Brendon Hartley and Richard Westbrook run 1-2. Alex Jakes and Lena Gade are now in the Eurosport commentary box. Good morning everyone. We are getting toward sunrise, towards "happy hour". It has been anyone's race so far. Andre Lotterer is really going for it and while I was eating some pizza for dinner, we had a myriad of pit stops going on from Project 1 - AO with "Rexy", and lots more going on. LMP2 will be scrubbed out of WEC because of popularity of Hyper Car and will stay in IMSA but we have more Hyper Car teams coming over there too, in the GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) class. Sara Bovy still in the #85 Iron Dames Porsche. Currently we don't have incoming rain. But there are ideas we could see pop up thunderstorms.
We are also still following the Garage 56 NASCAR Cup Series Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 with plenty of supporters for Jimmie Johnson, Mike Rockenfeller, and Jenson Button. The #56 Project 1 - AO "Rexy" dinosaur Porsche is in the lane for service. Gunnar Jeanette, P.J. Hyett, and Matteo Cairoli. We will be at sunrise in a wee while. Will we see more rain coming? When it does rain at Le Mans you find pockets of rain that dump onto 1/3rd of the road with the other 2/3rds being bone dry.
Tijmen van der Helm chasing Nico Pino. Tom Blomqvist in the #23 United Autosport Oreca, he is under investigation for something I think by the stewards. Jenson Button in the Hendrick Motorsports Camaro has four GTE Am cars ahead of him. Again, we are watching Nicolas Pino and Tijmen van der Helm, a former Formula 3 driver who is now firmly entrenched in sports car racing. The battle is on car lengths apart here, eight seconds in Hyper Cat and ten seconds in LMP2. Drivers doing juggling to keep themselves alert.
The garages are so narrow here at Le Mans whereas they are larger I think, at a place like Daytona where the garage is separate from the pit lane. Many women drivers have raced at Le Mans of course. Anny-Charlotte Vernay was one of those drivers. Her grandfather was one of the founders of the ACO who runs Le Mans, the Automobile Club de L;Ouest. Andre Lotterer being chased by Renger van der Zande. Porsche and the 963 have had an up and down race. Brendon Hartley in the Toyota and Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 Ferrari, the pendulum has swung back in favor of the Toyota for the time being.
Keep in touch with your opposition and we are son going to see sunrise. The gaps are staying together between 6-8 seconds. The Belgian liveried DKR Engineering LMP2 have had drama all day but are still in it. Maxime Martin, Tom von Rompuy, and Ugo de Wilde. Glickenhaus #709 in the pit lane and out of the pit lane now, with Mexico's Esteban Guttierez at the wheel of it I believe. It is ebbing and flowing in the lead battle between the #8 and #51. We have finally found a rhythm in this race. We are going to hear from Leigh Diffey, Alex Brundle, Calvin Fish, and Ben Constanduros later on.
Refueling for one of the LMP2 cars, the #65 Panis Racing entry. Ten and a half hours of running still to go. The cars scream down the Mulsanne straight, the main road of this part of France and the thing ran six kilometers long flat out at 240+ miles an hour in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The #37 Cool Racing LMP2 car pits with Nicolas Lapierre aboard. You only have a finite amount of tearoff's on the front of the windscreen. One company makes them. I think it is Racing Optics or something. Insects and dust coat the surface of the windscreen. At a driver change you would give a driver a clean screen and save others for the end of the event.
Pit stop time for one of the GTE Am Porsche's. That is the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Mikkel Pedersen, Christian Ried, and Julien Andlauer. We will see the #35 Alpine in the lane soon as well with Ollie Caldwell and company as the #25 ORT by TF Sport Aston Martin goes really wide. Alpine is now in the pit lane. It is Michael Dinan racing the #25 car, with team engineer Dan Bridgeman who, like Lena Gade, works with Multimatic. Ollie Caldwell, a Formula 3 and Formula 2 driver and part of the Alpine young drivers academy. Alpine have introduced their new Hyper Car for next year of course.
During the long safety car periods you have to watch and see how your drive time works. There in a maximum drive time amount in the Hyper Car class and in the others like LMP2 and GTE. We have seen a number of long safety car scrambles. Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 champion in the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Cup car. They will produce 56 road going Chevrolet Camaro's to pay tribute to Garage 56. 180 laps on the board for Brendon Hartley but now, the gap is 3.5 seconds. We are coming towards morning, shortly. Alpine #36 in the pit lane for a tire change.
Inter Europol does likewise with their #34 entry. WRT now eighth in the #31 car. Sean Gelael, Ferdinand Habsburg, and Robin Frijns. Matthieu Vaxiviere we are watching the Alpine team car in LMP2. Hertz Team Jota brings the #38 Porsche 963 Hyper Car into the lane. The sun is starting to peak through. Ferrari #51 alsi uti the lane and same is the case for the #8 Toyota. Alessandro Pier Guidi is next into the car replacing Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Toyota's and Ferrari's are still close together indeed. Brendon Hartley is still driving Toyota #8 with 182 laps completed and contact for the #33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Nicolas Varrone, the Argenintina. spinning the car and getting back into the fight. Peugeot #93 in the pit lane with Jean Eric Vergne at the wheel of it. Earl Bamber remains third. Louis Deletraz in LMP2 runs ahead of Fabio Scherer as we see a slow Aston Martin up the hill towards Mulsanne corner I think. Sara Bovy pits from second spot in GTE Am. Ten hour and 14 minutes remaining in the race. The light will be coming. The dawn will be here very soon.
Tomonobu Fujii has also stopped the beleaguered #777 D'station Racing Aston Martin as well. Fujii has no drive and so he along with Satoshi Hoshino and Casper Stevenson. Cadillac #2 in pit lane now. Earl Bamber is back on track now. Slow zone at marshal post 20. This is for the recovery of the Aston Martin, the D'station entry. Michael Dinan now has the #25 Aston Martin in the lane at ORT by TF Sport. #777 is a retirement, another retirement. Game over. The skies are certainly lightening. Ryan Briscoe pits the #708 Glickenhaus.
Jenson Button will do a double stint I think and the mechanics are examining the brakes, They are measuring the wear on the brakes and how close they are to the limit. The wear rate is exponential. Not sure in the Garage 56 car will do a brake change. In LMP1 and Hyper Car it has not been necesary. Tomonobu Fujii has stopped on course again but he could be being assisted. Alessandro Pier Guidi has a 45 second gap to his rivals in the #51 Ferrari 499P. Alessandro Pier Guidi is really going for it in the sole remaining Ferrari 499P in the field. We had blended conditions at the very start. Dry on one side and wet on the other.
Funnar Jeanete and Ricardo Pera in a battle of GTE Am Porsche's. Pit crew members need to take their winks while they can. Yellow flag.
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