We are under Full Course Yellow for the first time here at Portimao due to Villeneuve's exploding brake disc on the Vanwall. For the first time, WEC is using a wave by procedure to reorder the cars and there is a new pit procedure of closing the lane I believe during Full Course Yellow procedure. 186 laps now completed. 523 miles. Two weeks from now we will be at the high speed track at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium. We are going to see a cliffhanger at the end of this one in the final 50 minutes. I cannot wait for Spa. At the end of this post we will remind you again. Peugeot looking on. Watch for the marshal in turn nine who is still helping with track cleanup. Safety car in this lap. No overtaking before the line. Be careful.
Green flag. 53 minutes left on the board. Pit lane open for business and some of the Hypercars make their final stops. Leader in the lane. Ferrari and Porsche #6 continue on the road. No LMP2 stops yet. Prema lead LMP2 with 181 laps in the bag so far. 509 miles. Cadillac #2 and Peugeot #94 in the lane and almost the entire GTE Am field now in the lane for petrol. Toyota also in the lane after we have seen 12 minutes worth of safety car. Porsche to the lane for #6 in third spot. Toyota on their way. Ferrari #50 in and the #51 stays out and Brendon Hartley now maintains his lead and I believe he is a lap up on everyone while in GTE Am everyone is in. The Ferrari almost went ot the wrong garage, the AF Corse GT team. Not good but understandable.
Some argy bargy, kiss, kiss, bang, bang there between #48 and #35 or #36. Uffda. Ryo Hirakawa has finished his stint in the #8 Toyota and he says everything has gone very smoothly and they are crossing their fingers. Antonio Fuoco, Alessandro Pier Guidi, 2-3 for Ferrari. #51 might need another stop as Antonio Felix Da Costa gets chopped by Fabio Scherer and nearly split the difference with Robin Frijns as well, a couple of Formula E rivals. Toyota #7 now back into the top ten as the GTE Am order reshuffles.
Corvette #33 of Nicky Catsburg is now ahead of the Alessio Rovera driven Ferrari, the #83 car I believe. Scherer hads come through this mess and you know Da Costa wants another bite of the cherry here. Da Costa will need traffic to get around the Inter Europol driver. Da Costa of course in his home event. In GTE Am meanwhile, GR Racing followed by Iron Lynx, and Project 1. The Ferrari of Ulysse De Pauw is chasing Matteo Cressoni in the #60 Porsche. I take that back. Cressoni on De Pauw's six. The Italian vs. the Belgian. Matteo Cairoli is pulling away. The #60 Iron Lynx entry and the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche both are on different laps.
Hartley, Kvyat, Catsburg, are your class leaders. Both United Autosports cars are pushing hard with WRT next up. Prema ahead in LMP2 with Daniil Kvyat but only three seconds up the road. Apart from Hirakawa, Alessandro Pier Guidi, with worn brakes, is only four seconds behind second spot. Jarvis, Hanson, Deletraz, Frijns. The first time we came here it was an 8 hour race and the previous two have been six hour encounters. Five GTE Am cars scrapping all over each other. This is getting spicy as we get down to crunch time. Spicy crunch? It is not snack or lunch time just yet. Daniil Kvyat is being reeled in by Oliver Jarvis to the tune of 1.7 seconds.
Alessandro Pier Guidi in the lane in Ferrari #51 with the shredded brakes and now Porsche moves to third in the #6 car. Antonio Fuoco is off the leash but has to be careful. 195 laps now done. 548 miles. Hanson, Deletraz, Frijns, and Fabio Scherer has a ways to go before getting there and now, Nicky Catsburg uncorks fastest lap for the Corvette controlling the gap to Michelle Gatting but is still running behind Alessio Rovera as Matteo Cairoli was reported to the stewards and may incur a drive through penalty. The stop for the #33 Corvette, they were seven and a half seconds quicker than AF Corse. The #51 Ferrari is off sequence and using more fuel because the hybrid harvesting is not working.
Alex Lynn is chasing Alessandro Pier Guidi. #22, United Autosports in the pit lane now. 36 minutes remaining. Phil Hanson has gone from first to last and all will have to stop again after the safety car scramble. Five seconds added for Robin Frijns in the #31 WRT LMP2 car. The #23 United car had that whole conflab about driver changes. They did do it. #31 in the lane for the stop plus five. Louis Deletraz will not have Robin Frijns right on his tail the whole way to the end. Prema have now run 192 laps, 539 and a half miles. Charles Milesi has made his final stop and now, Matteo Cairoli is serving a drive through penalty.
WRT #41 now in the lane as well for the final time. Penske Porsche #5 back on track and so the Vanwall and the D'station Aston Martin are out. Alex Lynn is complaining about the brake dust from the #51 Ferrari and for good reason. Brendon Hartley, Daniil Kvyat, and Nicky Catsburg, they are your class leaders. In eighth place in GTE Am is the one Aston Martin that is not delayed, the #25 TF Sport car, the Dinan/Al Harthy/Eastwood car. Spa Francorchamps will be a completely different kettle of fish. 80% of the lap at full throttle compared to 60% around this place. Daniil Kvyat pits for the final time and we have Inter Europol and United in the lane.
Oliver Jarvis, reining IMSA champion, and former factory driver for such teams as Audi and Mazda. Prema, Inter Europol and Jota #28 in for final stops. Toyota have now completed 202 laps, 568 miles. United Autosport #23 pitting for the last time. Even less fuel to go into this car than we saw with the sister car. Prema #9 in the lane, too. Ferrari #51 is stopped and has had the front brakes completely cooked. No stopping. No retardation at all. He went for the hard standings. He locked the rar brakes. Matteo Cairoli has another track limits abuse report after just serving a penalty. Good grief. Alessandro Pier Guidi has had a blown front right brake disc.
#51 is a lap up on the Peugeot. Pardon me. 21 seconds ahead. He has to adapt. Hartley, Fuoco, Lotterer, the top three. Toyota #8, Ferrari #50, and Porsche #6, the top three. Andre Lotterer back with Porsche where he used to drive a lot. Alex Lynn in the Cadillac is 40-50 seconds back from Lotterer and now we see the replay of the Ferrari's brake disc. Steady! Some argy bargy between the LMP2 boys and poor old Nicky Catsburg is the jam in the sandwich! Ugh! Double waved local yellow for debris at turn ten.
We just saw Alex Lynn dealing with more brake dust from the Ferrari right in his face. Carbon on carbon brakes don't just disintegrate like steel brakes but they do take a long while with all that dust spraying off of it. It was the brake dust cloud and the disc broke in replay into turn one. Hypercar in the pit lane, the Glickenhaus, which has been reliable but have not been as far up as they want to be. Another drive through penalty for Matteo Cairoli as Alessio Rovera is closing on Nicky Catsburg in GTE Am. Andre Lotterer is told to keep up the pace but might get a fuel alarm in Porsche #6. Alessandro Pier Guidi only has the front left brakes and needs to slow down.
Get to the end and no matter how slow you go, we will only lose one spot. That is Justin Taylor's message to Alessandro Pier Guidi. More side by side stuff in LMP2 for sixth. Prema vs. WRT. In GTE Am, the Corvette is just hanging on. Juan Manuel Correa vs. Robin Frijns and Fabio Scherer plus Pietro Fittipaldi and Charles Milesi are closing up. 18 minutes, I think we will have about six or seven laps. Cannot say for sure. This is going to the be the last win at Portimao for a GTE car. No lack of excitement in GTE. It has been awesome. Loic Duval has passed Alessandro Pier Guidi for fifth. Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac, Peugeot the top five.
Oliver Jarvis leading the LMP2 class in United Autosport #23/ Pietro Fittipaldi to the inside of Fabio Scherer. You try the outside, sunshine. Fittipaldi sticking to Scherer like glue. Scherer and Milesi scrapping in LMP2. Pier Guidi is 56 seconds ahead of Mikkel Jensen in the Peugeot #93. Jensen is a former factory Porsche and Ferrari driver. Alpine are tail end Charlie in LMP2 compared to the Vector Sport entry that has had a litany of problems all day. Fabio Scherer's tires have to be completely rooted by now.
At Porsche Andre Lotterer is told to stay out. This is about their fuel. Click, "now!" Twelve minutes of racing left here at Portimao. Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche. Lotterer has a low fuel light as we see the #34 Inter Europol entry in the lane. In GTE Am, the gap is under two seconds between Nicky Catsburg and Alessio Rovera. Porsche will be hanging on by their fingernails here. Who has what left in terms of energy? The #2 Cadillac will be in the clear. It will stay in the podium spots and now, here comes the #2 Cadillac of Alex Lynn. Bring it home. Porsche got 50% fuel and they thought they under fueled the car. Alex Lynn has a target to meet.
Brendon Hartley leads the motor race in the #8 Toyota. Alessio Rovera is reeling in Nicky Catsburg hand over fist in GTE Am. Corvette want to go back to back on wins in GTE Am in two 2023 races. This is a good, equal battle, and Nicky Catsburg has many drives in many cars under his belt. Alessio Rovera drove LMP2 in 2022 of course. Four or so laps to go before we end this one. Catsburg has Rovera covered. He has run Portimao many times before especially in World Touring Car Championship competition. The last turn is the only spot where you get turbulence. Nicky Catsburg has been here before.
Michelle Gatting third for the Iron Dames. Corvette, Ferrari, Porsche on the podium in GTE. Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche leading Hypercar. Jack Leconte, Larbre Competition, a true legend, is helping out the factory because his team ran the old C7 Corvette's a few years ago. The battles for the win in LMP2 and GTE Am are on. Toyota will go two for two but with their other car. Catsburg has to be careful that he does not let Rovera get to him. Phil Hanson too wants to get to terms with Oliver Jarvis. The Iron Dames of course won here last fall in the European Le Mans Series with a different driver lineup. Two, three laps remaining depending on where the Toyota comes across.
Two laps to go. How will Rovera play this against Catsburg? 90 seconds to go. Lilou Wadoux could be a winner in WEC and the first female driver to win in the history of the championship. Nicky Catsburg is being held up by the Glickenhaus and Rovera on the power too quick. Catsburg defends. Final lap for the Toyota. One lap to go now actually. This is it. Two laps to go for the GTE Am cars. Catsburg will be overtaken by the LMP2 car and he wriggled a tad. Rovera might have a shot. One to go after this. Wow. Toyota on the way home, dipping downhill to turn nine. Toyota have their celebratory flags ready to go.
Rovera sends it and Catsburg slams the door! Holy cow! Toyota dominate Portimao! Pole to victory! No 1-2 but it is Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa, and Brendon Hartley, the winners. GTE Am, who will it be? It will be Corvette #33! Two for two! In LMP2, it is the #23 United Autosport entry winning the race.
Overall/Hypercar: #8 Hartley/Buemi/Hirakawa Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
LMP2: #23 Jarvis/Pierson/van der Garde United Autosports Oreca 07
LM GTE Am: #33 Catsburg/Varrone/Keating Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R
Penske won in Formula 1 in 1976 in the Austrian Grand Prix, 47 years ago. Wow. The Iron Dames and WRT complete the GTE Am and LMP2 podiums. That's a wrap from Portimao. We'll see you two weeks from now, on a Saturday, for the 6 Hours of Spa in the Ardennes Forest at Circuit de Spa Francorchamps. From the Algarve coast in Portugal on the Atlantic Ocean, bye bye.
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