There is a GT3 car through Eau Rouge. This group of Hypercars that we are seeing is going to catch the GT class cars shortly and just breeze right by. 90 laps now in the book completed by the leading Ferrari #51 that has a nearly 27 second gap to the sister #50 car in second place. Bingo. Yifei Ye has gone by Callum Ilott. The yellow #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P passes the #12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963. Ye is off the road at the top of Eau Rouge and Raidillon! So, now Callum Ilott sees the open door and is passing right through. Schumacher in the Alpine wedged the Porsche between himself and the Toyota into the braking zone at Les Combes. Schumacher is right on Ryo Hirakawa's six once again and if he gets track position, he is going divebomb both of these chaps in a heartbeat.
This is a great battle. Four hours down and two to go. No idea who will win either category. Yifei Ye clears the GT3 traffic. One of the TF Sport Corvette's is there, and I cannot see just yet, maybe once the picture moves to the next frame, if there are other GT3 cars that were passed. Now then, Mick Schumacher in the Alpine is being monstered by the sister Toyota, the #7 with Nyck de Vries, the Dutchman, at the wheel of it. No further action for the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R of Morris Schuring, for overtaking with a lasting advantage. This public service announcement is brief. Now we return you, right here on The Sarcasm Channel to our featured episode of "Formula Bonkers!"
So, Manthey EMA and Porsche retain a seven and a half second gap in the GT3 lead over the Iron Dames and their Lamborghini. The other GT3 car that has been the class of the field along with the Iron Dames has been the #59 United Autosport McLaren 720S GT3. That is of course the James Cottingham, Nico Costa, Gregoire Saucy car. It is incredible to see Alpine, the little team that could, battling with the benchmark of endurance sports car racing in the form of Toyota Gazoo Racing. Oy vey! There's another GT3 car in the way. The Iron Dames Lamborghini is about to become the cork in the bottle for the battling Toyota's!
Yifei Ye was a lucky chap to slip through and be able to scamper away slightly from all this craziness. Rahel Frey is 7.8 seconds behind Morris Schuring. By the same token she has left the #92 Manthey team car, the Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R, in the hands of Joel Sturm, in her dust. Nico Costa has brought the #59 United Autosport McLaren to the pit lane as well. Three car manufacturers and four drivers of four different nationalities in this little battle for seventh spot. Ferrari, Toyota, Alpine, Toyota.
There's a Chinese driver racing a Japanese driver, a German driver, and a Dutch driver. It shows the international appeal of sports car endurance racing. Two Japanese cars, a French car, and an Italian car. All four of these Hypercars powered by turbo V6 motors of differing configurations. This is a great battle between Toyota and Alpine. Meanwhile, the third-place battle is hot, too. Earl Bamber in the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac is chasing Neel Jani in the Porsche, the FAT Turbo Porsche 963 run by Proton Competition. Jani was flying earlier in the race, but his speed has dissipated.
Of course, this weekend, Proton Competition has two programs in action. They have this Porsche at Spa, the #99 FAT Turbo entry and the #5 Mustang Sampling Porsche 963 that they campaign in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship racing at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California. Both of these cars have 24 lap old left tires and 50 lap old right tires. So, the right-side tires have been at least double stinted already. Iron Dames Lamborghini in the pit lane. Rahel Frey hands the car off to Michelle Gatting for the next stint.
With one more stop Michelle Gatting can take the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini to the finish. Manthey Racing now run 1-2 in LMGT3 with their Porsche's. Morris Schuring in the #91 ahead of Joel Sturm in the #92. Neither of the Manthey Porsche's have stopped. Meanwhile, the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 is in the lane as well. Mikkel Pedersen has finished his stint and so he might be handing over to Giorgio Roda. I cannot say for sure, but I think Dennis Olsen has already had his time behind the wheel of that car, or maybe I have flipped it around. It could be that Olsen, the Norwegian, is taking his stint now.
Ah. I am correct then. It was started by Roda, the Italian, so Olsen, the Platinum-rated Norwegian, will be at the controls. Gregoire Saucy is now on his out lap aboard the #59 United Autosports McLaren and he will take that car to the finish. He is now behind the Iron Dames. The leading #91 Porsche has now completed 85 laps, 370 miles. In Hypercar, the leading Ferrari #51 now has a similar gap to the sister car, shrunken down to 24 seconds, and has run 93 laps, 405 miles. Now we watch a battle in Hypercar for 14th place. Sheldon van der Linde, the South African, in the #20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 stuck like glue to the #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8.
I have to figure out if it is Paul di Resta or Loic Duval in the #94 Peugeot currently. Of course, Peugeot running two-driver lineups here at Spa. Meanwhile, Jani is still under incredible pressure from Earl Bamber as we speak. Jani's Porsche is starting to slide in the rear end. Jani has equivalent tires to Bamber. Oof! Jani locks up the brakes. Somehow, the Cadillac is still being kind to the tires here. Proton vs. Cadillac. Cadillac have been up and down the order like a yoyo, all day long. The track temp has risen to 36 and a half degrees Celsius. The ambient temperature has not changed much.
Cadillac started this race on scrubbed tires from qualifying, so they knew they'd lose track position right from the start. Meanwhile, we are watching a battle for fourth in LMGT3. This is Aston Martin vs. BMW. D'station vs. Team WRT. Erwan Bastard running ahead of Sean Gelael. Porsche 963 #6, the second Penske factory car, is in pit lane for a driver change and routine service. The Heart of Racing Aston Martin experienced an elongated pit stop because of a stuck left rear wheel. They have recovered back to third place.
In Hypercar, Yifei Ye has passed Callum Ilott for fifth place. Ryo Hirakawa and Nyck de Vries, the two Toyota's have now moved ahead of the #35 sister Alpine of Paul Loup Chatin. Mick Schumacher brought the sister car to the pit lane and now we see in replay, Yifei Ye runs wide down through Pouhon and he found his way past Callum Ilott. A good battle brewing in LMGT3. Daniel Mancinelli in the #27 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 ahead of Simon Mann aboard the #55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3. Simon Mann is running well and seems much more comfortable in the 296 Ferrari.
Side by side stuff for position as Sean Gelael passes Erwan Bastard on the exit of La Source, screaming up through Eau Rouge. Ferrari staying just ahead of the two Toyota's. Oh my God! Oh my God! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a massive accident! The #2 Chip Ganassi Cadillac, Earl Bamber, the car is absolutely destroyed! Oh! Sean Gelael in the #31 BMW M4 GT3 is also absolutely demolished! Safety Car deployed instantly. Game over for the #2 Cadillac. Alex Lynn was suited and booted ready to take over the car. So, this was Earl Bamber's in lap and now he has crashed! End of the race for the Cadillac and for the GT3 points leaders. Neither of the GT3 BMWs for WRT are going to make it to the finish in their home race. This is very disappointing for the team and for their legions of Belgian fans.
Oh man! Bamber tried going past the Proton Porsche and got wedged in the sandwich and then, he was flung to driver's right, air got underneath the car, it went airborne, and crashed back to earth on it's wheels. The car just corkscrewed and fortunately did not flip over. But the Hypercars are so long that I don't think the GT3 cars saw him. It was driver error. Red flag. No surprise. It is going to take a while to get to the cars. We won't need the safety car. Sean Gelael is out of the car under his own steam. So, what we are going to do here is monitor what is going on and give you updates.
Maybe we will go on to the next hours. But this is going to take a long time to clean up the accident. There's an hour and 45 minutes of racing remaining on the board. I think I will occasionally update you as I find out what is happening here, in the case of Earl Bamber and what we are going to do is probably move ahead to what could easily become the next hour of this race. I think we will stay with you, but it is going to be hard to gauge if the clock is ticking down since we are under red flag conditions here in Belgium.
We hope Earl Bamber is OK. He says he is fine. Thank God! Roger that. That was an airplane crash, practically. Sean Gelael is fine, too. At the end of te concrete barrier, Bamber very nearly hit the end of the concrete barrier. The fastest car is the #51 Ferrari 499P, at nearly 308 kilometers an hour. We have seen close to 320 kilometers an hour up the Kemmel straightaway. So, that is a range in miles per hour between 192-200! That's hauling the mail! He saw the gap, went for it, and it didn't work. He misjudged the speed difference between the Hypercar and the GT3 car which is not as much as it used to be in endurance racing but is still a good 20 miles an hour.
It used to be, in the old days, the speed delta between the prototypes and the production-based cars was 50 miles an hour or more, 50-100 miles an hour at least, thinking back to the late '60s through the early to mid 1990s anyhow and all the eras, the Porsche 917/Ferrari 512 days, the GT silhouette days, the Group C era, the LMP1 era, and now the Hypercar era. Neel Jani had nothing to do with that accident but Bamber tagged Jani and swerved before rotating and going over backwards.
Everyone knows that this is not deliberate and not a game of chicken. Sometimes it looks like a game of chicken but most often it isn't. We hear a misleading statement that the new Hypercars and GTP's as they are stateside in IMSA are slower than the cars we used to have 3-4 years ago even ten years ago, with LMP1. Baloney! Don't buy that. That's nonsense. These cars are incredibly quick. The margins are absolutely tiny. This stuff happens on motorways, highways. Drivers who don't take caution can still shunt in a straight line.
Jani miscalculated a move that he wanted to make. OK. The clock continues to tick so we should still be chatting here. Wise drivers always use their mirrors, on the road, on the track, it doesn't matter. There is a huge debris field full of sharp carbon fiber. Running over carbon fiber is like running barefoot through broken glass. It is like razor blades. It is brittle and thin and becomes a sea of needles that will lacerate tires. It is incredibly sharp. We've all stepped on a kids' Lego block and felt the pain of those things digging into our feet. Well, with carbon fiber, imagine standing on a razor blade and slicing the skin open! Ouch! Painful, and something that will draw blood. That is what carbon fiber shards are, like razor blades.
Carl Watana Bennett is aboard the #11 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 Competizione. That car is currently in 16th place right behind Loic Duval in the #94 Peugeot 9X8. Sheldon van der Linde in the #20 BMW had a penalty for the first safety car of this race. van der Linde and company cannot capitalize on improved performance. Mick Schumacher running well in the Alpine but outside the top ten having just made a pit stop. There are oter cars that will need to pit almost immediately. What do the energy graphics say? We need to find out. Meanwhile, Race Director Edoardo Freitas, has left his post in race control. No, he is not abandoning ship. All he is doing is his job as Race Director to take a good, hard look at the barriers and make sure they are up to code and safe so we can race again.
On the Kemmel straightaway it is concrete barriers to the inside and steel Armco barriers to the outside. The tire marks are visible from Earl Bamber literally being driven up the wall. Like the cars, the circuit is homologated for use in a certain level of safety. If that is breached, the circuit is no longer valid, and you cannot race on it. So, this is why we see the track inspection to make sure the standards are being maintained. Freitas, communicating on a walkie talkie back to Race Control and letting them know specifically what the conditions of the barriers are. In FIA WEC, one mechanic with a red armband on his sleeve, can assist and external batteries can be connected to the cars.
In Formula 1 during red flag procedure, you can change over to fresh tires. Formula 1 races are sprints. In endurance sports car racing like the World Endurance Championship, you cannot do that. Nobody ca bring a new set of boots and rattle guns or torque wrenches out to the dummy grid and change tires. Proton Competition will say, "we have a damaged rear end of the car, can we change it under red flag?" Well, the answer I would think is, "no, you cannot make any changes or service your race car under a red flag. Sorry. It is against the rules. Tough luck. Nothing can happen."
The plan is next to restart the motor race running behind the safety car. For the first three laps under safety car conditions, the pit lane is closed. Cars need fuel. Oh dear! What do we do?! What do we do?! Calm your waters. You may enter the pit lane for fuel, but you can only take a five second splash and dash. Then you must come back in again to fuel up. Red flags are never a good thing. After the red is lifted, we go back under safety car conditions followed by a wave around for the cars to form up in order depending on where each class leader is, so, that is the overall and class leader in Hypercar and the class leader in GT3.
This means, anyone with a tire advantage, it won't mean squat. There will be less time to use your tire advantage should you have one. 1/3rd of the GT3 field just stopped prior to the red flag. Cue the "Jaws" music, their rivals are going to be in a world of pain. We now hear from Antonio Fuoco from the #50 Ferrari camp, with our mate on pit reporter duties, Bruce Jouanny. First of all, he hopes the crash has been cleared up and everyone is OK. He thinks the team recovered well with Nicklas and Miguel, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina. The pace and the tire management are good and the time is still long.
With a safety car restart, luckily, Fuoco will have used, scrubbed in tires and the temperatures are cooling down. The drivers from the accident are OK. We had a 42-minute safety car period just before the halfway mark. Red flag followed by safety car, then a wave around. There is a conversation between the Peugeot co-drivers, or teammates, Mikkel Jensen and Loic Duval. Jensen driving in the #93 and Duval part of the duo in the #94. Edoardo Freitas is headed back to his course vehicle and back to do his job in Race Control. So, he is satisfied with the positioning of the concrete barrier that was hit by the Cadillac in the accident. Nothing has moved or if it has, it can be positioned correctly.
Now we are going to hear from Bruce Jouanny as he interviews Neel Jani, the Swiss driver who is part of the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 team in Hypercar. Jani was somewhat involved in that accident and he says he was totally surprised by being hit in the back while driving straight. There is damage from the crash on the right rear of the Porsche. The right rear taillight is missing. Hopefully it does not have to be fixed. They might be able to tape it up without changing the tail. They will want more cloud cover, but I don't think it is coming. We are going to have a sunny evening here at Spa Francorchamps as we restart this race.
Jules Gounon talking to his teammate at Alpine, Matthieu Vaxiviere. Gounon does not have Hypercar experience but has been racing GT3 cars for years. He adapted to the car quickly. Everyone has left their cars on the grid. Julien Andlauer is in the Proton Competition garage. Of course, Proton Competition are also in action in the United States in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship this weekend at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California, and you will have indeed already read about that race here on the blog. The 26 second gap Pier Guidi held over Fuoco will be negated with this restart as we have an hour and a half left on the board but are still udner red flag conditions.
Both Ferrari's will be nose to tail and now we are getting set to get going again. Davide Rigon tells us everything has gone fine with double stinting tires, and they might just need to change their strategy. He is glad that the drivers in the accident are OK. There was a driveshaft in the middle of the road from the Cadillac that flipped over. We are migrating fuel strategies. The issue we are looking down the barrel of here, ladies and gentlemen, is that most of the GT3 cars will be at fuel critical levels when we get rolling behind the safety car again. The red flag happened right in the middle of the fuel stop cycle in GT3.
We will not go green in the next ten minutes. This is not enough time. 80 minutes, a single pit stop, to use a surplus of tires? Are you crazy? That won't work. If you are in a tire deficit, it doesn't matter anymore. We've lost a whole stint. So, you don't need an extra set of tires looking at your strategy. All that stuff has been totally mitigated. Everyone can go to the end with just a single fuel stop where the teams can elect to maybe just change tires on the left side. The clock continues to tick, and all the debris has been cleared up. It is a matter now of getting the barriers fixed and back to specification.
You have the strategists setting their calculators and their pencils and paper on fire and you have me, the layman, the superfan, sitting here at his computer, trying to guess all of what that might be with zero info whatsoever. Trust me. Teams are not going to be stupid or ignorant enough to just give the game away. Come on. The playing field has been leveled. We have had a ton of attrition for a six-hour race today. A handful of years ago here at Spa we raced in the snow, when the Ardennes Forest decided to be cheeky and in that race, there were no retirements. It didn't snow for long, but there are a handful of of goose feather snowflakes that fell on the circuit.
The tire scrape on the concrete wall is visible and the safety fences continue to need to be repaired. Looking at other retirements. The #81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. is done for the day. The gearbox went kaboom on that car. So, cross that one off with the Sharpie of doom. Also, the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963, out, after Michael Christensen slammed the wall with the massive impact rendering the hybrid unit completely broken. So #5, headed to the house. Nico Pino in the #95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3, out with gearbox trouble. The #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 Hypercar, retired from the race with suspension failure.
Phil Hanson also involved in the other multi-car shunt. That was the #38 Jota Porsche that got clattered by the #20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8. Remember, after he came to rest, he keyed the radio and remarked to the team, "ugh! Lift and coast! It didn't work. The BMW plowed right into me. We're out, boys." Rene Rast was at the wheel of that #20 BMW. The #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 also had a huge impact in that same incident with Hanson's Porsche. So, Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin, and Ahmad Al Harthy are all retirements from today's race as well.
Such irony because that was the higher qualified of the two WRT BMW M4 GT3's in the race today. We continue under the red flag. We have had a stellar race so far up until the accident. The fans remain here to keep watching. The fans have more time to get snacks. More frites mayonnaise and beers for everyone to munch on and more time to catch up with friends and as they say, eat, drink, and be merry, before this motor race resumes. We see a great art shot of the #35 Alpine, the only one left in the race and my goodness. That is a handsome race car. Love the colors and the overall design character.
Of course, it helps that the motor in the back, the 3.4-liter turbocharged Mecachrome V6 engine, sounds great, too. That car might be French, and yes, there are stereotypes about French cars. However, it does have a beauty aspect to it in its design and execution. To editorialize, I still might question a bit, the mechanical soundness of that motor because the Mecachrome V634 V6 in the back of the Alpine was originally developed and designed as a motor for Formula 2 open wheel cars which run short sprint events as a support category to Formula 1. So, stretching the motor out for endurance races is a noble endeavor, but also could pose some reliability risk.
The Alpine is very quick with Mick Schumacher and Paul Loup Chatin. Kevin Estre at Porsche has one more stop over the competition depending on how long the safety car will be on track and he is banking that other cars will need to stop under the safety car to top up on energy. He believes stopping early will help Penske Porsche in the strategy department. The safety car is on the road and ready to go, to go for a wave around to get everyone back in order with an hour and 22 minutes of racing to go yet.
Ferrari run 1-2 ahead of the Proton Competition Porsche and another Ferrari. Ferrari will be under pressure. That is for dead sure. We have the three Ferrari 499P's as three of the top four cars, currently, looking closely at the race order. We have seen some fun and games between Alessandro Pier Guidi in #51 and Antonio Fuoco in #50. Fuoco will remain at the wheel of the #50 and we will see fireworks. He is going to be feisty as ever, feisty as hell, honestly. We could, at this point, we could have a Ferrari 1-2-3 or we could see the Ferrari's drop back down the order. Ah. A note has come up on the timing screen.
I shall quote this regulation directly from the rulebook just as our mate Anthony Davidson in the commentary box has done. Quote.
"On safety grounds, a tire change on the grid will be allowed between the ten minute and the five-minute boards as foreseen in Sporting Regulations Article, point one something."
OK. You heard it here. Article point one something in the sporting regs permits for teams to change tires on the dummy grid as they so wish. The rationale, well, many, many cars ran through the debris, all the carbon shards littering the circuit after the accident with the #2 Cadillac V Series.R and the #31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3. That is why they will be allowing a tire change should they all have tires available but which ones? Which Michelin tires do they have left? Kevin Estre and Porsche #6 have a single lap on a full set of tires so he will last to the end of the race. Callum Ilott in the sole remaining Jota Sport Porsche 963 #12 has zero laps on his tires.
That is the car he shares with Will Stevens of course. He has not completed a single lap on his tires yet. He still must go around 4.352 miles. 29 laps on the left side tires for the #7 Toyota and 24 laps on the left side tires for the #8 sister car. We will now hear from a very disappointed Alex Lynn who was due to share again, the now crashed out and destroyed #2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac Hypercar. Lynn says, "I am super sad. The team deserved more and had a fast car in qualifying and the race. I can't hide my disappointment. I am happy Earl is OK and I will go visit him now."
Alex Lynn believes the Cadillac is best designed for Le Mans and will be extremely strong there in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the next race in the championship. Glad to see Sean Gelael is OK too. Sean Gelael has been a prototype driver before. A gorgeous aerial view of Spa Francorchamps and the forest. Anyone who had a tire advantage and anyone in the hole with tires, if you squandered or misused your tires earlier in the game, well, I'm sorry, but it is a moot point. You'll have to take your medicine and just keep going. Cry me a river. It will do you no good. Cry me a river, I cried a river for you. Not. Toyota saved and saved their tires, but it is going to be totally useless.
At best we will have a single racing stint remaining. A safety car restart is what will happen. The vertical barriers need to be replaced before putting the horizontal barriers up. So, I think we are going to just have to wait another half an hour before these repairs are completed and hence, we are only going to get about 45 minutes of actual racing out of all of this mess. There's two supporting sections of the Armco and the catch fencing itself. The real issue is who will be murdered by having no fuel left in the tank. Not literal murder! Heaven forbid! Believe me, that was a figure of speech. Anyone way under 10% energy will have to get bac to the lane and top up.
Of course, Spa Francorchamps is the second longest circuit on the calendar apart from Le Mans. Head of Team WRT's LMGT3 program, Kurt Mollekens, has a word for us. He says it is very unfortunate that they have nil points for both cars and lots of work to do before Le Mans. Their performance seems to be in a good place right now. Mollekens is a handy racing driver. He raced in Formula 3000 in open wheel cars, ran his own team called KTR, and then joined forces with Christian Horner and they ran a team together. Horner started Arden which led to Red Bull and their Formula 1 dynasty.
The shadows are growing long. Very little cloud cover. The track is hot. The track temps are coming down. Everyone will be on fresh tires. Still, lots of work going on with the barrier repairs. We will now hear from another great ex-racer from Belgium who is part of the Team WRT brain trust, Thierry Tassin. He is the head of the Hypercar engineering program, the Sporting Director. He tells us that he knew the question was coming, congratulating the commentary team. The lucky ones are are the #6 Porsche, the #12 Porsche, and the #36 Alpine. WRT does not know what is going to happen. We don't know what is going to happen before the restart.
You need catch fences on the Kemmel straightaway with the cars flying by. Sean Gelael, out of the race, but he is OK. He had a huge hit on the driver's side of that BMW M4 GT3! The fans are still having a great time. Over 80,000 fans in attendance here at Spa Francorchamps. It is great to have fans along the fence but those with a ticket as well as in a race car, must be safe. Sean Gelael tells us that the accident could have been worse, and he was lucky to be OK in the accident. He is looking forward to Le Mans. That is for sure. Don't take accidents like this lightly. They are a part of racing but are avoidable.
Cool, calm, collected, measured, Sean Gelael's assessment of the incident. Don't interview a driver right after a big crash. Like anyone, give them time to process their thoughts and emotions before they say anything. We all might put ourselves in situations where we say things that we later regret. Racing drivers are human, just like the rest of us. OK, everybody, we are coming up on what will now be the final hour of the motor race here at Spa as we continue under red flag conditions.
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