The top three cars are Toyota #7, Ferrari #50, and Ferrari #51. Whoops! We are going to Full Course Yellow in 20 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow. Full Course Yellow. Effectively, every car and the gap between them remains constant, all on the speed limiter at 80 kilometers an hour. The crane is rescuing the stricken GTE Ferrari. The lights are flashing while on the speed limiter. The #38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963 has to give a spot back to the #41 WRT Oreca LMP2 car. I don't think we'll have a Full Course Yellow for very long. At turn seven, all cars bear totally to the right. That is Lesmo 2. Simon Mann ought to get going after being rescued by the crane. There is a bar with lifting hooks and every single car has them.
Part of the scrutineering process is lifting the cars up and jiggling them so they can be lifted on the crane if they stall or break down out on track because in European racing we don't have tow trucks. There are flatbed trucks if they are necessary, but nine times out of ten you will see cars especially in endurance racing being moved by a crane if they have a problem. Once the crane is back in place, cars will be released from Full Course Yellow. Hertz Team Jota have to try keeping the speed up. Full Course Yellow removed in 40 seconds.
When you are under Full Course Yellow, you both press and release the Full Course Yellow button together. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow removed. Go, go, go. Nico Varrone in hot pursuit of Michelle Gatting. Corvette vs. Porsche in GTE Am. Varrone was closing on the Porsche because the teams give themselves a tiny margin for error with their rev limiters. We've all been on a motor way where two trucks have a quarter of a kilometer more top speed, or one has a wee bit more speed than the other. You can shortcut lines around the corners. #31 WRT Oreca in the pit lane and will be sent after being serviced. Undo the air jack line and he is down and away.
A battle for eighth place in the overall and in Hypercar, look, between Neel Jani in the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963, the WeatherTech car, and the #8 Toyota of Ryo Hirakawa. We have just passed the halfway mark in the motor race here at Monza. Simon Mann is back on track. Jose Maria Lopez leads the motor race over the two Ferrari 499P's. Neel Jani is a Le Mans winner and a World Champion. Ryo Hirakawa is one of the world champion's for Toyota from last year. Toyota #7 is close behind as we watch the traffic.
Hypercar's, LMP2's, and GTE's all over everywhere. This will be an easy pass for position for Toyota over the Porsche #99. The wave by will put the Hypercars, the LMP2 cars, and the GTE cars all in their own order. In replay, we can see that Michelle Gatting does get by Nico Varrone in Variante della Roggia, but gets stymied by that slow moving LMP2! Ouch! Varrone pulls out and makes the move. The Corvette might just have the speed advantage over the Porsche. Michelle Gatting was passed by Robin Frijns in the #31 WRT Oreca and is being pursued as well by the #28 Jota Sport Oreca 07 in the hands of Pietro Fittipaldi. He is on his out lap after the pit stops.
Dempsey Proton lead GTE Am followed by Corvette Racing and the Iron Dames. Your top three sees the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid in the lead. Second place, 18 seconds down is the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P and third, the sister car, the Le Mans winning #51 Ferrari 499P 20 seconds behind. 101 laps complete, 364 miles. We have had two safety cars and two Full Course Yellows. Two retirements in the form of two automobiles that were shunted off the road, so the #777 D'station Aston Martin Vantage and the #10 Vector Sport Oreca 07 LMP2 car. Everyone else is still circulating. We hear news there is a long pit stop for the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE.
Scott Huffaker brought that car to the pit lane and we don't know what is going on. Could it be an abbreviated race for the yellow CarGuy Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE? We'll have to wait and find out. Huffaker sharing that car with Japanese drivers Takeshi Kimura and Kei Cozzolino. Davide Rigon in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE is back on track as Ferrari are now in the lane with one of the factory Hypercars. From third place, it is the #51, the Le Mans winner. So, the order shuffles again and it is Toyota ahead of Ferrari ahead of Peugeot, Porsche, Porsche, and Glickenhaus. Box, box, box, box. Fuel and brake blanking for the #38 Jota Porsche 963 with Yifei Ye at the wheel.
James Calado will get into the Le Mans winning Ferrari. Going for tires and fuel. Brake blanking, putting more into the ducting, you can get a little more top speed, maybe a kilometer or two. Remove the brake blanking to avoid more wear. There's just more heat and less material on the discs and the pads. Alessandro Pier Guidi is finished. No double stint for Pier Guidi in the race today, not like we saw at Le Mans. It usually takes a stick of gelignite to get Alesaandaro Pier Guidi out of the car, but not today. He's probably sapped.
Unfortunately for the Tifosi, the Ferrari's have a slight speed deficit. They don't have the speed here at their home track at Monza that they showed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month. The #38 Jota Sport Porsche 963's front brakes are steaming away. They are changing the tires and they are removing the blanking from the brakes. Then putting the tire back on. It is a hot one here at Monza. Jose Maria Lopez indulging in the gravel traps as he makes his way through the Lesmo chicanes. No holes will be filled at the Lesmo's during the race, so the more you go off the road and indulge in rallycross or autocross, the deeper the holes get.
Secondly, the edge of the curbs there and at the Parabolica are extremely sharp, causing a punctured tire on this scorching Sunday in the Monza royal national park. As it stands now, 106 laps completed by the leading #7 Toyota, 382 miles. They lead Ferrari #50 to the tune of 23+ seconds. United Autosport leads LMP2. They have completed 102 laps, 367 miles. Corvette Racing lead GTE Am with car #33. 98 laps, 353 miles completed. Corvette, Porsche, and Aston Martin, the top three in GTE Am. The order has been shuffled twice with safety car interventions. If the race goes green the rest of the way, a lot of the strategy will center upon fuel and the fuel window as it always seems to in modern day endurance racing.
So, now, the top three in Hypercar are Toyota, Ferrari, and Peugeot. Japan vs. Italy vs. France. Jose Maria Lopez aboard the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid. Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari 499P and Jean Eric Vergne in the #93 Peugeot 9X8. Two groups of cars alternate up and down the leaderboard and the Glickenhaus is currently in fifth place. In replay, we can see the #6 Porsche 963 took way too much curb and we have seen car after car after car have incidents or skitter their way through the gravel traps. We have seen attrition due to incidents throughout the day today as well. 2 hours and 40 minutes to go, the starndard duration of an IMSA WeatherTech race like the one we saw at Mosport a wee while ago.
Based on the information I have, and what Graham Goodwin informs us of, James Calado is the first car a lap down in Ferrari #51, uncorking the fastest lap for the #51 at 1:47.347. A year ago here at Monza, the Peugeot 9X8 was debuted as a race car and they want their first podium finish which would be a huge feather in their hat. Scott Huffaker in the #57 CarGuy Ferrari brought the car to the garage with a busted water pipe and in fact, that car is now officially retired, so all the water just drained out of the radiator and just cooked the engine like a soft-boiled egg.
So we have lost two GTE Am cars as we watch Nicklas Nielsen chasing down Jose Maria Lopez. Pit stop under investigation for the #2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V Series R, presumably for when they came to the lane under Full Course Yellow a wee while ago. Nicklas Nielsen turns out of the Variante Ascari running five seconds behind Jose Maria Lopez who is consistently uncorking fast lap times. However, the fastest car in Hypercar currently is Dane Cameron, the American driver, aboard the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963.
Dane Cameron is coming to pit lane perhaps for fuel only. Two more cars setting fastest lap times of their race are in LMP2. There's Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #36 Alpine Oreca 07 and Ben Hanley in the #22 United Autosport Oreca 07 as well. A forced release for the #25 Oman Racing Team by TF Sport Aston Martin brought in by Michael Dinan who stays in the car, and so Charlie Eastwood should do the final stint. We will see TF Sport parting ways with Aston Martin at the end of this year because of the new GT3 regulations coming, and maybe a spell of not seeing Aston Martin in the World Endurance Championship for a bit.
Years ago, they had a V12 powered Vantage GT3 but that car got long in the tooth quickly and they have not come up with a new GT3 spec car that I am aware of yet. They have a GT4 car that has done yeoman service throughout the world in different championships, but not a GT3 entry that I can remember. Covette C8.R #33 pits from the GTE Am lead and there too, look, right in the lane is the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19 as well. They are second in class. In an ideal world, the Iron Dames would win this and the Corvette boys would win the GTE Am title. But the race is not over yet. The sportsman like behavior with a rivalry between Iron Dames and Corvette is incredible.
GR Racing, meanwhile, will go by both of them. Mike Wainwright started that car and did a double stint. Ricardo Pera, the Italian is in the car. Pera is being challenged by the Corvette and we have not see the Dempsey Proton Porsche #77. Where is he? He is second, and has passed through Curva Grande. OK. That clears things up. Mikkel Pedersen, the Dane, is in the #77 Porsche. The LMP2 scrap remains between Ben Hanley for United Autosport and Matthieu Vaxiviere for Alpine. Meanwhile, Dane Cameron is being harried by James Calado.
Calado on the attack. Porsche vs. Ferrari. How many times over the years have these two brands battled? A lot. This takes you back to the 1,000 kilometer races that used to be run here at Monza in the early 1970s and Porsche with the 917 and Ferrari with the 512S. Cameron goes inside to defend the position but Calado pokes his nose out of the slipstream, look, and is going to try and make his move. A little argy bargy into the second chicane, look. Calado threads the eye of the needle through there and makes it work! That's cracking stuff! That is absolutely brilliant! That was properly brave driving. James "The Enforcer" Calado, giving the business to Dane Cameron!
Dane Cameron did the right thing to not make a pig's breakfast out of that. Cameron's tires could be squirming around under him by now. They will be ratty, perhaps. Next on his shopping list is the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 in the hands of Neel Jani who is the final car on the lead lap. Brendon Hartley has taken over the #8 Toyota and is a lap down. Three more races for Alpine in LMP2 before they come back with two Hypercars next year. Ben Hanley all over Matthieu Vaxiviere going for position. Philippe Sinault, the boss of Signatech, looking on. Signatech running the Alpine team between Hypercar and LMP2 and back to Hypercar next year.
Albert Costa third in LMP2 chasing down Robin Frijns for second. Frijns' tires have gone for 40 laps and Costa's tires have gone for 60 laps but he is closing on Frijns for second place. Oliver Jarvis is five seconds up the road leading the class, currently. Fabio Scherer's foot seems to be feeling a lot better and he wants to get in the fight for the championship for the rest of the season. He is hoping to win and the car and team have a good pace. They are hoping for the top three. His foot is not sore anymore. He has no pain. He had his foot run over, his right foot, run over by the #33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R before the end of the race. Ferdinand Habsburg is looking on from WRT.
It is so warm that Vincent Vosse has removed his flat hat! It's a Belgian national emergency! Ring the bell! Sound the alarm! Albert Costa reeling in Robin Frijns bit by bit. Still two and a half hours left on the board. Peugeot #94 slots through traffic being ambitious on the brakes and misses the Prima Variante, trying to outbrake an LMP2 car, the leading United Autosport machine. Well, well, well. Oliver Jarvis, 1:42.2, 1:42.61 for Robin Frijns, and 1:42.57 for Albert Costa. Oh, by the way, Costa's tires have done a full stint more than those on the other two front running cars in LMP2. His right side tires have done a full stint more. But the left sides are fresher.
The Ferrari 499P's are running nose to tail on the road but not in the order. Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 is in second place while James Calado in the sister car #51 that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, is in sixth place. Symmetry with numbers for Proton Competition because their GTE cars over the years have worn the #77 and #88 and now the Hypercar Porsche 963 wears the #99. If they enter another car it will have to be four digits and be 1,010 or something like that. #51 of Calado is hanging on by his fingernails to the lead lap and at some point Nicklas Nielsen will have to be let through. The #7 Toyota is consistently motoring ahead.
Jose Maria Lopez is leading by a country mile and has turned the screws on everyone else. Fabio Scherer being cooled down with a bottle of water pouring it on his wrists and into his racing overalls. The problem will be that when gets into a hot race car for his stint, the water will boil and he will literally steam as he is driving. Steam? What are you talking about, you bloody idiot! He'll just be wringing wet when he gets out of the car. Steam. Question mark. Sitting in a sauna with a three layer Nomex racing suit on is no fun. Some drivers in the heat, they try to grab a drink of water and the drink bottle is hot, and so you have hot tea, not water. You could steep tea in the water jug it's so darn hot.
Albert Costa is closing the gap up on Robin Frijns as we speak about what hard work it is for these drivers to drive their race cars. Anyone who tells you racing drivers are not athletes, do not listen to them. They have no idea. Two in laps for WRT. One of the drivers might be getting ready to take over the car. Albert Costa is getting set to take over the #34 Inter Europol car and we'll have both WRT cars coming in it looks like. Louis Deletraz is set to take over the sister WRT #41 car from Robert Kubica and Ferdinand Habsburg will take over the #31 WRT car, limbering up.
No further action, for car to car contact between the #60 Iron Lynx Porsche 911 RSR-19 and the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE. If a driver of a faster car hits someone who is on the racing line, that is not safe. Those are flawed decisions. So, a driver change as Albert Costa hands off to Fabio Scherer. Kuba Smiechowski has completed his drive time. Ollie Caldwell for Alpine runs ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the #63 Prema Racing LMP2 car and now they are both going to get completely monstered by the #2 Cadillac V Series R, Earl Bamber, the Kiwi, at the wheel of it.
A great LMP2 battle we are seeing here. Ben Hanley in the second United Autosport car is in the pit lane and now, Jota have leapfrogged Inter Europol in LMP2 because Oliver Rasmussen stayed in the car as now we see the #93 Peugeot 9X8 hitting the pit lane from third spot for scheduled service and a driver change. Paul Di Resta gets into the Peugeot, replacing Jean Eric Vergne. You have to get the seatbelt in the right place. That is an experienced driver.
Hurry but don't rush. Glickenhaus in the lane with the #708 car and Olivier Pla will take over from Nathaniel Berthon. Ferrari #50 pits from second as well. Louis Deletraz has pitted and Robin Frijns is now in the lane for a driver change. James Calado was motoring away from the #50 car. OK. Ferdinand Habsburg, Austrian royalty, should have a crown around the top of his helmet. Meanwhile, Antonio Fuoco takes over the #50 Ferrari. Paul di Resta in the #93 Peugeot, and Olivier Pla in the #708 Glickenhaus.
Brendon Hartley uncorks a 1:37 dead, quickest lap for the recovering #8 Toyota which has not led the race. 1:37.3 for the Cadillac, car #2. United Autosports under pressure. Ollie Caldwell being harried by Daniil Kvyat, but that is Alpine, not United Autosport. Jose Maria Lopez brings the #7 Toyota into the lane from the race lead after a double stint, and therefore, the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 is now the race leader! That is the second time #99 has led on debut! Wow! A safety car at any point within the final two hours will leave us with a very unusual podium. Harry Tincknell is getting suited and booted. It is not Sebastian Vettel nor Cooper MacNeil.
Neel Jani is the #99 Porsche and he is not going for the lead as he will slot right in behind Kamui Kobayashi. Effectively, Kamui Kobayashi is a lap up on the field. But, there could be strategy factored in, and now, he is getting the hip and shoulder treatment from Nico Varrone in the #33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R in GTE Am! The trouble is how slow the Hypercars are on new tires that are stone cold. James Calado is being told on the radio by team manager Justin Taylor that he is catching up and is 28 seconds behind.
This is the battle with Neel Jani in the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 who is on a different strategy and needs to stop for an energy boost, for fuel and tires. Toyota #7 in the lead of the motor race has now run 122 laps, 439 miles. Slithering under braking into Prima Variante, the LMP2 battle between WRT and Jota. Ferdinand Habsburg does not get passed by. Ferdinand Habsburg is literally part of the Habsburg family empire, the Habsburg dynasty, the Austro-Hungarian empire. He is a senior member of that family, taking his responsibilities very seriously as royalty.
United Autosport has the #23 car in pit lane for service and we also saw a brief shot of former FIA World Endurance champion Jamie Campbell-Walter. He won in GTE Am several years ago with Stuart Hall and another driver who's name escapes me. It was just the two of them because their co-driver Roald Goethe did not do every race. That was the Gulf liveried Aston Martin Vantage in the GTE Am category from years gone by as I remember. Gosh, I am still on the button with my sports car racing history! Imagine that!
Neel Jani must have a button in the cockpit of that #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 that goes directly to drift mode! Yikes! He was right out on the curb there, look. Jamie Campbell-Walter manages Ferdinand Habsburg even back into his open wheel career. Ferdinand Habsburg is the heir of the family. His maternal grandmother's name was Campbell-Walter. Jamie Campbell-Walter must be his cousin then. So, Neel Jani is now in the pit lane, but he has thoroughly trashed those rear Michelin tires and keep in mind, the LMDh based Hypercars like the Porsche and the Cadillac rely on the hybrid drive only from their rear wheels.
Harry Tincknell is now getting into the car for his drive. He becomes the first man to race in every single category to exist in the World Endurance Championship. These include GTE Am, GTE Pro, LMP2, LMP1 Hybrid, and now Hypercar. Did they change the left rear tire? I think so. Left rear hard and three mediums around the 11 corners of this clockwise circuit here at Monza. Michelle Gatting is the fastest car on track in GTE Am currently. They are fourth.
Ricard Pera leads in GTE Am for GR Racing, Mikkel Pedersen second, Nico Varrone third, and Michelle Gatting in fourth spot. But just over two hours of racing to go. Jose Maria Lopez says that the Toyota's are indeed coming back to the fore. It is so hard to pass at this circuit. They are staying in it and the temperatures here at Monza are still increasing. It is a hot day's work out there for everybody. An endurance race right in the middle of summer. He knows the heat, being from Argentina. He was comfortably the quickest man on the planet in his double stint he just completed.
A battle ensuing for fifth in LMP2 sees Louis Deletraz chasing Fabio Scherer. It is a battle of the Swiss drivers for Inter Europol and WRT respectively. Mike Conway will likely finish this race in the #7 Toyota. The top seven in LMP2 separated by 13 seconds. The gaps between all the cars are very tight. Alpine must be on a slightly different pit strategy to Inter Europol and to WRT. They are on the same strategies as the #23 United Autosport car and the #63 car for Prema Racing. Robert Kubica, Robin Frijns, and Vincent Vosse looking on.
The top three in LMP2 are right together. van der Garde, Habsburg, and Rasmussen. Giedo van der Garde is losing a bit of time, or maybe not. Half a second is the gap between all three of these cars. It was an optical illusion. GR Racing lead GTE Am from Dempsey Proton. Porsche on Porsche. Ricardo Pera and Mikkel Pedersen both coming to the end of their stints. Ben Barker will take over the #86 GR Racing Porsche and we will have to see who is going to take over the #77 entry. I am not sure yet. 23 laps old all four tires on Porsche #77 while on the #86, the left side tires have been on for 62 laps and the right hand side tires only for 30 laps.
Ex Porsche factory driver, Frenchman Julien Andlauer is going to take over the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 to finish this race here at Monza. Corvette are coming in a hurry and so is Michelle Gatting who is seven seconds behind Nico Varrone and Nico Varrone is 1.8 seconds behind the leader and the deal is that all the Bronze drivers in GTE Am have burned up their time and so the professionals will take the cars to the end of this motor race in a shade over two hours. Oliver Rasmussen now third in LMP2 in the #28 Jota entry. He is chasing Matthieu Vaxiviere and Ferdinand Habsburg. Giedo van der Garde is leading in class. Jan Kelmar and Kelmar Automotive sponsor United Autosport.
Jan Kelmar managed the Lotus Evora GTE Pro team in 2011 and I think, but I cannot be too sure, there was a Kelmar Tiga team in the C2 class during the Group C days of the 1980s but I don't believe it was the same person sponsoring or running the team. I must be really dating myself there since years ago I also blogged about the Group C era and will do more of it. Ricardo Pera being harried by Mikkel Pedersen and both of them are getting dusted by the fifth place Peugeot 9X8 in Hypercar, the #93 in the hands of Scotsman Paul Di Resta. Mikkel Pedersen has a head of steam. He is poking his nose around, crawling all over the back of Ricard Pera!
He has much fresher tires and here comes the Corvette of Nico Varrone. The #33 car. Pera hanging tough on the outside. Oh boy oh boy. Look at this! This is all through the Ascari chicane and ow Varrone is going to have a run himself, on these two chaps. Varrone slipstreams past Pedersen and now has Pera in his crosshairs. One down and one to go headed for the final turn at Parabolica. One of the Penske Porsche 963 Hypercars slices through this mess and goes to the pit lane. Pera paints himself to the white line on the outside and is going to make Varrone work for it and go the long way.
Pera's trying to nail his colors to the mast, but Varrone is out to sink the battleship. One move, and Varrone has to tuck in, but that was good driving on the part of the Argentinian! What a battle! We've seen some great racing today in prototype and in GTE alike. The #2 Cadillac splits Giedo van der Garde and interferes with the lead battle in LMP2. van der Garde, Habsburg, and Rasmussen being stymied by the Cadillac. GR, Corvette Racing, Dempsey Proton, the top three in GTE Am. Varrone strong on exit of Lesmo 2 and now he is going to draft past Pera!
Pera is going to try making another move. Will Varrone slam the door in his face? Yes. However, Varrone will be the first of these three blokes with a pit stop in his future. Corvette are used to winning at Monza, winning GTE Pro in 2022. Could they win GTE Am in 2023? We'll see. They got the GT Daytona Pro victory at Mosport Park in Canada when we covered that race for you. Everyone was saying how there was a double. We'll find out here in another two hours if that is going to hold true. Michelle Gatting is coming in a hurry in the pink #85 Iron Dames Porsche.
Pera heading for the lane for service and Pera is off the road on the green paint and almost in the gravel out of Parabolica! Pera's tires on the right side are going to be junk. Two hours to go, so Ben Barker will do a double stint to the end of the race. Once again, they've nailed their colors to the mast here. Habsburg in LMP2 is closing hand over fist. Endurance racing is so boring! It takes so long! Yeah right! We welcome new fans here. Believe me. You won't be disappointed.
No comments:
Post a Comment