Safety Car procedure and there was a slight incident at the bottom of Eau Rouge. Speedy dry down on the road. We have gone back to green flag racing and may see rain soon. Jules Gounon has passed Alessio Rovera for fifth spot. Mattia Drudi I believe is the erstwhile leader aboard the #7 Aston Martin. Dann Arrow is driving the Silver class leading Mercedes-AMG GT3, the #57 car. Dann Arrow, Colin Caresani and Tanart Sathienthirakul. Raffaele Marciello is now at the controls of the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 sharing with Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi as the rain is getting heavier and Fredric Vesti has moved up to eighth spot. Marciello is reveling in these conditions. The Aston Martin, the new Evo Aston Martin is leading but now we have the #992 Porsche 911 GT3R off the road. This is the Kevin Estre, Patrick Pilet, and Laurens Vanthoor automobile, the #992 HubAuto Racing car that might have a broken rear suspension through Eau Rouge!
Daniel Morad in the #48 Mann Filter Mercedes is buried in 43rd place as we are under Full Course Yellow again. Now, it looks like Vanthoor spun 360 degrees and he is being recovered. I wonder if there is an access road. He is moving. Green flag. Very short yellow as Raffaele Marciello is side by side for the lead nad he makes the move past the Aston Martin. Patrick Pilet has a wobble wheel on the left rear of that Porsche! That is not good. I'll bet that thing has suspension damage and it is going to be steering like a truck. He'll have to watch his mirrors. I wonder if there is a small bit of damage. Now, Andrea Caldarelli in the Lamborghini is back in the race but is languishing down in 56th place.
More worrisome for the #992 Porsche is the driveshaft and the ancillary components inside the driveline. Now, maybe the storms are moving towards Liege and the storms might miss us here at Spa and we have another Full Course Yellow. Aye yaye yaye. Safety Cars breed Safety Cars. Marciello, Drudi, Weerts, Gounon, Drouet, Rovera, Arrow, Al Zubair, and more. Now, the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche of Sven Mueller clobbered Laurin Heinrich. I think the #992 cars race is done, plus we think the #98 BMW has also retired and gone by the wayside.
Nicolas Baert in another of the Aston Martin's got squeezed and hit the #333 RinaldI Racing Ferrari and he was spinning backwards and then...Adrian d'Silva at unabated speed up to Eau Rouge flies in, and.... boom! The Ferrari goes up in flames! Christian Hook was under investigation for a different incident for not doing a wave around but now he too is likely out of the race. Cars #22 and #96 need to be retrieved. Sven Mueller made contact with Laurin Heinrich and Sven Mueller outbraked himself and Heinrich clouted him.
The Fan Zone is buzzing right now with a jolly jump and facepainting for the kids, and other different and fun things for all ages. DJ Robert Schultz is the headline act for the concert this evening and there is a bar and restaruant atop the pit complex and a Ferris Wheel. Jules Gounon has had his car serviced and he needed more ventilation as his eyes were drying out in his open helmet visor. He needed eyedrops. He probably is wearing contact lenses. So. Valentino "The Doctor" Rossi has now taken over the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3, his fabled number. Safety Car procedure plus a wave around after retrieving the stricken automobiles and we should go racing again soon. We are again under safety car conditions.
Romain Carton, Arthur Rougier, Steven Palette, and Adam Eteki are now in fifth spot. That is the #111 CSA Racing Audi R8 LMS Evo II. We are set to go back to grren and welcome David Addison back to the microphone. We have had the race rhythm completely broken and we need to be driving and gaining more and more mileage. We are heading for the evening twilight here at Spa. The safety car pace is slow with rallying and racing legend Marc Duez as the safety car driver. Safety Car on track. Adam Smalley leads the motor race for Garage 59 with Valentino Rossi second.
We could see a wave by situation perhaps. If you have any doubt, just be patient. Work the brake against the accelerator to get heat back into the tires and so, we are doing the wave by procedure. Nicolas Baert, Adrian D'Silva and Christian Hook, Thank God, the three of them are perfectly OK. Porsche #54 is a retirement as we talked about and I think #98 is out, #992 had it's suspension failure with Patrick Pilet at the controls, he is in the pit lane.
Also, we have seen the retirement for the #98 BMW M4 GT3. So, stay tuned to hear more about the #992 HubAuto Porsche entry. We are getting shedloads of severe weather alerts as well. Is it worth it to repair the car and get back on track? We have only been racing for five hours and we have over 19 hours to go. Are we there yet? No! Not yet! Adam Smalley, by the way, is sharing his McLaren with Marvin Kirchhofer, Louis Prette, and Miguel Ramos. Jann Mardenborough has just pitted the #100 Team RJN McLaren. The Safety Car will be in at the end of this lap.
The Wave By does not allow the Pro Cup class cars to benefit. Green flag! Rossi might be able to pass Sam De Haan out of La Source and barreling towards Eau Rouge and Raidillon. Rossi might be setting up for a pass here with De Haan who I think is letting him go. It is his teammate, the #30 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3. Patric Niederhauser in the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3R is a lap down but is absolutely chsrging towards the Piff Paff and he is catching Rossi and Smalley hand over fist. Jules Gounon and Sheldon van der Linde battle for fourth right behind Marco Sorensen in the Aston Martin. Smalley, Rossi, 6/10ths apart.
Maximilian Gotz also makes a pass on Sam de Haan as Phillip Ellis is eighth in the #777 Al Manar Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 as Niederhauser tries getting back on the lead lap and is looking closer. Catching is one thing and overtaking is quite another. Philipp Ellis is sharing the #777 Al Manar Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Al Faisal Al Zubair, Dominik Baumann, and Mikael Grenier. We may have rain or we may have a clear sky. A dry Spa, is a contradiction. There is no point in going to the spa if you aren't getting wet and the mineral water around these parts has healing properties according to the locals.
The Aston is quicker than the Porsche. Niederhauser cannot pass into Les Combes as Rossi is defending hard with 98 laps in the bag, 426 miles, and we'll have 100 laps in the book soon. We have several cars within half a second of each other as Davide Rigon in the Ferrari wants by Sheldon van der Linde in the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3. The race leading McLaren of Adam Smalley is in the garage for a brake change. Everyone has to do a technical stop to replace brakes, with rotors and pads but they must have a brake issue that needs to be addressed. I am surprised they have to change brake pads this early in the game. A quick change and maybe new tires as well.
An unexpected pit stop for front brakes on the McLaren. Why would they change brake pads so soon? Adrien D'Silva and company are out of the race after that heavy accident. Downhill they come and now, the #63 Lamborghini went back out after the coolant leak but they are back in the garage and the #163 Lamborghini with South African Jordan Pepper is still in the race and so is the #48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 in 30th place I think. Niederhauser has been up there and now, we hear Smalley's McLaren had a broken brake disc that needed to be replaced.
Maro Engel says this isn't the race he and his teammates at the Mann Filter Mercedes team has not gone the way they wanted it to but they are going to focus forward and keep on trucking. Now, rain is coming in about ten minutes and we could indeed see a change to the wet weather tires. If you drop off the lead lap you cannot claw it back. We will be ending another racing hour soon and starting the sixth hour, so we'll be aiming for one quarter distance. Rossi, Sorensen, Gounon, Sheldon van der Linde, and Davide Rigon. Patric Niederhauser cannot unlap himself and has dropped away. Trouble in paradise for the sole remaining Rutronik Porsche in the race.
Lots of potential winners. Lots of cars that are out of position. We are going to be seeing a very long night here at Spa. It is almost 9:30 P.M. Belgian Time. Patric Niederhauser's Porsche is now sixth in the queue after being second and Niederhauser cannot unlap himself. Maybe his tires are knackered. He has done less time, half an hour, than Valentino Rossi, at 35 minutes. The Porsche's have not looked competitive thus far. Rossi leads Marco Sorensen and Jules Gounon. Luca Stolz says things are going pretty well at GetSpeed Mercedes to this point and he is anticipating rain in half an hour. That is Luca Stolz, not Fabian Schiller.
Stolz is taller, Fabian Schiller is shorter. Racing in the dark is what we are about to begin doing but we could see raindrops as well. This is going to get a little goofy, perhaps. Rossi is pinged for track limit abuses because the car will possibly getting a penalty but they reset every six hours. The more warnings you have for track limits, the more trouble you will be in. 27 cars on the lead lap as Marco Sorensen and Aston Martin now lead the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. Easy peasy lemon squeezy for Marco Sorensen. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Prodrive are still overseeing the developmet of these Aston Martin GT cars.
One car has ground to a halt someplace, possibly. Jules Gounon is putting Valentino Rossi under pressure with Sheldon van der Linde and Davide Rigon as well really beginning to push.
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