So, the #10 Audi has gone off the road and I guess we'll see. The van der Linde brothers are driving for rival teams and rival brands. At Barwell Motorsports, we are going to see Dennis Lind and Patrick Kujala driving the night stints. BMW #32 in traffic trying to pass the #79 HRT (Haupt Racing Team) Mercedes. There is ambient light by the pit lanes, but once you are on the Kemmel straightaway, you see coniferous trees and boatloads of darkness with no real light around the circuit at Spa save for your headlamps. Sebastien Baud, the Mercedes, holding up the leader. The Frenchman is in that #79 HRT Mercedes sharing with Arjun Maini, Hubert Haupt, and Jordan Love. Lorenzo Patrese, Glenn van Berlo, and Fabrizio Crestani are the top three in the Silver division.
Porsche #92 out of sequence on their pit stops and Laurens Vanthoor I think is getting back into the car but maybe they have had a puncture or something. Nick Yelloly too is in the lane, off sequence. Are they anticipating something down the road? These are new sticker Pirelli P Zero tires. Yelloly is in a double stint and the team is looking at the front of the car putting blanking tape on the front I think. The fuel hose was removed and reattached. Did they get all the fuel in the tank they wanted? The night sky black as coal here in the Ardennes Forest. The candlepower of these headlights are absolutely amazing, bleaching out the cameras so you just cannot tell which car is where.
Porsche #92 has flown Plummet Airways to 19th spot in the overall with Laurens Vanthoor at the controls. Laurens Vanthoor has taken over the Porsche from Julien Andlauer. 145 laps now completed. There is a long, long, long way to go yet. 18+ cars still on the lead lap as Fabrizio Crestani has brought the #58 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini to the lane with brand new tires and a full fuel load. The fuel theory we thought of with the BMW was right. I get an extra pizza slice at dinner tonight! Great! Or extra frites mayonnaise. The fuel hose at Rowe BMW, the counter is not working on the fueling rig. It is a refueling problem. I called it.
The refueler was having to push the dry break on the fueling hose into the probe. We have had only two retirements from 70 starters. At McLaren, Henrique Chaves has passed his team mate Marvin Kirchhofer. The Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini is way down the order and in the lane now. Patrick Kujala and Dennis "The Menace" Lind are two of the top drivers on that team. They are going into the garage. Could they be suffering from brake troubles like we saw with the #63 car earlier on? That was the Iron Lynx car. Porsche tells us #92 had a tire issue and that is why they did a driver change and hemmorhaged oodles of time down to 18th spot.
Jeffrey Schmitt in the #93 Sky Tempesta McLaren is fighting back after they were down the order with a gearbox issue. Schmitt has run the Porsche Super Cup and Porsche's in German GT, probably in the ADAC series. But he is now adapting to driving a McLaren 720S GT3. Through Pouhon and into Fangnes he goes. He has to make miniscule corrections through Campus to keep the car handling through Courbe Paul Frere. Harry Flatters through Blanchimont. At Barwell, team boss Mark Lemmer says they had contact and needed to change the suspension, and Patrick Kujala is having throttle troubles.
It is a pedal damper that needs changing so they will go another lap down. Charles Weerts leads Luca Engstler before we get to pit stops. Henrique Chaves in the McLaren has made a pass on Lucas Auer. James Cottingham too in the #64 Mercedes is way down. Cottingham and Jonny Adam have been winning in British GT lately. The Iron Dames have made their pit stop and the ladies won their category last year and they had a great run at Le Mans a few weeks ago. Rahel Frey, Sara Bovy, Doriane Pin, and Michelle Gatting. In the garage, the amazing graphics of one of the Porsche's. Cannot remember which one.
Charles Weerts continues to lead over Luca Engstler and the two of them will be very close to their next pit stops. Raffaele Marciello runs in third spot through Pouhon and now the two leaders, Weerts and Engstler are 12.9 seconds apart. Marciello is one of the defending champions of this event but has had to show restraint in his driving today. 154 laps now on the board. Hello to Martin Haven who has stepped into the commentary box. Spa gets very, very dark. Marciello now to the pit lane. You have to have a quiet race, no incurring penalties or picking up damage.
Luca Engstler has really shown himself and so has Charles Weerts. BMW, Audi, Mercedes. The top Ferrari is sixth with Davide Rigon and in seventh is Henrique Chaves in the top McLaren. #88 in the lane along with everyone else save for Davide Rigon. Martin Haven and Bruce Jones will take us through the night stints here. This race is just now finding it's form. Sheldon van der Linde now leads Kelvin van der Linde followed by Timur Boguslavskiy. Davide Rigon may assume the lead. Timur Bougslavskiy usually saved his best laps in the past until the morning hours, but we'll see how darkness goes.
Often times here at Spa we also get rain and fog along with the darkness. We'll have the Nurburgring 24 Hours as part of the IGTC next year which will be just as tough if not more so. Nicky Catsburg won the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Nicky Catsburg among others. Catsburg has had two 24 hour wins with Nurburgring in a Ferrari and Le Mans in a Corvette. Could he get three? We'll just have to wait and find out. The #63 Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti way down in 51st spot. GT3 racing definitely in a purple patch right now.
The #83 Iron Dames Lamborghini of Doriane Pin has gone off the road at turn 17 which I think is at Blanchimont. Oh dear. She is dropping like a stone. GMG Racing Porsche, out. Inception Racing McLaren, out. Sheldon van der Linde leads in the BMW chasing after a lapped Lamborghini in the darkness, headlights on this time of night. There are no slower category cars. All of them are GT3 cars on the same Pirelli tires and the drivers make the difference. BMW #32 has spent four seconds less in the lane than the Audi #17. Doriane Pin's Lamborghini will be towed in. Or, towed back onto the track.
The lights are on n the front and she is trying to see if the engine cranks. If it won't crank, she'll need a flat tow out of there. There is gravel all over the shop. Full Course Yellow to remove Doriane Pin and we could see the safety car and perhaps the wave around. We have only five cars on the lead lap.
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