24 Hours of Spa: Hour 9

It is a truly constant shuffle here with the rain.  Cold and boredom setting in.  149 laps now in the books, at 1/3rd distance.  648 miles.  The European summer has been pretty rainy save for Sicily, Sardinia, or anywhere in the Mediterranean.  Some teams want a red flag, and others don't.  Here are our class leaders.  Alain Valente leads the Silver class in the #90 MadPanda Motorsports Mercedes.  Bronze led by the #88 Tresor Attempto Audi R8 LMS Evo II.  We will see the Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari #93 of Eddie Cheever III., Chris Froggatt, Lilou Wadoux, and Eddie Cheever III. getting the points.  In Gold it is Al Faisal Al Zubair leading in the #777 Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3.  

Overall/Pro: #34 Pittard/Gunn/Chaves    Walkenhorst Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo

             Pro Am: #100 Buncombe/Bumcombe/Caygill/Mardenborough Team RJN McLaren 720S GT3

             Silver: #55 Rappange/Blom/Nakken/Nouet     Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3R (992)

             Bronze: #66 Mukovoz/Nesov/Pereira/Hofer    Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II

Pit stop time at Barwell Motorsports for a driver change.  The rain is not easing at all.  Till Bechtolsheimer is being told everything and anything by Ricky Collard about track conditions and that is a ton of information for a driver to take in.  A GT3 car or any sports car is designed to go flat out, and they are unwieldy beasts at slow speed, like chaining up a racehorse and making it pull a carriage.  They just can't do it.  Race cars want to go fast!  There is a river of water at Eau Rouge running downhill to La Source.  Pit stop time at the #57 Winward Racing team but the fuel is running down the side of the car!  Be careful!  That could cause a fire, and the fueling rig, something is wrong.  Maybe it is just water.

At the #48 Mercedes team, the fuel hose did not connect the hose to the refueling probe.  Excuse me, the probe into the fuel filler.  We remain under safety car with 15 hours and 40 minutes to go, 50 minutes into the eighth safety car intervention.  At Barwell Motorsports, Till Bechtolsheimer says "no, we aren't ready for slicks yet."  54 of the 66 starters are still running.  More pit stops at Team WRT BMW and Boutsen VDS Mercedes.  Thierry Boutsen handed the operation of his team to his sister and her husband.  They have run touring cars and GT3.  The Belgian teams populate themselves with former racers, the Belgian weather, and endurance sports car racing in general.  

Making a pit stop under the safety car is something where a driver risks plummeting right down the running order.  Drivers can triple stint now with the yellow flags.  Marco Mapelli will be in after Franck Perera.  A driver change, and tires and fuel for the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi.  This is the #99 car with a flashing rain light that could be falling out.  They are rewiring and tie wrapping the light into the back, into the tail of the car.  The have many signatures on the rear bumper of the Audi as well.  Goodness knows why that is.  15 and a half hours to go and I have a feeling we are going to be running slowly for a good while.

The deal with homologation for GT3 and global Balance of Performance is that the car is homologated in an exact condition.  The FIA homologate the cars.  Audi, Mercedes, Aston Martin... the cars are power tested, wind tunnel tested, and on and on, and they weigh, measure, test, and 3D scan the cars.  Post-race and post session, they are 3D scanned again.  Every bit of bodywork must be exact to the scan and the shape.  If there is a defect in anything, you are out, because of the balance and measuring, and all these brands so close together.  Someone has just put their headlamps on.

Joel Sturm just finished his stint at Pure Racing.  It was a boring stint running behind the safety car and the weather conditions are just bad.  Joel Sturm says the aquaplaning at 80 kilometers an hour is unreal, and we just can't restart yet.  There is no way.  It is cold, it is boring, and all the driver is doing is calculating fuel mileage.  Klaus Bachler has been at the Nurburgring, Le Mans, Watkins Glen, and now, Spa.  At Le Mans under the safety car drivers were so bored they were getting tired and want to go to sleep.  He was playing Beat the Intro for a Name That Tune kind of game.  Alex Aka has taken over the #99 Attempto Racing Audi.

We are nowhere close to getting back to full metal racing here.  Just settle in and wait.  Alexey Nesov leads overall and in the Bronze class.  The #99 Audi has had the brake light fixed, not the high intensity rain light.  You need to rain light but not necessarily the brake lights.  The #100 Pro class leading RJN McLaren is approaching the Paul Frere curve.  It is coming out through Blanchimont.  It was stationary waiting for the safety car.  Normally the GPS tracker is on the button.  Sky Tempesta Racing #93 Ferrari in and out.  Did they pick up a penalty?  A time penalty.  The Uno Racing #16 Mercedes sped in the pit lane, apparently.  OK.  

At Lionspeed, Martin Rump is totally soaked.  He was sweating like mad and not getting soaked by rain.  Drivers are athletes, never underestimate or forget that.  He was catching the pack straight out of the pits,M and it is so dangerous behind the safety car trying to circulate heat into the tires without aquaplaning.  It was getting a little bit better but then getting worse again.  The new tarmac is not so bad except if it is covered in standing water.  Alexander Fach is now driving and hopefully he gets green flag racing time.  Don't fall asleep, tell jokes to the race engineer and just hang in there.  We have two Estonian drivers.  Martin Rump and Ralf Aron I believe.  The #91 Herberth Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R has been shown as retired.  Morris Schuring, Ralf Bohn, Robert Renauer, and Alfred Renauer.  Now, the #36 Aston Martin at Walkenhorst Motorsports is in for repairs in the garage.

This is Tim Creswick, Bijoy Garg (the LMP2 Le Mans winner, one of them), Mex Jansen, and Ben Green.  No sign of the safety car withdrawing itself.  The top 33 cars are still on the lead lap.  156 laps, 679 miles.  From second, the sister #35 Walkenhorst Aston Martin is in.  Lorcan Hanafin, Romain Leroux, and Maxime Robin are the trio.  Car #998 under investigation for incorrectly leaving the pit lane.  Augusto Farfus, Dan Harper, and Max Hesse.  We are playing the waiting game, and we aren't winning or losing right now.  We'll just have to keep you informed as I sit here typing and telling you all the story.    

The #72 Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini has been up and down again, and this is the sister car to the #78.  Luxembourg's Gabriele Rindone, Finland's Patrick Kujala, Mattia Michelotto, from Italy, and England's Casper Stevenson.  The #91 Herberth Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R has been crashed by Morris Schuring, crashing under the cover of darkness and we need the market of doom, a Sharpie pen.  The #91 car was penalized but they wrecked the car.  54 of 66 cars now still running and a dozen are out of the race.  This eighth safety car has lasted an hour and a half.