Mike Conway 13 seconds to the good. Toyota, Porsche, Cadillac, Porsche/ Sarah Bovy passes Michael Dinan. Tomonobu Fujii in the lane for fuel early. Stick also to the drive time window. Bovy and Dinan clearly racing through Pouhon as Dinan is closing in indeed. Claudio Schiavoni is reported to the stewards for reckless driving under Full Course Yellow. For the first time, we are seeing great battles in Hypercar and the Toyota's are not running away with this. It is a battle between Toyota and Porsche, Conway and Vanthoor. Alpine #35 back in the lane and Andre Negrao takes over the car from Memo Rojas. Tomonobu Fujii pitted the #777 D'station Aston Martin from the GTE Am lead. The rest of the GTE Am field should pit fairly soon. Many drivers have had their lap times deleted for track limits violations.
Pit stop time for both GTE Am frontrunners. Both Toyota's under investigation by the stewards. Conway, no further action for #7. Buemi, for rough driving in #8. Keep an eye on the virtual white board and have the marker of doom ready. The Hypercar field is split as we see the #3 Cadillac will hit the lane for medium tires for a double stint as we have light rain. Renger van der Zande in the lane from third spot and we'll see Sebastien Bourdais and Jack Aitken drive later. Mike Conway is slated to hit the lane soon. Christensen and van der Zande in the lane in for Porsche and Cadillac and so the Toyota boys can do one more lap. Medium tires on the Cadillac. Glickenhaus in the lane too. Double stint and take tires as little as possible.
Romain Dumas is getting out of the Glickenhaus. Esteban Guerreri, the Argentinian taking over the Vanwall. Mike Conway in the lane in the #7 Toyota. A lot of the new teams are fully focused on Le Mans. Some argy bargy in LMP2 between Fred Lubin and Julien Canal. Spa Francorchamps in many ways is similar to Le Mans. Porsche and Ferrari tested here in the wet. No tires for Mike Conway. Double stinting it looks like. No info on compounds. Laurens Vanthoor, at home, leads Spa, 30 seconds up on Sebastien Buemi. Porsche going longer on fuel than Toyota. Off the road, it is the Vanwall on hot tires on the out lap. Oh dear!
He spins a straight line down the hill and thankfully, no contact with the wall. Esteban Guerreri, the Argentinian straight out of the pit lane. Cold, wet, muddy tires. Laurens Vanthoor, born in Hasselt, on the Dutch side of Belgium near the Zolder circuit. Sebastien Buemi in the lane too going a lap longer than the #7. Sara Bovy now ahead of Tomonobu Fujii in GTE Am and now Mike Conway in Toyota #7 resumes in the lead of the motor race. The Total Excellium fuel is totally renewable. Made from the waste of wine grapes. Not the grapes themselves. You would have no delicious wine to enjoy with your meal. Cab sav? Sauvignon blanc? Take your pick.
Now, survive this. Put your big boy trousers on, take off the training wheels and ride the bike. Two potential troubles as the #25 ORT TF Sport Aston Martin and the #4 Vanwall being investigated for track limits I believe. Romain Dumas at Glickenhaus says that it was a fun stint but it was not easy. Slick tires are hard to manage in these conditions. But taking risks is what you have to do and watch the weather. They are losing time on the out lap at Glickenhaus and taking a wait and see approach. The Porsche and the Ferrari seem to be faster than the Glickenhaus but it is fascinating. Romain Dumas is one of the greatest drivers of our generation racing sports cars, rallying, and off road. Good scrap between Antonio Felix Da Costa and Antonio Giovinazzi.
It is the Antonio and Antonio show. Rain at La Source and Eau Rouge as well as at Blanchimont. Hertz Team Jota, their first weekend with the #38 Porsche 963, they are really going for it from the start. Top LMP2 teams can now afford to get a Hypercar and go play with the big boys. No longer are they playing in the kiddie sandbox. Hertz Team Jota, though, every lap counts since they were not able to test the Porsche 963 beforehand, until today. This is live racing being a test. Full metal, live motor racing. Can you triple stint a medium Michelin tire? Yes. There is also hard tires and Spa Francorchamps has always rewarded a hard compound tire.
Earl Bamber still chasing down Gustavo Menezes. Peugeot vs. Cadillac. This is a battle for sixth place and the Cadillac and the Peugeot both started on wet tires. The Cadillac #3 is second. That is Renger van der Zande I believe. Again, we will see Jack Aitken from Action Express in the car later. CGR and AXR are working together today so AXR and my pals on that team can learn for Le Mans, team managers Chris Mitchum and Gary Nelson, team boss Bob Johnson, and other members of our team. We will be at Le Mans. Can't wait for that event next month! 33 laps now on the board, 144 miles. LMP2 cars in the pit lane. The wipers are going.
Daniil Kvyat, Sean Gelael, Andrea Caldarelli, Pietro Fittipaldi, in that order. Laurens Vanthoor and Sebastien Buemi still battling. Toyota vs. Porsche. Teams learning what works with tire choices.- WRT in the lane in LMP2. Tom Blomqvist retains the LMP2 lead. Sarah Bovy hanging on ahead of Tomonobu Fujii in GTE Am. Porsche vs. Aston Martin. The Aston Martin is right on the money as the Peugeot outbrakes itself. That was #94 running wide and headed for the lane. Box, box, box. No, stay out. Eek! Late call! Driver change at Pegueot. Is it Loic Duval or Nico Muller? Earl Bamber in the lane for fuel in the #2 Cadillac. Ditto for Ferrari #51 and Jota Porsche #38.
We are almost an hour and a half in the race. Frank Mailleux has uncorked a 2:09 dead and 2:09.9 is fastest for Fabio Scherer in the #34 Inter Europol Oreca. The Glickenhaus has had no testing and development since last year. Robin Frijns and Fred Lubin are scrapping and Louis Deletraz is coming. Lubin screams up through Raidillon. Daniil Kvyat ahead of Lubin, Frijns, Deletraz, and Rui Andrade, the Angolan driver. Ferrari #51 and Porsche #38 have dropped down the order. Same sequence as Mikkel Jensen in Peugeot #93 tiptoeing through the tulips on cold tires.
So, we are an hour and a half into the race. Christian Ried now manages to keep the Porsche 911 on the island, thank heavens. Kvyat and Lubin continue scrapping with Frijns and Deletraz. Frijns wants by Lubin on the outside into La Source and now they fly through Eau Rouge and up the Kemmel straightaway. Andrea Caldarelli is scrapping with Pietro Fittipaldi in LMP2 now. The outliers continue to be United Autosport with Tom Blomqvist. Fabio Scherer in the #34 Inter Europol Oreca. Fabio Scherer should be a candidate for Hypercar teams. Sarah Bovy being roughed up by Tomonobu Fujii and that was iffy. I think the stewards will have something to say about that.
Bovy has grassy tires and the stewards will have a word with Fujii for that reckless driving. Deletraz on Lubin again! A touch from behind by Prema! Yikes! That's close! Caldarelli is being harried by Fittipaldi who are both steaming up behind Fred Lubin. 38 laps in the bag. 165 miles. Buemi is now back to fighting the Porsche Conway now leading van der Zande and and Vanthoor. Robin Frijns is chasing Daniil Kvyat. These two are going to move to Hypercar next year for BMW and Lamborghini. Loic Duval uncorks a 2:05.992 and the fastest middle sector of the race for Loic Duval in the #94 Peugeot in the downforce sector.
Kvyat cannot believe the pace of Robin Frijns. Good battle between Cadillac #3 and the two Ferrari 499P's. The Ferrari's are battling with the Cadillac but the Cadillac is off! Renger van der Zande has just crashed right in front of the grandstand! Oh no! Sebastien Bourdais cannot believe it. In replay he got offline, straddling the curbs into Eau Rouge, and then, it just spins and smashes the wall hard! Bourdais is just fine but now Cadillac will just have to go ahead and focus on testing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Wow. The Cadillac is totally destroyed but the safety cell and the safety equipment held up as well as restructuring Eau Rouge as far as the pavement and so on.
This is an FIA Grade 1 circuit so they are veyr safe. Mike Conway leads Hypercar, Tom Blomqvist in LMP2, and Tomonobu Fujii in the lead of GTE Am under safety car for the second time. Sebastien Bourdais says that Renger van der Zande is OK just with a headache. The power steering locked up up the hill. They had a fire in the engine bay in Free Practice as well. Everyone has worked very hard to get the car ready and they wanted to finish. This was the WEC backup car. This car is completely destroyed. Ugh.
We are beginning the safety car wave around. Cadillac cannot believe their luck. They will be back and my pals at Action Express will be at Le Mans. Glad to see Renger van der Zande is OK. Gustavo Menezes at Peugeot says that this is the typical weather at Spa and a real gamble. It was safe to be under safety car for drivers on slick tires. It can go either way. The rest of the race, Menezes says the performance on slicks in the first stint was fine but we are going to begin seeing split strategies. Peugeot is beginning to find their feet. At Toyota #8, the question is tires and they will need to box for full service soon.
I feel sorry for the Cadillac team. But I look forward to seeing our car from Action Express at Le Mans. We have an endurance test at Road America coming up. Meanwhile, Mike Conway seems to be comfortable at Toyota. Emergency service for a splash and dash on fuel for the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari with Scott Huffaker, the American driver, at the wheel of it. The weather is changing all the time and now we are seeing a line of rubber on the road to give the track more grip and open chances for putting new tires onto the cars. The track seems to be in better conditions now. Potential troubles for the #33 Corvette C8.R and the #35 Oreca for Alpine for creating gaps under the safety car. They have been allowed to pit under the safety car and will catch the crocodile.
Ben Keating still must complete his minimum drive time. We are getting set to go back to green flag racing. Safety car is in and we are going back to green flag racing now. Only four Hypercars on the lead lap. The two Toyota's, and both Porsche's as well. A full field stop for LMP2? The Porsche #6 tagged by the Aston Martin and Buemi tries playing through. #7 gets a stonking restart! Buemi gets the door slammed in his face by Vanthoor. Has the rear end of the Porsche sustained damage from the Aston Martin #25? The tire temperatures are really affecting the Ferrari it seems. The Ferrari is equally as fast as the Toyota.
Buemi still has not passed Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari 499P who is feeling vibrations in the car. Tom Blomqvist in the #23 United Autosports LMP2 car is back there. The blue #2 Cadillac is running fifth, a lap down, but staying with the leaders as the Hypercars flying up through Eau Rouge! Robin Frijns passes both Loic Duval and Frank Mailleux, the Peugeot and the Glickenhaus. Drive through penalties for the Vanwall and the Alpine for crossing the white line between pit lane and the track. Pietro Fittipaldi fending off both Andrea Caldarelli and Louis Deletraz. Pietro Fittipaldi is flying right now.
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