What we are going to do (as the red flag is still happening), is that we are going to have a look at a full field rundown once again. Pardon me if we've already done this. But I believe we ought to give it another look before we hopefully restart and do everything we can to get to the finish. As of now, 96 laps have been completed, by the leading #51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P with the sister #50 car in second place, 14 seconds behind. 418 miles in the book. Let's do a full field rundown.
1. Hypercar: #51 Giovinazzi/Calado/Pier Guidi AF Corse Ferrari 499P
2. Hypercar: #50 Nielsen/Molina/Fuoco AF Corse Ferrari 499P
3. Hypercar: #99 Andlauer/Jani Proton Competition Porsche 963
4. Hypercar: #83 Kubica/Shwartzman/Ye AF Corse Ferrari 499P
5. Hypercar: #7 Conway/de Vries/Kobayashi Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
6. Hypercar: #8 Buemi/Hirakawa/Hartley Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
7. Hypercar: #35 Milesi/Chatin/Gounon Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424
8. Hypercar: #15 Wittmann/Vanthoor/Marciello BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8
9. Hypercar: #93 Muller/Jensen Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8
10. Hypercar: #12 Stevens/Ilott Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963
11. Hypercar: #6 Vanthoor/Estre/Lotterer Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963
12. Hypercar: #36 Lapierre/Vaxiviere/Schumacher Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424
13. Hypercar: #20 Rast/Frijns/van der Linde BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8
14. Hypercar: #94 di Resta/Duval Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8
15. Hypercar: #11 Vernay/Bennett/Serravalle Isotta Fraschini Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH
Competizione
That is the top 15, all Hypercars. Before we move to the LMGT3 rundown, the leader is the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (992) being shared by the trio of Yasser Shahin, Richard Lietz, and Morris Schuring. They have completed 88 laps, 393 miles.
16. LMGT3: #91 Shahin/Lietz/Schuring Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (992)
17. LMGT3: #27 James/Riberas/Mancinelli Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR
GT3 Evo
18. LMGT3: #55 Heriau/Rovera/Mann Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3
19. LMGT3: #777 Mateu/Sorensen/Bastard D'station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo
20. LMGT3: #85 Bovy/Frey/Gatting Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2
21. LMGT3: #59 Cottingham/Costa/Saucy United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo
22. LMGT3: #54 Flohr/Rigon/Castellacci Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3
23. LMGT3: #92 Malykhin/Sturm/Bachler Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R (992)
24. LMGT3: #88 Pedersen/Olsen/Roda Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3
25. LMGT3: #78 Robin/Miyata/Schmid Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3
26. LMGT3: #77 Hardwick/Robichon/Barker Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3
27. LMGT3: #60 Schiavoni/Perera/Cressoni Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2
28. LMGT3: #82 Koizumi/Juncadella/Baud TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette C8 Z06 GT3.R
29. LMGT3: #87 Kimura/Masson/Lopez Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3
30. Hypercar: #2 Lynn/Bamber Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R
31. LMGT3: #31 Farfus/Leung/Gelael Team WRT BMW M4 GT3
32. Hypercar: #5 Makowiecki/Christensen/Campbell Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963
33. LMGT3: #95 Caygill/Pino/Sato United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3
34. Hypercar: #63 Kvyat/Caldarelli/Bortolotti Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63
35. LMGT3: #81 van Rompuy/Andrade/Eastwood TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette C8 Z06 GT3.R
36. Hypercar: #38 Hanson/Button/Rasmussen Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963
37. LMGT3: #46 Al Harthy/Martin/Rossi Team WRT BMW M4 GT3
When we do go back to racing, we will see many cars in dire need of fuel and needing to fill the tank ASAP on their next pit stops. We are going through the field rundown right now because of continuing to wait for the barriers to be rebuilt and for racing itself to resume. 55 minutes remain on the clock. We await further news. When we go racing, just a little over one stint will be left for the drivers to accomplish. We are expecting drama, so stand by. We continue seeing the barriers going back together and going up. Race Control,has said all cars may change tires due to the massive debris field that we have seen.
Up to the five-minute board when the cars must be on the ground on new tires, everyone will go for it. We are not close to a restart because we can still see Edoardo Freitas is out on the course overseeing the reconstruction of the safety barriers. Only four mechanics can approach the car to sort out the tire changes for the decisions on tires and what we will see are the mechanics bringing out the tire trollies and the compressed air bottles that power the rattle guns to change the tires. Those compressed air systems are portable and I believe they are not necessarily hardwired to the pit lane, unless of course, for situations such as this, there might be portable compressed air tanks for the rattle guns the mechanics can bring out.
Race Control will have to give some of the teams' permission, and that is what Neel Jani is being told. Changing tires is one thing. Putting fuel in the car is a different matter entirely. Porsche #6, Porsche #12, and Alpine #36 have all done a full-service pit stop already. There could be a pass around. Some cars have already pitted. The GT3 class leader is the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R. Currently, in GT3, TF Sport have done six stops, Iron Lynx and Proton Mustang's #77 and #88 stopped. #92 Manthey Pure Racing have stopped and so have Vista AF Corse. There are three or four LMGT3 cars that still owe us a pit stop so we can get the strategy back on sequence here.
Manthey EMA is not one of the cars that will need to pit again. Heart of Racing, the #27 Aston Martin has done four stops. They are second. The #55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari has done four stops, they are third. The #777 D'station Aston Martin has only done four stops as well. They will need another here before long. The #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini, running in fifth place, they have done five pit stops already. They have not incurred a penalty at all. So, Manthey EMA were on the out lap and there is another car in front in the queue that will get waved around, Aston Martin #777. I think the others did stop within the last few laps. OK. Maybe I am missing something.
The #60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Franck Perera stopped but they have fresh, green tires that have not done any laps. Oh dear. All kinds of confusion. Car #92, the Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R, they will get a pass around. #82 Corvette of Sebastien Baud is the second TF Sport car that had a puncture, and they will get a wave by to get back onto the lead lap. The #91 Manthey EMA Porsche of Morris Schuring must stop. Manthey EMA has to stop. Heart of Racing will need to stop soon. Vista AF Corse #55 have run 26 laps on their left side tires.
The #777 D'station Aston Martin had 44 laps apiece on all four tires. So, you have to know those Goodyear's are getting ratty. They've been through a double stint as we speak. The #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini of Michelle Gatting and the #95 United Autosports McLaren of Nico Pino, Gatting has stopped. Pino has not. Pino will need tires, for sure. Hang on just a second here, folks. I am still mentally sorting all this out, as we watch the #81 TF Sport Corvette being worked on in the garage. They are trying to get the car back on track to finish the race but it is still going to be a tall drink of water for the sister TF Sport Corvette to get back out there.
Pino took emergency service for fuel, he took five seconds of fuel, but he needs fuel and tires, both. If we are going to run for a half an hour, GT3 cars that recently stopped will have a way to go yet. The Iron Dames Lamborghini should get home on the fuel they have in the tank now. The same is true for the #59 United Autosports McLaren and for the #92 Manthey Pure Racing Porsche. The #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 is on the bubble as far as fuel. Their sister car, the #88 machine is fine. The #91 Manthey EMA Porsche and the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin are OK.
As for the two Lexus RC F GT3's from Akkodis ASP, I believe both the #78 and the #87 will need another stop to get to the finish. D'station with the Aston Martin, as we were just discussing, they will need a splash and a dash, probably. So, this all is going to be turned over on it's head, the whole rest of this race, with all these differing fuel strategies that are beginning to play out. Iron Dames and Manthey Pure Racing are looking to be in the pound seats. The #92 does not need fuel because they just stopped but the top four need to stop with 45 minutes to go. 88,180 spectators in the crowd for the race today! Wow!
The #88 and #92, are two laps into their stints and #85 is three laps in. They can stay out until the end of the race. We need to check the race order on the lap before the red flag came out due to Earl Bamber's massive accident in the #2 Cadillac. Neel Jani is being told that at the 15 minute signal, they will get a chance to change the tires and then I think we are going to have a time extension on the race. I really believe this is what is going to happen. The cars that are truly out of gas are going to be in a king size world of pain. The reason for that is they will have to pit for emergency service, emergency refueling under a safety car situation and they will have to pit twice.
There are many question marks with the Hypercars and their respective fuel situations as well. If we end up going racing again, Iron Dames, and the Manthey Pure Racing Porsche will be right in it to win it. Forget the timing gaps. They will fall to zero under the safety car. We have the catch fences and the Armco barriers being buttoned up. This is going to take another 15-20 minutes, maybe half an hour before we get the barriers together. I wonder if this race will be called. It will be full points. So, work continues on the barriers and all we can do is just sit and wait. Half points will be awarded if the leader completes more than two laps without being under Full Course Yellow. But less than 75% of the original race time.
We haven't done that. So, only half points will be awarded if this race is fully red flagged and a winner is declared without restarting. The two laps rule goes back to a race at Fuji Speedway in Japan that was so rainy and stormy that only two laps were completed under safety car conditions before the race was totally abandoned. No, I don't quite remember what year that was in. Somebody please help me out if you can find that stat. Kazuki Nakajima won that race singlehandedly that day. It was the only time an LMP1 Hybrid ran unrestricted with debris in the air intake. That was with the Audi R18 eTron Quattro I believe, behind the safety car.
There was also a disastrous World Sports Car Championship race at Fuji in 1985 that was finished after two hours and most of the European teams didn't even race because of the conditions. The 1985 race at Fuji was run in a typhoon as I recall. That was during the Group C era, and on that day, with Fuji being a Toyota track, well, their rivals from Nissan won the race on their home turf. That had to sting. Thank heavens it is not bucketing down with rain and incredibly cold here at Spa like it was in 2023. That was a miserable event. We have seen a couple of races here at Spa that have been blustery, clammy, and rainy, due to the microclimate of the Ardennes Forest.
The marshals are taking it easy. They are a volunteer army though. They don't get paid. They do it, because they love motor racing. I doff my hat to the corner workers, to the track safety marshals, because without them, there would be no motor racing at all. We have tons of drivers that have not driven in this race today yet. Richard Lietz, Alex Riberas and more. That will be force majeur and therefore, irrelevant. Again, the cars are just sitting down on the grid in single file formation. During that miserably rainy race at Fuji, fans still had a chance to do another pit lane walk even with the rain tipping down.
We look forward to the FIA WEC racing in Japan in the fall. The fanbase is peerless. We are also ready to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans coming up very soon. We are back at Interlagos in Brazil later in the year and will close the season in Bahrain in November. Hello to John Watson, watching this race from home, a Formula 1 driver and race winner and a sports car driver. I believe he raced for Porsche, Jaguar, and Toyota. John Watson is on commentary for the SRO GT World Challenge Europe. We will see the centenary of that event coming up later this summer. It will be an amazing festival. Don't miss it!
As of now, we have 96 laps completed, 418 miles, and a former lead gap of 13.6 seconds between the two factory AF Corse Ferrari 499P's. We should have time, so let's take you through another full field rundown.
1. Hypercar: #51 Giovinazzi/Calado/Pier Guidi Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P
2. Hypercar: #50 Nielsen/Molina/Fuoco Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P
3. Hypercar: #99 Andlauer/Jani Proton Competition Porsche 963
4. Hypercar: #83 Kubica/Shwartzman/Ye AF Corse Ferrari 499P
5. Hypercar: #7 Conway/de Vries/Kobayashi Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
6. Hypercar: #8 Buemi/Hirakawa/Hartley Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
7. Hypercar: #35 Milesi/Chatin/Gounon Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424
8. Hypercar: #15 Wittmann/Vanthoor/Marciello BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8
9. Hypercar: #93 Muller/Jensen Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8 2024
10. Hypercar: #12 Stevens/Illott Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963
11. Hypercar: #6 Vanthoor/Estre/Lotterer Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963
12. Hypercar: #36 Lapierre/Vaxiviere/Schumacher Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424
13. Hypercar: #20 Rast/Frijns/van der Linde BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8
14. Hypercar: #94 di Resta/Duval Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8 2024
15. Hypercar: #11 Vernay/Bennett/Serravalle Isotta Fraschini Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH Competizione
16. LMGT3: #91 Shahin/Lietz/Schuring Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (992)
17. LMGT3: #27 James/RIberas/Mancinelli Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR
GT3 Evo
18. LMGT3: #55 Heriua/Rovera/Mann Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3
19. LMGT3: #777 Mateu/Sorensen/Bastard D'station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3
Evo
20. LMGT3: #85 Bovy/Frey/Gatting Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo 2
21. LMGT3: #59 Cottingham/Costa/Saucy United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo
22. LMGT3: #54 Flohr/Rigon/Castellacci Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3
23. LMGT3: #92 Malykhin/Sturm/Bachler Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R (992)
24. LMGT3: #88 Pedersen/Olsen/Roda Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3
25. LMGT3: #78 Robin/Miyata/Schmid Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3
26. LMGT3: #77 Hardwick/Robichon/Barker Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3
27. LMGT3: #60 Schiavoni/Perera/Cressoni Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo 2
28. LMGT3: #82 Koizumi/Juncadella/Baud TF Sport Chevroklet Corvette C8 Z06 GT3.R
29. LMGT3: #87 Kimura/Masson/Lopez Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3
30. Hypercar: #2 Lynn/Bamber Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V Series.R
31. LMGT3: #31 Farfus/Leung/Gelael Team WRT BMW M4 GT3
32. Hypercar: #5 Makowiecki/Christensen/Campbell Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963
33. LMGT3: #95 Caygill/Pino/Sato United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo
34. Hypercar: #63 Kvyat/Caldarelli/Bortolotti Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63
35. LMGT3: #81 van Rompuy/Andrade/Eastwood TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette C8 Z06 GT3.R
36. Hypercar: #38 Hanson/Button/Rasmussen Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963
37. LMGT3: #46 Al Harthy/Martin/Rossi Team WRT BMW M4 GT3
Back in the Porsche 917 days of the very early 1970s, when Spa Francorchamps was double the length of what it is now, the outright lap record was not held by Formula 1 cars. It was held by sports cars. Wow. OK. That is indeed the entire field rundown including all cars that are now officially listed as retired from the race. Half an hour to go. Spa Francorchamps and Reims in France, were the fastest tracks in Formula 1 way back when. Funny that a lot of the corners on the old Spa circuit were slower than the ones we have on the modern circuit. Back then, the only "catch fences" that were around were barbed wire cattle fences! Oh my heavens! Perish the thought! Of course, cars in the '50s, '60s and '70s had very little downforce, early '70s anyway.
Television makes Eau Rouge look way too easy. The profile of the corner, that was a challenge for older cars and still is a challenge for modern sports cars. The modern open-wheel cars have outgrown that corner which is such a shame. The sports car drivers have really had to focus on it and it still makes them nervous. It puts fear and adrenaline into your body. We continue waiting for the 15-minute board before the tires can be changed. Currently, there will be a Bronze graded driver, Sarah Bovy, as the most consistent, quickest driver in GT3. At Imola, a Bronze driver did not win. This would be a first. All three established Iron Dames drivers had status reviews by the FIA and remarkably, both Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting switched and had their statuses changed.
Sebastien Baud in one of the two TF Sport Corvette's is a Silver-rated driver. It is a thrill to see so many fans here. It is a shame that we have had to deal with the red flag for this amount of time. 24 minutes left on the clock. Our mate John Watson points out that top level GT3 drivers in SRO GT World Challenge Europe, for the 24 Hours of Spa, later in the year, will be Harry Flatters through Eau Rouge and over the top of Raidillon. Matra are the lap record holders on the old Spa circuit configuration with an average speed of over 163 miles an hour. Holy smokes! Those are the older generation cars that were far more fragile and brittle than these modern machines. A Formula 1 car or an endurance car of that period was nothing more than a bathtub surrounded by fuel with an engine bolted to the back of it.
Fuel over your knees in an old Formula 1 car with the big tank right in front of you. Great drivers have lost their lives or ended their careers here. Stefan Bellof, Anthoine Hubert, those greats come to mind. The rescue vehicles are set to leave the scene, and I think there is a new concrete block needed and a crane, an extra crane has been delivered. 22 minutes currently left on the clock. At 15 minutes there will be a warning, a command to start engines, and form up behind the safety car. Then, we'll see how much more racing we actually get.
The safety car formation will need five minutes for the warmup laps. The race may not restart. We may be in a similar situation, although far less tragic, than the Spa 1,000 Kilometers World Endurance Championship race here in September of 1985 when Stefan Bellof was killed when his Brun Racing Porsche 956, in Eau Rouge, went off the road and slammed into the Armco barriers at unabated speed, catching on fire, and Bellof was killed instantly, at age 27, likely from a skull fracture. Rest In Peace, Stefan Bellof. Godspeed, legend. Track workers are running at full tilt boogie to get the barriers put back together.
21 minutes. They will need 15 minutes at least before the engines fire up again and I am with the boys in the commentary box, Martin Haven and Graham Goodwin. I don't see the race getting back underway anytime soon. There is just no way we are going to restart this thing. Now, perhaps I shall have to eat my words. But right now, it is looking pretty grim as to whether or not we will restart the 6 Hours of Spa in 2024. Six minutes is not even two safety car laps. Little fluffy clouds dot the blue sky here at Spa Francorchamps. The clouds are not bringing the track temperature down.
18 minutes to go. We are about to hear from Edoardo Freitas and the likelihood is that we are not going to be able to restart this motor race I'm afraid. Sorry, everyone. Bruce Jouanny in the pit lane is with Miguel Molina in the #50 Ferrari. It could be the end of the race, but we don't know. What is clear that Ferrari has gone an incredible job as the #50 was way down the Hypercar grid of course. Stick together as a team. That is Ferrari's philosophy at this point. The standings show the two Ferrari's at the top of the shop with the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 third. Fourth and fifth are the two Toyota's, #7 and #8.
On countback to the previous lap, before it's accident that took it out of the race, the #2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac will perhaps be credited with fourth spot if the race ends now even though the car itself is nowhere to be seen because of the damage suffered in Earl Bamber's unscheduled flight. The drivers are playing to the crowd, showing off. The fans should be rewarded. Welcome to the Spa Francorchamps 8 Hours. We have had 42 minutes of safety car and an hour and 20 minutes worth of red flag stoppage time.
I think the WEC needs to intervene. Bring out the dancing teddy bear, the race car driver mascot, and the t shirt cannons to quell the enthusiasm of the crowd and give them something to cheer them up more as they've been in the doldrums playing the waiting game this whole time. The weekend has been gorgeous, and the fans have seen cool cars and some epic racing. It is only a Saturday. Having fueled early, and now biting the bullet, I think Manthey Pure Racing Porsche and Iron Dames Lamborghini are going to lose out on a good thing. At the moment, the metal barriers are being hammered and bolted back into place.
Manthey EMA Porsche, Heart of Racing Aston Martin, and United Autosports McLaren. These are the top three cars in LMGT3. Excuse me. It is Manthey EMA Porsche, Heart of Racing Aston Martin, and the #55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari. Gregoire Saucy in the #59 United Autosports McLaren is shown sixth in class. In the Hypercar class, we are seeing two competitive Ferrari's, Proton Competition's Porsche 963 in the picture and a massively better performance from the Alpine Endurance Team here than what we saw in the previous two races in Qatar and Imola. BMW have been in the fight. Toyota, climbing the order, they will feel that they were robbed.
Sarah Bovy has been the star today in LMGT3 in the Iron Dames Lamborghini. Great stuff as well, from the #59 United Autosports McLaren in the lead in LMGT3. The two Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3's look to be far more raceable this weekend than they were in Qatar or in Imola. But, the McLaren's seem to be better suited here at Spa. United Autosport has knowledge here even though they were racing i LMP2. Kudos as well to the Akkodis ASP Lexus team. They are finding their feet, but at the same time, they too have been in the fight the whole way.
12 minutes left on the board. I just don't believe that we are going to restart this race. Stranger things have happened. But at this moment, at the risk of eating a massive slice of humble pie, I don't think we are going to restart the motor race at all. The barriers continue to be fixed. That massive accident between Earl Bamber and Sean Gelael, caused the damage to the barriers. Oh my! I am eating humble pie now! Guess what, everyone? We are going to extend the time of this race by the duration of the red flag to fix the barriers. This will become the 8 Hours of Spa Francorchamps, or at least the 6 Hours of Spa!
That is wonderful! When the announcers on the public address system tell the fans, they will go bonkers! Alright. So, we reset the clock to an hour and 47 minutes remaining. We are going to get bonus time, or overtime as they call it in NASCAR. So, in 19 minutes, at ten past the hour, the race is going to resume behind the safety car. There is more of this story still to tell. It is a Saturday. We have good weather. It will be 7PM local time and this race will end at 8:40 P.M. Central European Time. This one is for the fans, and 88,000 people will go home happy! Last year in 2023, it would be nearly dark by now because we had rain, mist, clouds, and cold in the forest.
So glad to hear that both Earl Bamber and Sean Gelael are perfectly fine after that massive accident. The three cars that had just taken on fuel, we reset that, and people still have the option to change tires. The cars will have longer to catch up. We are going to keep going. Watch the two Porsche's, Callum Ilott in the #12 Hertz Team Jota privateer Porsche 963 and Kevin Estre in the factory 963 for Porsche Penske Motorsports. This is going to be a slugfest to the end. Private Porsche vs. factory Porsche. Shades of the glory days of Group C in the 1980s with the factory Rothmans Porsche 956's and 962's running here at Spa against the privateer cars.
Of course, back then, you also had manufacturers in the mix in Group C1 including such names as Lancia, Jaguar, and Mercedes Benz. We are going to restart at 19:10, 7:10 P.M. The assigned grid mechanic for each car can come out with the tire trolley but cannot touch the car until they are instructed to do so by Race Control. I think for safety, the tire changes will be necessary. Who is going to need fuel? That is the big question. We know the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche will need gasoline, and we are also going to see cars coming in for a splash. The tires are out and so are the portable air bottles for the rattle guns.
Grab another helping of frites mayonnaise and Belgian beer. You are going to need it. Another bottle of Stella Artois or Jupiler, should carry us through the rest of this now extended enduro. We will have the full wave by, the emergency service provisions will be in place and the pit lane will be closed for a handful of laps. The Hypercars will need to warm up their tires. Pit entrance is closed. You can still come in for a splash and dash of fuel and wait at the end of pit lane for the red light and put the rest of the fuel in under green.
Michelle Gatting is getting back into the Iron Dames Lamborghini. I don't remember this happening before in a race that has been red flagged. Usually, the red flag comes out, we declare a winner, and pack it up and go home. But the FIA WEC are sticking this one out, for the fans! Hello? Formula 1? Are you watching? Again, we have the medium compound Michelin tire. The soft tire was used during Hyperpole qualifying. These are, to clarify, the tire options in the Hypercar class. In LMGT3 the Goodyear tires are the medium compound.
A good way to put this is the reverse of a Formula 1 weekend. We have had the Grand Prix first, and now, it is time for the sprint race. All of the GT3 cars are on the medium compound Goodyear tires. We cannot call the Medium Plus Goodyear tire a harder tire. It is a different construction but not necessarily a different compound from the regular one. The Medium Plus compound Goodyear GT3 tire has not come online yet. We could see it at Le Mans and then, we could see it as part of the normal race schedule, maybe at Brazil or at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, later in the year.
The clock has been reset. We have a two-stop race, an hour and 44 minutes to go. So we should have a 7- and 3/4-hours race at the end of this thing. Trust me. Anything can happen. Could Porsche win? Could Alpine get on the podium? Just when you think you've seen it all. My goodness! This is going to be great. The barrier repairs are completed, and we are ready to rumble! It is time for the sprint! When Race Control determines the race will be started again, we'll have an hour and 44 minutes left on the board. If what we expect comes to pass, the Hypercar field and the LMGT3 field will need to pit behind the safety car.
So, those same cars are going to need to pit twice as we said. Edoardo Freitas tells us, thanks for your patience. We will do the pass around. It is 7:05 P.M. and we will go on to almost 9:00 P.M. Any reservations for dinner might need renegotiating. The bars and restaurants in Spa Francorchamps, Malmedy, Stavelot etc. will be staying open late tonight with five minutes before the race resumes, and everyone is turned loose again. We have waited for nearly two hours to get the race back underway. Last year it was so cold. This year it is much better. It's game on. 29 cars will be unleashed. Yifei Ye is aboard the fourth place #83 Ferrari 499P, the yellow one. Can Ferrari sweep the podium? By all means, it is possible.
Three minutes before we form up behind the safety car. Everything has been up in the air in the first place. Nothing much has changed. Wake up and get back in the zone. The cars are back rolling again, and everyone very nearly needs energy although there are three or four cars out there which are fully fueled up. Hertz Team Jota Porsche #12, Penske Porsche #6, and Alpine #36. The Iron Dames Lamborghini in GT3 is looking great. A ton of these cars need to pit ASAP for fuel. They are running out of energy. BMW have some time to pray for another Full Course Yellow, hanging on by their fingernails over their fuel burn. At least they won't have to pit behind the safety car.
Everything, and I mean everything, is up in the air. Oh dear. We see the rear tail damage to the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963. According to the regulations, they will need gaffer tape to patch the damage with the loose bodywork, or just change the tail altogether. They don't want to see another meatball flag, the black flag with the orange dot. The #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R leads LMGT3 on the road and they will be able to get back into their full strategy they've been running the entire time.
Salut, Olaf Manthey, looking on, the legendary team owner, with so many wins at The Nurburgring, the other speed palace which is just 60 kilometers away from here. It's like seeing Norbert Singer back at Porsche. Blokes like Norbert Singer and Olaf Manthey have been around the game, forever. The Iron Dames have stopped for fuel under safety car conditions, so this will give them an advantage compared to D'station in LMGT3. Only five seconds of fuel for emergency service. Plus, factor in a 30 second transit time in and out of the pit lane, a half a minute pit lane delta. The pass around is about to begin. It does indeed begin. Cars ineligible for the pass around, they can still get somewhere.
Nearly the entire LMGT3 field can do the pass around. The third place #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 still has a loose bit of bodywork on it that needs to be dealt with. Andre Lotterer aboard the #6 Penske Porsche 963 factory car, he is reporting braking problems to the team. We'll keep an eye out for that. Morris Schuring, the Dutchman, at the wheel of the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R, he will lead the class on the restart. Whoops! The race leading #51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P has been forced to hit the pit lane for a splash and a dash on fuel.
Again, ye olde plot doth thicken here a wee bit. This is a five second fuel fill and then they will need to pit again. The #55 LMGT3 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 has also stopped. This can't be a full stop! Hello, AF Corse? Hey, pit crew, what are you doing? Ciao ragazzi. Che stai facendo? Ferrari #83 in the lane, so is the #93 Peugeot. The #83 Ferrari 4999P also completes service. There is a red light at the end of the pit lane because all the GT3 cars are hooning around right now trying to catch up with the crocodile behind the safety car. The pit lane is now closed. Wait a second. The green light is on now. Wait until it is safe to exit the lane.
The light did not go green at pit exit until the field was out of Eau Rouge and up over the top of Raidillon. Makes sense. This is why the safety car is crawling around to allow the lapped cars who took the wave by to catch up. How interesting, because now the Isotta Fraschini and the #36 Alpine are leading the queue. The leader is not behind it. The Isotta is ahead on the road, but when all this comes out in the wash, we will have a new leader, the #50 AF Corse Ferrari in the hands of Antonio Fuoco. Both GT3 Aston Martin's, the D'station car and the #27 Heart of Racing entry are in the lane for scheduled service.
They were both out of energy, out of fuel. Five seconds of fuel gives you 20-21% but they still need to go back and pit again. Pretty amazing that a gravity fed fuel system can give you 20% fuel in the tank for being stopped in the box for just five seconds. Not on the GT3 cars, but on the Hypercars, some of it is SOC recharge, State of Charge, just like when you plug your mobile device, your iPhone, your iPad, into a charger in a wall outlet in your house. Three of the Hypercars will need to pit before the safety car moves off the circuit and we go back to green. They include the #99 Proton Competition Porsche, the #35 Alpine, and the #15 Team WRT BMW. Proton Competition might make it, but we'll have to see.
I surmise that the safety car could stay on course for an additional lap, an additional 4.3 miles or seven kilometers. We have already had more than seven hours since the start of the race but of course much of that was spent stopped under red flag conditions. More than six hours I should say. The entire red flag period will be substituted by race time. At the #51 Ferrari camp, there are many cars with very low energy and with a lap more of safety car, their rivals could pit. I think one of the two Ferrari's will need to pit and the other won't. Oy vey! All this pit strategy is extremely confusing!
The #8 Toyota, maybe the Alpine, maybe the BMW, will gamble. Everyone needing to stop in LMGT3 has probably done so already to be completely honest. Peugeot #94 now pitting. The sister #93 car came in the lap before. OK. OK. Edoardo Freitas has said the pits will not be opened. They will need to do one more lap. The safety car is instructed to go at full speed. So, now the field can catch up, the Hypercars. The GT3 cars that were ahead have been fully waved around to the rear of the queue. So now, the safety car driver can punch the accelerator of that Porsche 911 and let the race cars catch up. Carl Bennett, the Thai driver is at the controls of the #11 Isotta Fraschini currently, sharing of course with Jean Karl Vernay of France and Canadian Antonio Serravalle.
The cars that have pitted for emergency fuel must pit again at the green flag. We saw the #51 and #83 Ferrari's pit for a five second splash and dash and now, with them needing to pit, that will likely blow Ferrari's chances of winning out of the water, unless the #50 can step up to the plate. A couple of drivers have not done stints yet and might take their respective cars to the end. Richard Lietz in the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R and Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid. I digress. I think Hartley has already driven his stint. Just like the race cars behind, Pedro Couciero, aboard the Porsche 911 safety car continues building speed.
Top speed of that Porsche 911 road car is fast, but not fast enough. The race cars hate going slowly. Pedestrian speeds are things race cars do not like. The drivers also need to get heat into the tires. Stone cold tires = carnage. Make a mental note or two. No further takers for hitting the pit lane. Secondly, comment about a stopped clock being right twice a day. Oh boy. BMW Team WRT, the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 is only at four percent energy! Oy vey! Thierry Tassin, I'm looking at you, sunbeam. You best make sure you've got the calculations right. Shakes head in disgust.
Oh dear. Four percent energy also for the #35 Alpine. Philippe Sinault and the boys in blue, you've got sme fuel sipping to do for making sure the car's tank is filled again. They will be in the lane immediately whether or not the safety car remains on the circuit. Pit lane will open next time by. My assumption is the safety car will be in this lap. The field has stretched out from up at Les Combes all the way back to La Source in one long serpentine. The #94 Peugeot is not right at the back of the queue.
So, he has topped up and will have no worries about needing extra fuel. Neel Jani is confused on the radio. "Pace Car comes in this lap. What do I do? Do I come in? I've got the energy alarm on my dash." The reply from his crew chief, "whatever you do, Neel, we box now. We box now." So, the team at Proton Competition are on top of the fuel situation and are not just leaving their driver hanging. That is good information. "Safety Car or not, we box, box, box, and driver change." Julien Andlauer will get into the car presumably to take it to the finish.
Same for Alpine, same for BMW and the #15 car. The one thing Neel Jani cannot do is let the #99 Porsche run the tank dry before he gets to the pit lane. He is a racing driver. He is smart enough to know that. In a hypothetical sense though, for those at home who might not be familiar with the fuel strategies like yours truly, if he lets that car go dry, he will be stranded at the side of the road before reaching the lane and then he is going to be in one king size world of pain. The trouble with the Peugeot stopping earlier is that it has taken the #94 45 seconds of driving to earn a five second advantage over his competition. The safety car is peeling off for the lane on this lap. So, we are going to see some of the Hypercars following the safety car in for their fuel stops.
All of these shenanigans are keeping the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P in the fight. The caveat is that they are going to be a long way behind everyone else and won't be fighting for a competitive place, I don't think. Under racing conditions, they are going to be a full pit stop behind their rivals who are slightly down the order but already topped off with fuel, the two more competitive Porsche's, the #6 Penske car and the #12 Jota entry. Alright. We are getting ready to go back to green. Just under an hour and a half to go, this is six and a half hours into the race.
Green flag! #99 dives for the pit lane. Go! The #50 Ferrari is the leader. If you are watching at home, ignore the other two Hypercars ahead of it. The #11 Isotta Fraschini and the #36 Alpine are both well behind. OK. I misspoke. Don't ignore them, but rather, realize those two chaps are in their own battle, and now, we see the #99 Proton Competition Fat Turbo Porsche and the #8 Toyota both coming into the lane. The #35 Alpine and the #15 BMW are both in for stops as well, just as we predicted a wee while ago.
A good chunk of the GT3 field is in and now, we are watching the lead battle in GT3 which sees the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini ahead of the #59 United Autosports McLaren with one of the TF Sport Corvette's laps down, also in the picture right ahead. Gregoire Saucy has moved ahead of Michelle Gatting for now. The McLaren, excuse me, is behind the Lambo and the TF Sport Corvette is ahead, but that one is a lapped car, so ignore it for now, because it isn't in this fight. Okie dokie then. #99 is in the lane for fuel. Driver change in the #99 Porsche 963.
The gaps are tiny in LMGT3. The Pro-rated drivers are in the cars now. So, the GT3 running order is as follows. Michelle Gatting leads Gregoire Saucy, Davide Rigon, Klaus Bachler, Dennis Olsen, Ritomo Miyata, and Ben Barker. Ferrari #51 had to stop for a short fill. The #50 Ferrari, the #7 Toyota, and the #11 Isotta Fraschini, all of them will lose time with green flag stops which are additional to those pit lane visits they made behind the safety car. These stops we are seeing now for the aforementioned Hypercars are strictly to top off the tank. Sorry to say, but that is the way the cookie crumbles, or the waffle crumbles I guess since we are here in Belgium, but of course, it is closing in on dinner, not breakfast.
Because of the driver change, the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 had a longer pit stop than any of the other Hypercars around it, and by dint of the longer stop, they've plummeted down the order. Remember that Proton Competition are only running two drivers, and we saw Neel Jani do a monster, yeoman stint, and so Julien Andlauer is now going to take the Fat Turbo entry to the finish. Andlauer did a triple stint earlier and is now back in. Toyota #7 and Ferrari #51 are now pitting. This is on sequence for both Toyota Gazoo Racing and AF Corse Ferrari because the two sister cars just pitted last time around.
So now, Hertz Team Jota lead the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps, the #12 Porsche 963 of Callum Ilott and Will Stevens, that qualified fourth for this race. He is just barely one second ahead of the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 factory car with Kevin Estre at the wheel of it. One of the BMW M Hybrid V8's is laps down and is the meat in that sandwich as they fly up the Kemmel straightaway, and, ah, the #50 Ferrari is in. So is the #7 Toyota. Scheduled service for both. This is going to go to the wire, and I want to say that the #12 and #6 Porsche's have been following each other for a good while now.
The BMW #20 is in the mix, it is not many laps down. But the Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns, and Rene Rast car has less fuel than the others. Everyone had a chance to change tires on the grid before the restart of this race. Well, less than half the cars bothered to do so. Some, granted, had already done so, but not as many as those who have tires that are 30 laps old and are becoming pretty grimy. So, two Porsche 963's battling it out at the top of the shop for two different teams. Penske with the factory cars and Jota with the main privateer, customer representative Porsche's in Europe. Of course, we know too, that there are other private Porsche's running stateside in IMSA as well. Proton Competition has one of them, also in the U.S., their IMSA car.
Kamui Kobayashi now in the #7 Toyota has come out ahead of Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari. Yikes! A close shave there, look, between the #99 Proton Competition Porsche and the #93 Peugeot! This is for eighth place in the overall order. #99 was squeezed onto the grass downhill headed for Eau Rouge. No contact made. But now the roles have reversed with just under an hour and a half of racing on the board. Julien Andlauer in the Porsche. Mikkel Jensen in the Peugeot. From third to seventh is the next major Hypercar group. Kamui Kobayashi, Antonio Fuoco, Brendon Hartley, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Paul Loup Chatin.
So, Toyota, Ferrari, Toyota, Ferrari, Alpine. Pier Guidi is fresh into the #51 Ferrari, part of the team that are going into the next race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as defending champions. Now, Pier Guidi is two seconds behind but what does he do? He goes and uncorks the fastest first sector time of the entire race for anybody on full fuel tanks! They didn't take tires either! Joey Cucamonga! Callum Ilott has a 6/10ths of a second lead and had run 102 laps, 444 miles. Callum Ilott's task is fending off one of the fastest, feistiest drivers in sports car racing today, the Frenchman, Kevin Estre.
Raffaele Marciello is now under investigation for blocking another car in the pit lane. Marciello, the Swiss Italian, is at the wheel of the #15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8. That is the sister BMW he is sharing with Belgian Dries Vanthoor (in his home race, and brother of Porsche driver Laurens Vanthoor), and Germany's Marco Wittmann. Loic Duval from the #94 Peugeot team is also under investigation by the stewards, for infringements on safety car procedures. Meanwhile, in LMGT3, the papaya and black McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Gregoire Saucy is running ahead of the silver #54 AF Corse Vistajet Ferrari 296 GT3 being piloted by Davide Rigon, the Italian.
Lamborghini leads McLaren leads Ferrari. So, the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini remains at the head of the GT3 field. Klaus Bachler in the #92 Manthey Pure Racing Porsche is three seconds in-arrears of this battle trying to crawl his way back into contention. So, in the GT3 class it is four manufacturers in the top four positions. Fourth place for a car that was in the bin yesterday, rebuilt around a new tub. One of the two Proton Competition Ford Mustang's now runs fifth. So that is five brands in the top five spots. Again, Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche, and Ford Mustang.
So, we resume again in the lead of the motor race with the Jota vs. Penske Porsche battle. Callum Ilott ahead of Kevin Estre. Callum Ilott uncorks fastest lap at 2:06.468. Porsche vs. Porsche. Callum Ilott has taken 7/10ths of a second out of the fastest Ferrari! Holy cow! Give a competitive driver a sniff of a competitive car and they bubble to the surface. The two Proton Competition Ford Mustangs are both in the points in LMGT3 in fifth and seventh currently. #88 running ahead of #77. Alessandro Pier Guidi is now right behind Brendon Hartley and catching him hand over fist. Kobayashi, Fuoco, Hartley, Pier Guidi, the top four.
Julien Andlauer resets fastest lap of the race, and he has caught up to this train of cars. Andlauer has caught Paul Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine. Andlauer in eighth spot, having run a 2:06.459 and is now looking for a way past Paul Loup Chatin, the French driver in the French car. These two are less than a second behind Brendon Hartley in the second of the two Toyota's. I just wonder, what on earth did Julien Andlauer fuel up on for lunch? He must have eaten something packed with nutrition, energy bars or something, because he is mowing this field down and is all over the blue Alpine like the proverbial cheap suit!
He will have the slipstream on Chatin before Blanchimont corner. This is so wild because it is a race as we have seen so far, everyone is saving tires. Alright. I think Andlauer is going to pull the pin here and sail past Chatin with ease. Through Blanchimont, in the turbulent air, he is setting Chatin up to perhaps tuck the Frenchman up like a kipper. Let's see. Ah. No dice. Chatin is playing it smart and is not buying anything as Andlauer is selling him the dummy, or is he? Hertz Team Jota lead with an hour 18 minutes to go. This gorgeous evening is producing some fabulous weather here in the Ardennes Forest and some top shelf sports car racing!
We continue having a look in on the Julien Andlauer and Paul Loup Chatin story. Andlauer is so close to the blue car that he is going to either go underneath or over the top of him! This is electric! Through Eau Rouge and up over the top of Raidillon, Andlauer gets the door slammed in his face by a McLaren GT3 car and nearly goes off the road! Oh, my heavens! Gregoire Saucy compromises his line just to survive without getting pinballed by one of the Hypercars! The magenta Iron Dames Lamborghini is pulling away and in all that shemozzle, Saucy has now been passed for second by the #92 Porsche! Klaus Bachler in the #92 Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R, he makes his move on Saucy and makes it stick!
Check that. My apologies. It is the silver Ferrari 296 GT3 #54, Davide Rigon at the wheel of it. That McLaren was stymied, slowed down, a cork in the bottle. The speed of the Hypercars didn't cause poor old Saucy to get crossed up. So, Paul Loup Chatin in the Alpine, released from the grip of Julien Andlauer, has been scything his way through traffic and now he is about to glue himself to the tail of the #8 Toyota with New Zealand's Brendon Hartley in the driver's seat. Hartley has lost touch from the top five and is now falling into Chatin's clutches as we speak. Finding the speed is the bugaboo for Hartley and the Toyota. He does not have the grip.
Through Eau Rouge and up the Kemmel straightaway, in this replay, we see Gregoire Saucy getting balked by the Hypercars and this allows Davide Rigon to push past with a big head of steam. Andlauer is on a tightened piece of elastic, a stretched rubber band. No matter how far back he goes, like a rubber band or a coiled spring, twang... he is right back into the fight. He's on one of those Rube Goldberg contraptions with a spring that will fling him right back to the rear deck of the French blue racer. Julien Andlauer has been fabulous all year.
Now, into La Source again, the battle is on for fourth place between Toyota #7 and Ferrari #51. Both Toyota's and the #51 Ferrari, they all made emergency fuel stops and they are still fighting in the top six. The two Porsche's are pulling away from these other cars, the Jota car and the first of the factory cars. Andlauer would love to have a clear road ahead of him. However, he still has two other cars in the way, the #35 Alpine and the #8 Toyota. Hartley pulls a gap on Chatin. This is a much stronger race from Alpine this time, than in the opening two events in Qatar and at Imola in Italy as we have just an hour and 15 minutes of racing to go.
We saw BMW step up to the plate at Imola. We are seeing Alpine step up to the plate at Spa. Compared to open wheel cars, sports cars have minimal aerodynamic turbulence, although it is still present. It is hard to be glued right onto the back of a car in Blanchimont corner. Callum Ilott is pulling away from Kevin Estre to the tune of 2.7 seconds. Callum Ilott ran very well at Qatar in the opener back in March. Andlauer has a late lunge to the inside heading for the La Source hairpin. What will he do? He is going to send it! I don't believe it! Nearly side by side on the uphill run to Eau Rouge. I don't think Andlauer in the Proton Porsche will have the straight-line speed.
They scream up the hill and are still side by side, squeezing on each other! Andlauer, up the hill and over the top from Eau Rouge into Raidillon makes the move and does so with authority! These are two Gold ranked drivers buy the FIA. Andlauer drives for Porsche but does so for a customer team. He is not a factory driver on Stuttgart's books. But he could earn himself something. Paul Loup Chatin is also ranked Gold. Most of his stint he has been ostensibly saving tires while chasing down other cars to gain places in the running order. In this replay, he picked up the side draft and absolutely sent it through Eau Rouge!
Chatin was wise enough to give him room. They both stayed within track limits. Meanwhile, Kamui Kobayashi remains the meat in the sandwich between the two Ferrari's of Fuoco and Pier Guidi. Pier Guidi is told to be careful with his rear tires and he asks his strategist, "can I overtake the Toyota? Or do I need to slow down a bit?" Right now, we are also looking at Julien Andlauer reeling in the sister #8 Toyota with Brendon Hartley at the controls. Andlauer and Hartley are in a bear knuckle brawl. Davide Rigon brings the #54 AF Corse VistaJet Ferrari 296 GT3 in from third spot in LMGT3, to make a pit stop.
In fact, he was second in LMGT3 and needed fuel. That is a standard stop for them. Fascinatingly, Kamui Kobayashi is beginning to put Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari under pressure. We wonder, what is the deal with Fuoco? Kamui Kobayashi and Antonio Fuoco each have fairly new tires. Fuoco's Ferrari has new left side tires on it. He has qualifying tires on the right side. Right now, we are also watching Julien Andlauer getting stymied in traffic. That is through Stavelot and Courbe Paul Frere. Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota is beginning to eke out a gap over the Ferrari driver. Hartley remains the meat in a Ferrari sandwich.
The competition is extremely close to the limit. It is about exacting potential lap after lap. Watch for track limits in corner number four if you are Kamui Kobayashi. He has Antonio Fuoco in his sights. From the overtake on the LMGT3 car, he will need to watch out for track limits, and I also want to say that in the LMGT3 class it will be a battle to the bitter end between the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari and the #83 Iron Dames Lamborghini, but both cars will need a splash and a dash on fuel before this motor race is completely done and dusted. That is how things were before we dealt with the red flag.
Trust me, Pier Guidi would have been shouting on the radio to the crew, "he had all four wheels over the white line!" about Kobayashi going off the road, and the team's reply, "we saw that, too. Keep your head down, and keep driving, mate." Toyota stuck with what they had, but now they are floundering a bit because of the tire wear. Now, we have a tale of woe to tell for the #83 privately run yellow AF Corse Ferrari 499P because that car has dropped like a stone down the running order and to add insult to injury, they are under investigation by the stewards for not serving a penalty correctly, and a pit stop infringement to boot.
So, Israeli racer Robert Shwartzman cannot be a happy camper right now. Their day is ruined. Oy yoy yoy! Ferrari #51 right on the #7 Toyota's back door and they are dealing with lapped LMGT3 cars! That's The Heart of Racing Aston Martin and ahead of it is one of the two Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3's. Oh dear. Kobayashi had a Captain Cook to the inside of the Aston who was trying his best to stick to the racing line. 109 laps now in the book, 474 miles. The gap is nearly five seconds at the top of the shop between the #12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963 and the #6 factory Porsche Penske Porsche 963.
Pier Guidi tried having a Captain Cook around Kobayashi through La Source and Kobayashi was having none of it, slamming the door in the Italian's face. Spatial awareness is what separates merely good racing drivers from great racing drivers, especially in endurance sports car racing when it comes to the art and the methodology behind working traffic. You must know where to place your car on the road and gauge it by what the car ahead is doing and also the car behind. I swear, these sports car drivers have a sixth or seventh sense, sometimes.
Pier Guidi goes off the road again at turn four. Tit for tat as Pier Guidi runs over the curbs, the same exact thing he got hot and bothered about Kobayashi doing a wee while ago, through the fourth turn, so, that was through Raidillon and up the Kemmel straightaway, I think. Trouble in paradise for Dries Vanthoor at the wheel of the #15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 who cops a 30 second stop and go penalty for pit lane behavior. Dries Vanthoor is not at fault. Raffaele Marciello is the driver who copped the penalty, but Vanthoor must serve it. Lots of details and things going on.
At the front, the gap is five seconds. That gap, by the way, with or without the GT3 cars has ballooned to a minute and ten seconds. At the front, it is a two-horse race between Callum Ilott and Kevin Estre. But there is nothing Kevin Estre can do about this nagging brake problem on his #6 Porsche. Now we see Mikkel Jensen aboard the #93 Peugeot 9X8 making the pass on Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8. Jota might have had an opportunity fall into their lap here after taking a decision to save fuel and we saw Will Stevens earlier in the motor race, in fuel save mode.
Of course, we never knew there would be a safety car and a red flag, but the team has gotten incredibly lucky. Now we watch the battle on the road for sixth place, between the #8 Toyota and the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963. This is the retro liveried FAT, Fat Turbo Express car. This is Julien Andlauer chasing after Brendon Hartley another time as we have a handful of pit callers in LMGT3. This is going to be for better positions than sixth. The body English of Andlauer's Porsche tells us he is in full attack mode. Man, oh man! Man, oh man! He's diving to the inside of Hartley into La Source!
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He fires it deep into the hairpin and now side by side with Hartley in the Toyota! Wheel to wheel down the hill to Eau Rouge! Traffic in front! They are still side by side with at least two GT3 cars to navigate around. Andlauer slices his way through! Hartley unable to answer the bell on this one. In the middle of the lap, Andlauer was all over Hartley like a cheap suit. Hartley outbraked himself into La Source. Andaluer trusts the drivers he is around. This is mature racing. We all know the dangers of a corner like Eau Rouge.
Brendon Hartley stayed smart even though there was a GT3 car in the way. He didn't flip his wig and run Andlauer straight into the fence. No short track stock car racing with these two chaps. They both knew they'd be headed for no man's land and thankfully determined discretion would be the better part of valor. Andlauer monstered his way over the curbs. Now, Antonio Fuoco continues being harried by Kamui Kobayashi as we speak. Pier Guidi still in this picture frame as well. Now, Andlauer has a single advantage over all other cars except the race leader. He is going for a win, not a title.
Proton Competition, as a privateer team, are looking to take the biggest scalps they can get as a private team racing against the factory cars. This Hypercar situation, though the cars themselves are very different, is quite similar to the factory vs. privateer battles we saw in the Group C era in the 1980s. I know. I know. It is hard not to reminisce about the good old days and draw parallels to the modern era. The purists will say, "oh, Hypercars have nothing to do with Group C and what it was!" Well, that may be so. But, as yours truly is viewing these races as a fan of modern endurance racing and classic rivalries of old, that is how I am framing it.
I look at this and see, a similarity, to archived videotape I used to watch of the Group C races, from here at Spa Francorchamps and elsewhere, or, if you are looking at IMSA in the states, the same is true between the current GTP era and the GTP era of the 1980s. Meanwhile, Davide Rigon in the #54 Vista - AF Corse Ferrari is chasing the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus now in the hands of Ritomo Miyata of Japan, who has just come back on track after pitting. David Rigon is right behind him, right on Miyata's six. Robert Shwartzman in the #83 yellow AF Corse Ferrari 499P is out of the top ten but sweeps past this GT3 battle.
Shwartzman in the meantime, he is harrying Mikkel Jensen in the #93 Peugeot for tenth place and a single, solitary point. FYI. In just a handful of minutes we will be headed (thanks to the earlier red flag), to what NASCAR might call "overtime", and we are going to put an extra hour on the board in this race to compensate for the time lost during the red flag after Earl Bamber's crash and the subsequent repairs to the barriers and catch fences around the circuit. Andlauer has the carrot dangling right in front of him. Miyata has been getting fired off by everything and everyone else. He is inside a pinball machine in a penny arcade!
Meanwhile, the #11 Isotta Fraschini must serve a five second stop and go penalty due to a technical infringement according to Race Control. Now, back to the Lexus situation, maybe what we are doing is casting our minds back to the big 1,812-kilometer event in Qatar in March because the only GT3 cars that really got biffed around and clattered into were the two Lexus RC F GT3's. They are having a better race here. Meantime, the Hypercar battle for tenth rages on between Mikkel Jensen in the #93 Peugeot and Robert Shwartzman in the #83 Ferrari.
To put a bow on the Lexus story, in GTD spec in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship, the Lexus is a championship winning car. So, Akkodis ASP has the keys to unlock the potential for that here in WEC if they can and no doubt, they are applying all they know to make that happen. Blimey! On the inside, look, we see Shwartzman making his bid to pass by Jensen through Pouhon and into Brussels corner! Bold stuff! Excuse me. That is Jacky Ickx corner formerly called Speaker's corner because that is where the original broadcast booth for races here at Spa was located many moons ago.
Shwartzman had the traffic working for him there and now Mikkel Jensen is regrouping and going for another plan of attack on the yellow Ferrari. Jensen got stymied by the Corvette in the way, one of the two TF Sport Corvette's, and I think it is the #82 machine. Jensen got boxed in by Shwartzman. In replay, we can see a pass by Davide Rigon in the #54 on Ritomo Miyata in the #78 Lexus. Rigon late on the brakes grabbing the curbs. Hard to imagine two more different cars racing each other. The Lexus with the front engine configuration and the big 5-liter V8 and the Ferrari, low slung and sleek, almost like a prototype, with the 3-liter turbo V6 lump in the back of it. Again, in "technical" terms, the lump is the engine.
They sound dramatically different too. So, in Hypercar, Kobayashi is sticking like glue to both Fuoco and Pier Guidi. We were talking about a Lexus and Ferrari scrap in the GT3 class, well, we have the Toyota and Ferrari duel continuing in Hypercar too. Pier Guidi is staring right at the tail of that Toyota. So, officially now, we do have an hour to go in the race, but nothing to complain about. A lovely, sunlit evening with sports cars thundering through the Ardennes Forest. What more could you ask for? The weather has been lovely. Pier Guidi keys the radio and tells his crew chief "I have too much torque out of T1."
Too much torque out of the La Source hairpin is what I assume he is speaking of. Oh. OK. Yes. Yes. Pier Guidi is talking about a torque spike in the engine which the team can see on the telemetry monitors in the pit lane. The third-place scrap whistles past Dennis Olsen, the Norwegian factory Ford driver who is at the wheel of the #88 black and gold Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 he shares with Giorgio Roda and Mikkel Pedersen sees the third place Hypercar battle flash straight past him, as we are now into the race's final hour, in the evening twilight, here at Spa.
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