The visibility is getting worse and worse. The #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes is in the lane in the hands of Maximilian Gotz and the sister #10 is in as well for fresh Pirelli P Zero rain tires. The morning light is coming as we see a yellow flag at the top of the Kemmel straightaway at turn five as conditions are getting far worse. The weather is coming and going, and this will continue well into the daylight hours. In the trees there is a lot of mist hanging around. There will be a temperature inversion for the cold air holding the moisture gets trapped by hot air, causing a fog layer. We saw that at the Nurburgring of course. Light in the sky, mist in the trees. Mex Jansen in the #36 Walkenhorst Motorsports Astnon Martin snaps to the right, to the left, up through Eau Rouge and plows into the wall! His right rear wheel lost, rolling down the track. Mex Jansen, Tim Creswick, Bijoy Garg, and Ben Green, out of race.
The car behind almost suffers the exact same fate! My heavens! The rain has picked up. Fog at the Nurburgring, rain at Le Mans, rain at Spa Francorchamps, and we press on as cars are falling by the wayside. Ryan Myrehn set to interview Chandler Hull. He tells us that someone came to the inside with an ambitious move and got on the curb, and the next thing he knew, he was spinning around. The sun is beginning to come up. Headlights, rain lights, and sunlight are making visibility horrid at 150 meters, with standing water in Eau Rouge with the drivers' foot buried in the throttle. The #74 Ferrari keeps on trucking.
The issue now is the cold and the dampness. The Boutsen VDS Mercedes overshoots the pit box or has come out of the garage, car #10 with Cesar Gazeau of France at the wheel of it, after it's technical pit stop. A whole host of front runners pitted including Sheldon van der Linde back at the top of the shop. Maxime Martin is in as is Arjun Maini and ithers in the pit lane. A ton of them are in under full course yellow. Nicky Catsburg leads Pro-Am ahead of the #100 RJN McLaren, in the #4 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3. Yannick Mettler spun at the top of Eau Rouge. Fatigue kicking in. Tired, sandy eyes, with glare all over.
Aaron Walker is in the lane doing the technical pit stop for brakes, filters and so forth. Ten hours and 40 minutes to go. At Mad Panda Motorsports, Swiss driver Alain Valente tells us that this race has gone well and they were first in class in the Silver division. He drove for three hours under the safety car because of too much water and then another car drove into them and they are doing everything they can as there is a 30 second time penalty assessed to the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 for a pit stop infringement.
Despite the penalty the #32 BMW team is going to try and win. The cars are back behind the safety car as we have reached prime time. A dozen cars have officially retired. Of the 66 starters, 54 remain. We will commence the wave by procedure now. Sky Tempesta Racing is now at the top of the tree in the Bronze Cup ahead of Andrea Bertolini and Patrick Kujala. Ian James, Chris Buncombe, and the Uno Racing Landgraf Mercedes are the top three as Buncombe may have received a wave by. No. I don't believe he did.
Silver Cup has Walkenhorsr Aston Martin, Winward Mercedes, and Dinamic Porsche. Ford have just the one Mustang in this race. Here is the championship scenario with WRT and Max Budweil. They have been told that it was when the leader crossed the line at 12 hours. There is no appeal process ad they need to understand the whole situation at this moment in time. They are going for the championship. They are saying they were the leaders at 12 hours on the nose before they came in to do their technical pit stop but Race Control says the leader after halfway counts. Team WRT have not won this race in a decade since they were aligned with Audi. More light in the sky. But there's more spray on the road. The drivers can rest but the mechanics never get any rest.
Safety Car in at the end of this lap. It is very rainy and yo can barely see the marshals' posts. If one marshals post cannot see another, then it is too dangerous to be racing and that was what we saw at the Nurburgring with the fog four weeks ago. Here, you can see from marshal's post to marshal's post. So we could be OK. But there is a wall of spray with the 53-54 cars, and the visibility at the top of the hill was pretty grim but the cameras are misting up in the cold and the wet just like the drivers' windscreens are. We are just under 15 degrees Celsius.
The safety car is in the pit lane. Green flag. van der Linde, Perera, Froggatt, Robin, Bachler, and Ellis. Four of five classes in the race in the top six. Ian James in Pro-Am is 25 seconds clear of Chris Buncombe in Pro-Am, the #100 Team RJN McLaren. Chris Buncombe closing in on Ian James. Davide Rigon in 12th spot just behind the Ricardo Feller Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS Evo II. This is the battle for 11th spot. Marco Sorensen, the #7 Aston Martin is only 7/10ths of a second ahead of Ricardo Feller. Ten second penalty for the #35 Walkenhorst Aston Martin for speeding in the pit lane.
Penalties also for the #55 Dinamic Motorsports Porsche and the #71 AF Corse Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 296 GT3 of Davide Vidales, smashing into Lilou Wadoux in another Ferrari and the first impact from Vidales took the wheel off the #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3. Max Robin 2.3 seconds heind and now, the #93 Sky Tempesta Ferrari 296 GT3 of Chris Froggatt is being chased. Sheldon van der Linde is asked about visibility aying it is OK but there is concern about aquaplaning. The visibility is beginning to improve but the aquaplaning is the major concern at the bottom of Eau Rouge shooting up to Raidillon.
We have had more rain, but it is clearing up bit by bit, hopefully. When you look at these conditions, these drivers are 20 seconds off their best pace. The rain is flurrying right now. David Vidales will need to serve a drive through penalty and so will the #55 Dianmic GT Porsche of Theo Nouet, Marius Nakken, Axel Blom, and Jop Rappange. Sheldon van der Linde leads Maxime Martin by ten plus seconds or more. In 1983 when this track was reopened, the chicane protecting the pit lane was a left right, a short straight, and a right left, which was a bus stop in day-to-day life. van der Linde leads Perera, Bachler, Martin, Froggatt, Robin, and Ellis in the top seven with four of the five class leaders.
You are at full throttle for 75% of the lap especially out of Stavelot to the Bus Stop, well, Paul Frere curve. Sheldon van der Linde still has a penalty to serve. Franck Perera in second place in the #163 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini with Franck Perera, Jordan Pepper, and Marco Mapelli. The top eight cars in the running order have not had their technical pit stops yet. GRT Grasser have spent 29 more minutes in the pit lane. Matisse Lismont in the #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin has spun and now rejoined at Les Combes down the hill.
Marius Nakken the Norwegian driver just served a drive through penalty I believe. There is no dry line but there is a dryer line in another part of the road. But be very cautious changing preferred racing lines. Look and learn. Look for water and if you try being a hero you could upset the whole apple cart. David Pittard and Philip Ellis are motoring away from these two as we have nearly reached 11:30 P.M. Saturday night Central Time in the United States, 6:30 A.M. Central European Summertime in Belgium. Ricardo Feller make sa lsight mistake and Feller is creeping away through Piff Paff, through Fangnes corner.
Through Rivage and the Jacky Ickx corner, the #99 Attempto Audi was moving ahead of the Aston Martin in the hands of Sorensen. Be very careful on the outside of a turn like La Source, but the outside line is a wiser one to use. Don't hit the wall and don't risk getting whisked off to the stewards' office. The rain has not abated.
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