTE Pro. Alessandro Pier Guidi continues struggling. Above the steering wheel with the light display on the dashboard, the shift lights, it illuminated one digit.
He is crawling around. He is doing 2:10 laps and is nine or so seconds down. He is running safety car lap speed at about 100 kilometers an hour, 130 kilometers an hour, losing 50 seconds to Richard Lietz, running in survival mode. If they finish, they are still champions. They've got 76 minutes on the board to try and make something work if the car stays together. Nato and Albuquerque in their battle are 8/10ths of a second apart. Drive through penalty for the #45 Algarve Pro team for not respecting the Full Course Yellow procedure. They will drop back with the drive through penalty. An hour and 15 minutes to go.
Harry Tincknell warned for abusing track limits in the #77 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR-19. They are stuck in sixth place and have no pace. Harry Tincknell sharing with Christian Ried and Sebastian Priaulx. Meanwhile, RealTeam and United scrap for third in LMP2. Filipe Albuquerque goes straight past Norman Nato. Contrastingly, Albuquerque has fresh tires while Nato does not. The two of them passed by Will Stevens and Will Owen. The last time we saw a GT car in the throes of a problem that could have broken the car, was Nick Tandy at the 2019 24 Hours of Spa when he went on to win with a gearbox that blew itself to smithereens right at the end of the race.
It was a broken differential with a lap and a half left. Jose Maria Lopez continues leading the race overall in Toyota #7. You cannot make this stuff up. Racing is real life. It is like wanting your pet hamster to hang on without the cat eating it. Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2 still. Sebastien Buemi holds the gap at 37 seconds and is closing it ever so slightly on Jose Maria Lopez. Ryo Hirakawa was losing time before. At every race I can think of in 2022, the Toyota's have not been on equal footing. One Toyota has been demonstrably superior to the other for the bulk of the race.
The #36 Alpine A480 is third. Any remote chance they have at a championship revolves around the #8 Toyota coughing and spluttering and parking up on the side of the road with a massive mechanical malady in the next hour and ten minutes. One Peugeot remains in the fight, the #94 car which has had electronics and potential gearbox issues. Of course, it was gearbox troubles that forced the sister #93 Peugeot 9X8 into retirement from the race. 37 seconds still separate the two Toyota's. #7 has put 207 laps on the board, 696 miles.
So, we are almost 700 miles into this race with just over an hour to run. Gustavo Menezes chasing down the Alpine. At one time, he did in fact drive for Alpine, and for Rebellion. Gustavo Menezes is the only driver to race two different Hypercars. He may have driven the Glickenhaus. I think he did. Alpine and Toyota have had stable lineups. He is the only man on the planet to have raced two different Hypercars. Many gestures going on down in the Peugeot garage as we have a good look at the moon. It is a waning moon. Tuesday of this week there was a full moon.
Nick Tandy in recovery mode and has put the GTE Pro lead back up to 12.8 seconds. The longer the stint in the Corvette the better it is. I wonder if this has to do too, with the trouble they have in qualifying. The Corvette is gentler on it's tires than the Ferrari and it is better because the track is cooler and more rubbered in. Nick Tandy is racing his final event for Corvette presumed to be headed back to Porsche. Porsche is saying, "no, Nick. You didn't win Le Mans. It was all Nico Hulkenberg." Oh, forget it. All will be forgiven when he returns to Stuttgart next year.
Every one of the top five GTE Pro cars has now made half a dozen pit stops through this race. Ferrari #52 followed by Corvette #64, Porsche #91, Porsche #92, and of course the beleaguered Ferrari #51. Miguel Molina has completed 195 laps, 656 miles. Tandy is nearly 58 seconds behind Molina while Lietz is 12 seconds behind him, with Christensen half a minute down and Pier Guidi, again, in the struggling Ferrari, is 38 seconds out of range. He is going to just have to nurse that car until the thing cooks itself and breaks. For Corvette this is undoubtedly vindication for never giving up which is no different from anyone else on the track.
Ferrari #52 leads GTE Pro still. Matteo Cairoli continues leading the race in GTE Am from the Iron Dames with Rahel Frey driving. Marco Sorensen runs third. Fourth spot belongs to Ben Barker. Paul Dalla Lana is in fifth place. In GTE Am, the drivers are just incredible. Matteo Cairoli should be a Porsche factory driver. Marco Sorensen is an Aston Martin driver. Ben Barker is a top driver. Paul Dalla Lana drove for years with ex-F1 driver Pedro Lamy of Portugal. Harry Tincknell, a Ford, Mazda, and Nissan factory driver. Tincknell will be back in the top class soon. Nick Cassidy should be in the picture for Ferrari. Giancarlo Fisichella, too, is amazing.
Gustavo Menezes warned about Sebastien Buemi lapping him, but it does not bother him. Among other stellar GTE drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella, Tomonobu Fujii, Toni Vilander, who also does commentary on racing for Eurosport, Jan Heylen, Pierre Ragues, Mikkel Jensen who was in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 before it retired. So, we look again at the Hypercar running over. Toyota #7 has now completed 209 laps, 759 miles. The gap between the two Toyota's has remained constant at 37 and a half seconds. The Alpine #36 is third, two laps down. Fourth, the #94 Peugeot, the sole surviving Peugeot that is three laps down while the #93 Peugeot is retired and had to box with much detailed mechanical trouble.
Some astonishing drivers are racing in the Pro-Am situation. RealTeam by WRT, car #41 in the pit lane and for the time being they drop behind the #38 Jota entry. This is in LMP2. Algarve Pro are third in LMP2 Pro-Am after serving their penalty. Hopefully they don't get clonked by someone else. Sebastien Buemi has had a torrid lap getting stymied behind a couple of LMP2 cars. The warning to Gustavo Menezes has not materialized just yet. Alessandro Pier Guidi has been warned for a third and final time about track limits. He is doing everything possible to keep the #51 Ferrari 488 GTE in a gear it can run in so he does not implode the fragile transmission as we've talked about at length during this next to last racing hour.
65 minutes to go. Pier Guidi will have to be on the brakes and the tires. Furthermore, having to skip a gear, going down from fifth to third, it locks the rear tires up. There's too much engine braking. He certainly does not want a drive through penalty because putting the pit lane speed limiter on will do more damage to the transmission. They just have to focus on finishig the race out. The Am cars do count in the GTE order, but not in the GTE Pro world championship points I don't think. That's nonsense.
In the pit lane for service, as we hear the rattle guns changing the tires, the #1 Richard Mille Racing Oreca 07 LMP2 car. If the #85 Iron Dames GTE Am Ferrari finishes ahead of the #51 AF Corse GTE Pro Ferrari, then, the Iron Dames entry scores points in the manufacturers' cup for Ferrari and the AF Corse entry does not, Pro and Am for the GTE divisions notwithstanding as for the manufacturers' championship, it is all taken as one cluster of cars. The top two cars for each registered manufacturer count for points. Alpine #36 pits in the Hypercar class.
There is a driver change at #36. I think Nico Lapierre is getting into the car. Matteo Cairoli is about to enter this picture. A GTE Am driver not as an unguided missile but as a quick car, could eclipse the GTE Pro Ferrari and the Iron Dames, if they pass the #51 car, the #51 will lose the drivers' championship. Ferrari would swap cars in the GTE overall manufacturers' cup. They have to hold them off for an hour. It is bonkers and confusing. I can't even keep up with it as I write about it. At the moment, Toyota has been able to lick the stamp and send the check in the mail. It is looking good for them to win the whole enchilada.
Third place for the #38 Jota car of Will Stevens in LMP2 behind Filipe Albuquerque and Rene Rast who leads LMP2 in the #31 WRT car. Team Project 1 lead GTE Am currently in their #46 Porsche from Iron Dames and TF Sport and TF Sport will be champions in GTE Am. In LMP2 Pro Am due to pace, and a penalty for Algarve Pro Racing, Af Corse are looking good. Once again, the #51 AF Corse Ferrari is in survival mode as we see pit stops a go go in LMP2 for Jota #38 and more. Alpine have been in. #23 United were in as was #22. Jota #28 has been in.
Now there will be, in fact there is, a routine pit stop for the #92 Porsche GT Team factory 911 RSR-19 and they are doing a driver change at Jota. Will Stevens out and Antonio Felix Da Costa in. Great stint for Will Stevens. Antonio Felix Da Costa should very well take the car to the very end of the race and this should be a splash and a dash to get home for the final hour on fuel.
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