24 Hours of Spa: Hour 13

WRT now in the pit lane for their five-minute technical pit stop going for the brake change.  They had a shocker in WEC with the Hypercars and the GT3's and their Le Mans 24 Hour race was awful.  Vincent Vosse stalking around the garage wearing his flat hat.  The #130 Mercedes is doing their technical stop, and you don't need to do a brake change.  I don't think the BMW Team WRT car did a brake change or not.  WRT are very happy, but it is so hard to predict a lap time and we have had boatloads of safety car.  The rain is coming back in, and the lap times are all over the shop.  Full Course Yellow to rescue Chandler Hull of course.  A few more stops and there is a brake change on the pit apron for the #88 Tresor Attempto Audi.  Nicky Catsburg has pitted for the technical stop and brake change for the #4 CrowdStrike Riley Motorsports Mercedes, George Kurtz, Colin Braun, Ian James, and Nicky Catsburg.  

Track limits, the slate has been wiped clean for the second half of the race.  Resets every six hours.  Six offenses in six hours earns a penalty that get larger and larger.  It is easy in the wet to get stabbed by Damocles' sword.  Christopher Haase and Attempto Racing Audi to the top of the shop.  Mosca second, Hofer third and Davide Rigon in fourth spot.  #130 of Dani Juncadella is finished with the technical pit stop and they are having a slight issue and now they are down off the air jacks and away.  Half a dozen cars have done five-minute stops.  I would serve my technical pit stop now under the safety car.  

You can start a pit stop under safety car.  The wave by procedure has begun.  The team must tell their drivers, if they are eligible.  You are eligible for a wave by if you are behind the safety car but ahead of your class leader.  Wave by completed.  Pit lane now open.  Other cars can come in and serve their technical pit stops.  The safety car leading the field out of Courbe Paul Frere with the original circuit going through the neighboring valley back in the old days from 1924-1978.  The wave by has been completed.  There's a lot of raindrops on the camera lenses and we will not have points until the checkered flag waves and we will be done.

Safety Car in this lap.  WRT BMW #32 did do a brake change.  Their technical was not just cleaning and housekeeping.  Safety Car lights out.  We are getting back to green and we will have proper light coming in half an hour.  We have had a very cloudy, rainy night.  It is always darkest just before dawn breaks.  Green flag.  Green flag.  Christopher Haase now leads the motor race.  14 cautions, only three are full course yellow.  Car #32, Sheldon van der Linde, Full Course Yellow speed under investigationby the stewards.  Oh boy.  You are set to 80 clicks maximum.  50 miles an hour.  The #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes is also under investigation for Full Course Yellow speed.

In half an hour we will see sunrise.  But there is more rain coming from 5AM-11AM.  The record is stuck.  Don't scratch it.  Please move the needle.  Car #32 has tumbled down the order and Christopher Haase is the new race leader.  Oh boy.  12 hours and five minutes now on the board.  Uh oh.  One of the Mercedes spins and gets going again.  I wonder who it was.  Is that the #2 GetSpeed entry?  It was the sister #3 GetSpeed car.  I see.  Christopher Haase leads Tomaso Mosca, and Alexey Nesov now at the controls of the #66 Attempto Audi.  Perhaps the BMW came in too late?  Sadly, I don't have the mathematical wherewithal to give you all the points tables right now.

BMW #32 is now down in 16th place, and we'll have to get to the bottom of this thing.  Almost halfway through the 13th hour.  Did #32 think they still led at 12 hours when they pitted?  Yes, according to the team.  Other teams will be taking their techical stops in the next nine-and-a-half-hour window until 7:30 A.M. Sunday morning Central Standard Time, 2:30 P.M. Belgian Time, I think.  Whoops!  Who has spun?  It is Lucas Auer in that checkered #48 Mann Filter Mercedes.  Lucas Auer, out of La Source, he had argy bargy with an AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.  Full Course Yellow in ten seconds.  That is the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari.

No wave by.  No.  It wasn't #74.  It was David Vidales in the #71 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.  This is the car he shares with Thomas Neubauer and Vincent Abril and I think Vidales is stopped and has a lot of trouble and I don't know if he and his teammates will continue.  Contact between #71, #93, and #48 noted, and the #93 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari was also caught in that little shemozzle as Karel Basz hits the pit lane for a driver change?  I think it is.  A technical stop now happening for Mad Panda Motorsports to do a brake change and check the car.  Maybe a ground up restoration.

The #48 Mercedes is being rescued as they fly Plummet Airways down the order and now, Lilou Wadoux also was clattered into, and the Ferrari clattered into the Mercedes and into Lilou Wadoux!  That is a two-point cue ball, cannon.  Good gravy.  The Mercedes is on the flatbed.  Game over.  That's an official retirement.  Done and gone.  Write the X with the marker.  Mad Panda Motorsports back onto the pit apron.  No wave by at Full Course Yellow.  No wave by this time.  Ferrari #51 in and so is the #163 Lamborghini with Franck Perera I believe, getting in, or Marco Mapelli possibly.  

Maxime Martin has taken over the #46 Team WRT BMW with Maxime Martin taking over the car.  The #64 Ford Mustang GT3 from Proton Competition has the brake fluid topped up, Dennis Olsen at the wheel of it.  The dear decklid was too vulnerable at high speeds and so they were redesigned to stay on the car.  I think they are using brake blanking or doing damage repairs.  Slow, cold lapping behind the safety car would necessitate that.  Such a shame to see the #48 garage as they are cleaning out the garage.  They are always frontrunners here, at the Nurburgring, and so on.  Not tonight, Josephine.  Pure Racing have done their technical pit stop.

Vincent Vosse believes they got the pnts at WRT.  Laurent, the strategist at Tresor Attempto thinks they got the points.  Who got them?  One of the windward drivers is doing rowing exercises with a hand and neck support system.  Two points have possibly gone to Attempto Racing.  Now, it is time for watter bottle juggling.  Well, well.  The race leader has been in for the technical stop and now we are behind the safety car.  David Vidales came into the pit lane.  Ferrari #52 now leads the motor race.  The skies are certainly beginning to lighten.  Safety Car in this lap.  We are ending our 12th safety car period.  

Total caution time, five hours and 18 minutes.  Ferrari #74, ten second time penalty for a pit lane infringement.  Augusto Farfus has dropped to 22nd place in the #998 BMW M4 GT3 and they have accomplished their technical pit stop.  Marco Sorensen has not found a dry line yet.  Are they close to the pit window?  Green flag.  We are back to racing here at the 24 Hours of Spa.  Marco Sorensen eight seconds behind in the queue.  Maxi Gotz is up the exhaust of the Aston Martin.  Tomaso Mosca gets the break and needs to do his technical pit stop.  Sorensen and Goetz are driving through the gloom.  Dennis Olsen in the #64 Ford Mustang GT3 is a lap behind.

Maxi Gotz in the #9 Mercedes is ahead of the Aston Martin I believe.  That was not Gotz.  That is the #16 Uno Racing by Landgraf Mercedes.  Mosca in the #52 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.  Passing cars that are identical like GT3 cars is so difficult.  In front of the #7 Aston Martin are a couple other cars as Tomaso Mosca has cleared the #30 Oman Racing BMW M4 GT3.  That is Jens Klingman, Ahmad Al Harthy, Sam De Haan, and Calan Williams.  Franck Perera is now in tenth spot inthe pole sitting Lamborghini that Jordan Pepper has been driving.  They have had a nightmare race with two fuel rig issues.  

Pepper says he has done one of the craziest stints ever but aquaplaning at 270 kilometers an hour is very treacherous.  The sun is starting to come up.  The team is executing perfectly, and the Lamborghini is executing fabulously.  The rain has been continual since 11PM last night.  Marco Sorensen now second, 13 and a half seconds down on Tomaso Mosca.  Marco Sorensen spent loads of time trying to pass Calan Williams.  Davide Rigon has very blurry vision ahead and must be very cautious and not run over the curbs on the outside because it is slippery and there's track limits penalty possibilities.  Mosca leads Sorensen by 13.4 seconds.        

The gap is 14.3 seconds between Mosca and Sorensen.

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 12

The Lamborghini does not want to go a lap down.  Weerts is going to make a pass as Yannick Metler is now in the pit lane for service.  Undoubtedly, they will remain on the wet weather tires.  The field is closing up and then spreading out again.  Weerts leads Perera, Haase, Mosca, Hanfin, Stevenson, Sathienthirakul, Cheever, Kell, and Blom, the top ten.  Audi #99 apart from the rain light, their race has been whistling clean.  It is properly dark here at Spa Francorchamps just past 3:30 A.M.  James Kell, Aaron Walker, Yannick Mettler, and Anthony Bartone are staying on the wet tires.  Jordan Pepper is now 20th having passed by Dominik Baumann followed by Mattia Drudi and Ross Gunn, cars that have fallen down the order, playing another game of snakes and ladders.  Fortune favors the brave in these conditions and in this race.  

Drivers and teams can do their technical stop and so Team WRT are preparing for that, to do the brake change and other bits of service.  Charles Weerts should be in soon.  People fall off the road, falling asleep, or we could see another Full Course Yellow.  Be ready to do it for the next time there is a Full Course Yellow or a safety car.  Luca Stolz passes by Yannick Mettler.  Charles Weerts now leads the motor race here over Dylan Pereira, Christopher Haase, Tomaso Mosca, and Lorcan Hanafin.  The it is Casper Stevenson, Tanart Sathienthirakul, Eddie Cheever III., Chriistopher Mies, and Axel Blom.  

It is as wet as we've seen all day and all night.  3:40 A.M. in Belgium, it is wet, dark, and slippery as Charles Weerts leads by 17 seconds over Dylan Pereira.  He has been in traffic and we wonder about the life of his Pirelli tires and his fuel load.  Weerts is flying.  We are working the 200th lap, 48 minutes away from the next points pie slice.  200 laps, 870 miles.  A Bronze class driver in a Bronze rated car has to do four hours within six hours I think.  Maybe I am stumped on those rules.

A Bronze driver will not lose as much time under safety car conditions.  Dylan Pereira, Tomaso Mosca, Eddie Cheever III., and Casper Stevenson are all Bronze graded drivers.  You can't keep the Bronze driver until Sunday morning.  That is not the way the cookie crumbles.  Charles Weerts leads and the gap has ballooned to 17 seconds plus over Dylan Pereira.  Make that 26 seconds!  Holy smokes!  Dylan Pereira, a racing driver from Luxembourg.  We'll need to see if there are others.  Luxembourg is small, Lichtenstein is even smaller.  A couple of tiny, tiny countries.

Christopher Mies, in the sole Ford Mustang GT3 in this race which had a new nose section put on the front end three or so hours ago.  It is running in eighth place in the overall.  At AF Corse, we are going to talk to their team strategist and technical director Andrea Locatelli.  They need to do the technical pit stop.  They will know to get to the technical pit stop for changing brakes to go to the end, but with the safety cars and the rain, they are fine with brakes and so, they are going to find the right window to make that happen.  

Are you allowed to do it under Full Course Yellow?  Yes.  Minimize the time loss.  Wait and see.  Given the rain, they don't anticipate doing a brake change at AF Corse.  Someone has shot up the escape road at Les Combes and it is wet.  That was the #159 Garage 59 McLaren.  That is the Dean MacDonald, Benjamin Goethe, and Tom Gamble.  Colin Braun, Ian James, George Kurtz, and Ian James are the Pro-Am leaders ahead of Josh Caygill, Jann Mardenborough, and the Buncombe brothers.  With the technical pit stop, if it is under 4:55, you need to do it all over again!  Oh man!  That's going to hurt!

You get pinged with a stop and go penalty if you don't make it.  The Lamborghini is in the garage for service.  More pit action as we close in on the witching hour, the halfway mark.  Porsche #92 could be in the race leader.  I don't think so.  Now it is Max Hofer, the Austrian, at the wheel of the #66 Tresor Attempto Audi.  In 17 minutes, we are going to award points again and that is half of a stint.  Now you are in trouble if you haven't just sopped and since we went back to fgreen you will have to surrender and fly Plummet Airways down the order.  

Indy Dontje is way down in 50th spot, 12 laps behind the leader.  Third in class.  It is running again but is 12 laps down.  We see a battle for sixth between Christopher Haase and Max Hofer.  Audi vs. Audi.  At what point will we see a crossover to slick tires?  We'll need to see who is going to gamble.  #66 stopped and Dylan Pereira handed the car to Max Hofer.  Tomaso Mosca is in second but owes us a place.  Matty Jaminet leads followed by Sheldon van der Linde who has taken over from Charles Weerts.  It is very tricky in Spa with the rain and drying conditions, but they stayed on wet tires for a wee while longer.  

Weerts said that he got clonked by a competitor in the darkness in La Source but there was no damage.  They have stayed on the wet tires even when others were going to the slicks.  Weerts will take a rest and then drive again in four hours or so.  He drove over three hours in very tricky conditions on fading wet Pirelli tires.  Don't make mistakes because all you will do is damage the car and lose shedloads of time.  Luca Stolz told he has a track limits warning with four laps to go in his stint, and ten minutes left before the points being earned.  Luca Stolz.  Don't stop because you will burn yourself on the points allocation.  Alessio Rovera has moved back up to second and Mathieu Jaminet leads the motor race for the whole box of points.  He will get all the sweets, all the cookies, if he stays where he is.

Ten second time penalty for an unsafe release for the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes.  Where will that time be added in?  Maybe at the next pit stop.  So, matthieu Jaminet leads the race over Alessio Rovera, Sheldon van der Linde, Luca Stolz, Joel Sturm, Luca Stolz, Joel Sturm, Christopher Haaase, Jordan Pepper, Max Hofer, Tomaso Mosca, and Mattia Drudi.  Jaminet pits early so he won't get the points!  Oh dear!  It is like a stage on the Tour de France.  This is four race weekends all in one shot.  Six minutes until the points pie is served.

Will Ferrari hang on?  Will BMW and WRT get the slice?  Now, the #51 Ferrari is in the pit lane too!  Everyone seems to be throwing this away!  WRT have had wretched luck in some of their races as Chandler Hull is off the road an plumeting from 48rh place going down, down, down.  Alessandro Pier Guidi into the car and many other drivers who are pitting.  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Full Course Yellow.  Hull is stuck in Fangnes in the gravel trap and we will do another wave by.  We are inside four minutes until points and Sheldon van der Linde is back at the top of the pile.  

In replay, oof.  Chandler Hull got tagged by one of the Dinamic GT Porsche's.  That is Chandler Hull for Kessel Racing in the #74 as Pure Racing and Joel Sturm pits and then comes the #46 Team WRT BMW of Valentino Rossi and van der Linde in the sister car will get the points as we are in the 14th Full Course Yellow transferring to the 11th Full Course Yellow as Aurelien Panis leaves the lane and Augusto Farfus, the Brazilian, is now into the #998 BMW M4 GT3.  The #23 Phantom Global Racing Porsche hit with a penalty for track limits for 30 seconds.  

Chandler Hull is off the road in the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari that he shares with John Hartshorne, Matt Bell, and Ben Tuck.  Sheldon van der Linde has pitted but may still be in front.  216 laps completed.  940 miles.  Halfway home.  Ding, ding, ding, ding.  OK.  Now we enter the second half but van der Linde was on wets coming back out of the lane!  Half a tank of gas?  No.    

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 11

We have gone to safety car conditions after the Full Course Yellow.  So, we should be readying for a restart it appears and of course the pit lane is now closed.  Double drat!  I can't pit!  We will have a wave around under the Full Course Yellow?  Heads up.  Everyone be aware as we'll do a wave around as the safety car driver does not cue anyone.  That is up to the team, the crew chief, to tell the driver.  Hugo Cook has finished his stint in the #19 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini he shares with Mateo Llarena, Baptiste Moulin, and Haytham Quarajouli.  They ran well for a while and then had a failure of a rear brake that needed to be fixed and they have been in catch up mode ever since and under the safety car that is difficult to do.  

The more running you have behind the safety car, the less you can catch up.  Years ago, he was racing TCR touring cars but then launched himself into GT3.  Sebastien Baud and his teammates have fallen to the bottom of the order.  The wave by is completed and other cars that have not pitted can do so now.  For some reason we cannot establish a solid pattern to this race and have had a lot of stopping and starting.  Full Course Yellow speed is 80 kilometers an hour and under the safety car is much faster.  Safety Car in this lap and we'll turn them loose another time.  Green flag.  Back to racing we go.  A challenge for third as Klaus Bachler passes by Luca Stolz who was jumped at the restart through La Source and Eau Rouge.  Warm up the brakes and the tires.  Matthieu Jaminet now under pressure from Klaus Bachler.  

Bachler now up to second place.  Luca Stolz has moved past Max Hesse with Raffaele Marciello next up and the early racing leading #48 Mann Filters Mercedes went off the road.  Daniel Morad at Les Combes, I think he grazed the barriers.  Klaus Bachler has taken the lead of the motor race going ahead of Matthieu Jaminet and on the restart, the #60 2 Seas Mercedes has hit the wall and has damage on the right front headlight.  So, he copped a whack from somebody.  Frank Bird at the wheel of it.  He was caught out in the queue.  He was the leader of the Gold division.  Klaus Bachler leads Matthieu Jaminet and Raffaele Marciello.

Max Hesse squirming all over the road in the wet.  He is using the windscreen wiper.  Aye yaye yaye.  Xavier Maassen has big damage to the fornt of the Aston Martin after the tank tape has come off.  The #998 BMW M4 GT3 has a drive through penalty, Max Hesse.  So, this is a bad deal for Hesse and company.  What can he do in the dry?  Daniel Morad had trundled back to the pit lane.  I believe he is serving a penalty.  He is.  He trundles through the lane and now, the #48 Mercedes that led early doors has a flat, punctured left rear Pirelli P Zero.

That is the second left rear puncture on that automobile.  Holy cow.  Mann Filter Mercedes have had a fraught race today.  At WRT, BMW #32 was hit from behind at turn one at the La Source hairpin and maybe just maybe Frank Bird clattered into the back of Charles Weerts who is 15th and big damage for the CSA Audi!  Arthur Rougier has absolutely cone off the road and clobbered the right front of that car!  Jeepers creepers!  That will be a long repair.  Colin Braun is only 4.2 seconds behind Alex Buncombe.

Big damage to the #60 Mercedes and Frank Bird says that during Full Course Yellow, no, the wave by, there was a concertina down the main straight and he ran into the back of another car.  The bonnet flew up so it was far more than just bodywork damage.  Just one of those deals.  Bird says he made contact with another car but will not specify who it is.  I would suggest that maybe he plowed into the #32 BMW.  Bachler leads Jaminet by 4.8 seconds.  Max Hesse serving the drive through penalty through the Formula 1 pit lane and into the endurance pit lane.  Dan Harper earned the penalty.  Box, box., box, drive through penalty.

More contact between the #48 Mann Filter Mercedes and the #111 CSA Audi with Arthur Rougier who had that king size, massive damage and we hadnt found the replay.  We'll have to see if the tape apes can get a hold of it.  Sven Mueller in 30th place for the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche is a lap or so down and needs to make up time.  Max Hesse is ahead.  Yellow flag at turn 12.  What's this?  We don't know yet.  The #90 car is in strife in the first bit of Piff Paff, the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes as Karol Basz of Poland has gone off the road.  Full Course Yellow in 20 seconds.  Full Course Yellow in 10 seconds.  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Full Course Yellow, now.

Car #90 in the gravel at turn 13.  No wave by and we should be going to the safety car?  I don't think so because the Manitou crane is there.  This is the turn 12 marshal post and is very busy.  Luca Stolz in third spot.  Behind the Full Course Yellow the gaps remain the same.  Pit lane is open under Full Course Yellow.  We have seen wholesale pit stops and now we go back to safety car before going back to green and in 15 minutes, teams can start taking their five-minute technical pit stops to check the car between the end of the 11th hour and the end of the 22nd hour, so there is plenty of time to execute it.  The GT3 cars have historically not made it through this race without brake changes and that is why the technical pit stop exists.

You don't necessarily have to change brakes but don't gamble with safety.  Green flag as Thomas Preining, Klaus Bachler, and Matthieu Jaminet lead.  It is a Porsche 1-2 now with Luca Stolz in third with Raffaele Marciello and Yannick ettler followed by Mattia Drudi, Dominik Baumann, who is dropping places, and so, it is Luca Stolz, Raffaele Marciello, abd nire,  Has the lead changed?  It is raining from Fangnes to Campus to the Paul Frere curve.  Yellow flag through Rivage (Jacky Ickx curve).  Raffaele Marciello has passed Luca Stolz.  All sectors now green.  OK.  That was just a small issue.

Porsche #92 went to the pit lane.  Mettler, Weerts, and Hanafin are still on wets.  Everyone on the lead lap went onto the slick tires, the slick Pirelli P Zeros.  Yannick Mettler will be grinning like a stuck possun,  Local Yellow at turn three at Eau Rouge as the #92 Porsche is in for wets as it is starting to rain again.  Matthieu Jaminet makes another decision on tires as Mattia Drudi is now in 11th place in Aston Martin #7.  Some drivers have taken more pit stops than we thought they would and some of them have been penalties and don't count necessarily towards the original pit stop sequence.  

Some drivers drove through the pit lane to restart their stints.  Yannick Mettler now leading the race in the #3 GetSpeed Mercedes and Matthieu Jaminet is on wets.  A ton more cars have come back into the pits for wet weather Pirelli tires.  The #3 GetSpeed Mercedes of Yannick Mettler needs wet tires.  He has been caught by Charles Weerts and Dylan Pereira.  The lead group stopped for slicks and then they knew they needed to change over to wet weather tires.  Almost everybody who came in on slicks, and here comes the rain, again.

Dylan Pereira is chasing Yannick Metler I believe.  Those who are on the right tire will cruise away from the other cars that didn't change over.  A 40 second penalty for the #48 Mann Filter Mercedes of Daniel Morad, again.  He got clonked by Arthur Rougier on the restart and maybe he came in before the pit lane entry light was turned on.  Or he crossed the white line on the pit lane exit.  We are still an hour away from the halfway mark.  The spray is considerable and now the rain is coming back.  Charles Weerts has overtaken Yannick Mettler and Mettler gets passed too by Dylan Pereira.  Someoe is crawling out of La Source maybe on the wrong tires.

Nobody is out there on slicks in this weather.  Are you kidding me?  The #163 Lamborghini of Jordan Pepper still is on the lead lap but in 22nd in the overall.  Now we have more spray on the roa and the darkness of the Ardennes Forest with the rain and the spray is beginning to look disgusting again as opposed to acceptable.  Charles Weerts now about to lap Jordan Pepper.  They must avoid that happening or they will be in a world of pain.  Weerts, 2:43 and Pepper was on his out lap.       

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 10

Jordan Pepper says it is very dark and the spray of the rain makes it even worse.  The flashing rain light is very tiring and distracting.  We will continue under yellow until the track conditions improve.  I wonder how long we are monitoring the track conditions here.  As the cars go down into the dip of Eau Rouge, it is still pouring with rain.  Even if it stops raining, the spray will be monumental.  The safety car has increased the speed.  It is raining less now with drivers still though, on stone cold tires.  The #159 Garage 59 McLaren says no track limits which means they are now in a position where they have been penalized so often, or reported, they will incur a penalty if they do it again.  Dean MacDonald, Benji Goethe, and Tom Gamble will have to be very cautious.  Safety Car in at the end of this lap to go back to green.  

Safety Car in after an hour and 45 minutes.  We are at 1:45 A.M. on Sunday morning, June 30th, 2024.  14 hours and 45 minutes to go as we spent over two hours behind the safety car happened.  Joel Eriksen leads the motor race in the #23 Phantom Global Racing Porsche 911 GT3R.  Jaxon Evans, Joel Eriksson, and Thomas Preining.  We have a long, long, long way to go.  Jonathan Hui leads in the Bronze Cup class.  Many cars have come to the pit lane for service, and everything is resetting itself.  Dan Harper second.  Klaus Bachler third.  Alessandro Pier Guidi fourth.  Drive through penalty for the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 for an incident we saw in the daylight.  The Phantom Global Porsche is being run by Timo Bernhard and Team 75.  

We still have not found out if there is an official winner for the Nurburgring 24 Hours.  We will know in a few days, I think.  I don't know which driver is in the #72 Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini as the leaders are catching more cars including the #78 Barwell Motorsports Lamborghini and the drive through penalty for causing a collision is between the Ferrari and the BMW which was last night at 9PM and now we are at about 2AM on Sunday morning, Belgium time, Central European Summer Time.  Klaus Bachler in the #911 Porsche is 1.6 seconds behind Joel Erikssen.  

Dan Harper is now leading ahead of Joel Eriksson.  Klaus Bachler is right on Erikssen's six.  There is a maximum preset time the lights can strobe to not burn another driver's retinas out.  Xavier Maassen in the #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin is about to lose the lead lap.  Maassen and his other Silver-graded co-drivers.  Maassen along with Sam Dejonghe, Charles Clark, and Matisse Lismont.  Bachler tries a pass on Xavier Maassen.  More rain is coming down as Charles Weerts and Nikki Thiim both hit the pit lane.  Dan Harper leads for Rowe Racing ahead of the Porsche's of Klaus Bachler and Joel Eriksson.  Anyone who chooses a slick will need a rest in a darkened room because you know they are tired from their driving stint.

We expect more rain for the following nine hours until 11:00 A.M. local time in Belgium, so that will be ending about 4:00 A.M. Central Time in the U.S.  14 and a half hours to go.  Some of the drivers are running faster simply because they can see where they are going.  Muscle memory begins coming back.  In the late 1980s we saw fog and rain.  Manfred Winkelhock in a BMW being chased by James Weaver.  A couple of legends, racing in the touring car days.  Winkelhock overran the corner onto the grass and popped out the other side tucking Winkelhock up like a kipper.  It is all about staying on the island as Klaus Bachler is doing all he knows to try chasing down Dan Harper, the Northern Irishman.  

Paul Evrard, Thomas Neubauer, and Ralf Aron are following each other.  Ralf Aron raced for years in the Creventic 24 Hour Series.  Dubai, Portimao, Barcelona, and others.  The visibility is pretty poor at this moment.  Can Thomas Neubauer make good his escape?  He is chasing down the Hong Kong driver Jonathan Hui as Alex Aka pits the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi shared with Ricardo Feller and Christopher Haase.  Ross Gunn radios his team that he can do another stint on his tires in the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsports Aston Martin as Matt Campbell has moved to eighth in the #92 SSR Herberth Motorsports Porsche with Matty Jaminet and Fred Makowiecki, their full fat Porsche entry with the factory Hypercar/LMDh drivers.

All the GT3 cars are slightly different but the total lap time and top speeds are very close.  Pit stop time as Max Hesse takes over from Dan Harper in the #998 Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3.  Neil Verhagen has been with this team before, but he is racing SRO GT World Challenge America for ST Racing also in a BMW M4 GT3 with Samantha Tan.  The classic cars like the BMW 3.0 CSL, the Jaguar XJ-S, the Rover Vitesse, the Volvo 240 and so on were pure production cars modified for racing but the GT3 cars are pure racing cars, developed totally for competition.  The #60 Gold Cup 2 Seas Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 is leading overall and in Gold with Jonathan Hui leading Bronze and the top Pro entry is the Porsche of Fred Makowiecki.

Dan Harper interviewed by our mate Ryan Myrehn and for his first time driving in the wet, well, his co-driver Max Hesse, was worried, but is now getting into the groove.  It tookvery little time for the standing water to disappear when racing resumed.  Harper is amazed by the handling of the car.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  It is hard to know where they stack up to everyone else.  There have been many, many Full Course Yellows.  Just keep circulating and keep the car in one piece.  Oh my!  Glenn van Berlo is off the road in the #88 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi going into the Piff Paff.  Boom!  He hits the fence.  Glenn van Belo, the brother of Porsche Carrera Cup champion and sports car racer Kay van Berlo.  

How quickly can the car be removed.  This is at turn 12 entering the Piff Paff, Fangnes corner.  Most of the rain has stopped and it will be clear for the next two hours.  Full Course Yellow?  I think so.  Drudi is fastest on track.  In two hours, we will hit the halfway mark.  How will we engineer our way to the top of the greasy pole and getting the next slice of the points pie?  More wet weather Pirelli's for the #55 Dinamic Motorsports Porsche.  We are looking at a wave by under the Full Course Yellow.  Glenn van Berlo is now cleared out of the gravel trap but he needed a flat tow out of the gravel trap.  van Berlo is back on his merry way and hopefully won't spread gravel all over the place through Piff Paff.  It is Fangnes of course, Malmedy I think.  

Campbell, Schiller, Marciello, Engel, Weerts, the top five are in the pit lane under Full Course Yellow.  I just stepped out for a wee while and we have seen wholesale pit stops under the Full Course Yellow as we will soon end another hour of the motor race as everyone has just been chuntering into the lane for service.  Raffaele Marciello and Charles Weerts at Team WRT BMW are third and fifth.  The ones in the pound seats could be these guys because Dan Harper and Klaus Bachler are going to go ahead.  #998 lost more time stopping for the pit service.

So, Matthieu Jaminet is the new leader over Stolz, Bachler, Hesse, Marciello, and Morad.

    

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.  

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 8

Joel Sturm is the erstwhile leader of the motor race.  Some people in the crowd are still in t shirts but grab your hoodies and windbreakers because it is cold and rainy.  This new grandstand at Eau Rouge is absolutely incredible and you can see almost everything.  1/3rd of the circuit, honestly.  So, the wave by process is being commenced.  Several cars have been waved by already, the #19 Silver division GRT Grasser Lamborghini and the #90 Mad Panda Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 and the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of John Hartshorne and company.  The #158, the other Bronze category Garage 59 McLaren has been waved by the safety car and so, Maxi Gotz, Dani Juncadella, and Frankie Bird.  They can pick up the pace and get ready for the restart.  But, there are drivers ready to get in who are suited and booted with only a 63-67 minute stint length allowed.  It used to be 65 minutes I believe, but not anymore.  

The rain is sheeting down even more.  Oh boy.  Safety Car in at the end of this lap and we will go back to green to try going at pace in the wet.  What will Marc Duez tell Alain Adam on the radio?  The Race Director may be forced to keep the safety car out, but Alain Adam now believes we should be going back to green.  Through Brussels and Malmedy, which is the old name for the Piff Paff.  Safety Car lights still on.  So, that will be at Courbe Paul Frere, formerly Stavelot.  I really wish track management at Spa had not swapped the corner names so quickly because I am trying to remember the old corner names from first watching Formula 1 here 30 years ago.  Some teams have done 13-14 pit stops.

Comtoyou Aston Martin have been bringing their cars through the lane to reset the drive time.  That makes total sense as you eat up your drive time under the safety car.  Luca Stolz in the Mercedes says it is impossible to race, telling that to the team but also to Race Control.  This back and forth between the safety car and the Race Director and getting in touch with the marshals at their posts.  So, it is Marc and Alain communicating but it is also the drivers asking their crew chief who is behind or in front of them.  This restart is going to be a little funky, and not in a good way that makes you want to dance.  The water is streaming down the hill.

Watch the rivulets of water as the safety car is going, sploosh, sploosh, sploosh.  Are there any rivers?  Are there puddles of standing water?  I think we have seen a lightning strike in the sky earlier.  Oh dear.  Maybe it is the DJ?  Maybe not.  There is a yellow weather warning for lightning.  So we will keep circulating and that is determined by weather, not by time.  This is our eighth safety car, or ninth caution period.  11 Full Course Yellows.  Eight safety car interventions.  We had heavy rain at Le Mans and four and a half hours behind the safety car and we had loads of fog at the Nurburgring where there was fog for nine or ten hours on the Grand Prix circuit and the Nordschleife was completely covered, well, the high points of the course.  It was clear on the Grand Prix track.

Robin Schultz is playing the concert with the light show.  The riders on the Ferris Wheel who paid their tickets might have to come down if there is lightning.  There is thunder in the town of Spa as we hear that Maxime Martin is on wet tires.  Lisa Crampton, working for BMW Motorsport for the final time before beginning work with Motorsport Australia in her native nation, the Aussie winter.  Hello, to Jordan Pepper from the #163 Lamborghini team driven by Franck Perera.  It is very tricky out there.  They have been fighting back from their faulty fueling rig early doors.  

The new tarmac has been holding onto the water.  This is the third wet 24 hour race we have seen consecutively in Europe in the last four weeks.  Nurburgring, Le Mans, and now, Spa.  Ferrari #51 in the pit lane for tires and the car is all steamed up.  This is from being behind the safety car.  No extra demisters or defoggers with the race cars.  What is worse is the really bright red rain light.  It is a nightmare with how bright the red light is in your face.  The longer we see the rivers, well, every lap the landscape is changing, and the rain will make it harder to restart.  Spa is very dark this year.  That is why we have seen crashes.  The Ardennes Forest in it's clammy, rainy, misty forest mood.  

Blokes are getting caught out with track conditions with the great Balance of Performance for GT3 and so on.  Safety Cars are breeding Safety Cars.  Pit stop time for the #77 Al Manar Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.  That is Arjun Maini, Jusuf Owega, and Michele Beretta.  16 and a half hours to go, drivers and teams mostly sticking to double stints.  Some of the drivers have eaten dinner and done their physio and then, they will get dried off and get some sleep.  It is hot and sweaty in the GT3 cars.  It will be just a nap for the drivers, not a full-fledged slumber.    Lady Luck is who you need.  Le Mans decides who will win.  Same with Nurburgring, Spa, Daytona, you name it.

For the Pro cars, they don't get the wave by.  2 Seas Mercedes in the lane, the #60 Mercedes-AMG GT3.  Frankie Bird finishes his stint and I think Isa Al Khalifa will get in.  Are we going to put the safety car out.  A meatball flag for the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi because the high intensity red rain light is not on.  It needs to be, but it will blind other drivers just the same.  A Mercedes also has it's left rear taillight out, but we don't know which one.  The Silver graded Winward Mercedes is in the pit lane and I need to figure it out.  It is the #57  Tanart Sathienthirakul, Daan Arrow, (who is in the car), and Colin Caresani.  

Drivers might be cramping up in their feet trying to lift their feet off the pedals and you are holding your feet up in the air.  Crew chief to the driver, "what's wrong?"  "I need to go to the bathroom.  My feet hurt.  I am freezing cold!"  Mikael Grenier says that we are still dealing with enough rain that it is not time to go racing again.  It is boring to drive behind the safety car as the tires and engines get cold, but the drivers must stay alert.  It is far better than a red flag.  Al Faisal Al Zubair is in the car #777, the Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 sharing with Mikael Grenier we just heard from as well as Dominik Baumann and Philipp Ellis.

The Race Director's job is making sure everyone is safe.  Track conditions are out of people's control.  No worries about track limits in the wet because everyone is trundling around behind the safety car.  Try not to speed in the pit lane.  You need to have the hose connected for 44 seconds.  Ford Mustang #64 will have 25 seconds added to their next pit stop for short fueling.  That's Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen, and Frederic Vervisch of course.  The rain is lessening, and the wind is blowing back up the pit lane.  The windscreen wipers are vigorously moving.  But the rain is less than it was.  

One of the Rutronik Racing Porsche's is in the lane for tires and fuel and back out again, the #96.  Franck Perera has not pitted the #163 Lamborghini and David Pittard has not come in aboard the #34 Aston Martin yet.  So, we are talking about Walkenhorst Motorsports for the Aston and the Lambo for Grasser Racing Team, GRT.  Comtoyou Aston Martin's just pitting now.  We might need another wave by except for the Pro drivers, but we are looking at the overall field.  The Race Director needs to be very cautious in the wet.  The Aston's were both being fueled.  Teams are advocating for a red flag to be shown with heavy, heavy rain around the circuit. 

Red flags will be avoided unless it is for medical emergencies.  We had a four hour plus safety car at Le Mans two weeks ago for a lot of rain.  We don't want the centenary edition of this race to be red flagged.  Starting the cars takes more time if we've been stopped for a good while.  That is the big trouble, you see.  Ralf Aron who we heard from is now the overall leader in the #130 GruppeM Mercedes.  Aron sharing with Frederik Vesti and Daniel Juncadella.  To be a modern sports car racer you must be enormously adaptable to be going between the Hypercars or the GTP cars, or the LMP2's into a GT3 car.  GT3 cars are a global situation now of course between SRO, Nurburgring 24 Hours, IMSA, FIA WEC and so on.  

When drivers are not in their cars, they are doing work on the simulator, just like a pilot.  Their levels are sky high.  The #163 Lamborghini of Frank Perera is back out of the pit lane and now, David Pittard leads Simon Gachet.  Walkenhorst Aston Martin and Haas RT Audi, Sandrine Haas, based in Aruba, and is a motorsport photographer turned team owner, and a proud Belgian as well.  One of their two cars is out.  They have a single bullet left in the gun.  WRT are the home team here at Spa, both with BMW in GT3 and in Hypercar with BMW.  We are closing in on the end of hour eight, so we are almost 1/3rd of the way through this race.  

Thomas Drouet says the conditions are just too wet and are struggling to follow the safety car at slow speeds.  Maybe the track will dry out.  But it is typical Spa for sure.  Drouet says the team had to compromise with their setup and could not do a full dry setup on the car.  It is all about compromise to be truthful.  It is hard to stay engaged and he will get into the car and keep on trucking.  The strategies and the weather constantly changing.    

24 Hours of Spa: Hour 7

Side by side down the hill.  It is all kicking off again after the fireworks display and after I took the quickest break possible for a sausage and chips and a coffee.  Froggatt should give up the place and now Maximilian Gotz is Froggatt's next target and Froggatt's up to second place!  Marco Sorensen in the Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin is in the lead of the motor race, trusty old #7.  Frogatt up to Blanchimont, has to be careful, on the dry part of the road.  It is not down to the weather or down to tire performance.  The Aston Martin has marginally less grip and now, Frogatt stays in second.  On a drier section, it is 1.9 seconds, the gap through La Source.  Rain lights on.  Frogatt should be all over Sorensen like a fat pigeon on a chip.  But the traction out there is very skittish.  

Equally, Chris Froggatt is going for class position, as a Bronze Cup car.  I don't think a Bronze Cup car is going to win this event but on merit he can still lead.  into the braking zone for Piff Paff, Frogatt is reeling in Sorensen, that Aston Martin looking so skittish in this rain!  It is a chance for Frogatt to lead the motor race on merit.  Frogatt there, trying to make the move in the final chicane.  Frogatt might lose second place to Maximilan Gotz in the Mercedes.  "The call is yours on tires, and when we box we'll do a driver change to Nikki Thiim."  That is what Sorensen is told. 

Froggatt has moved back to third.  Martin Konrad has been released from the medical center and he is just fine.  Thank heavens!  All arms and elows for Froggatt through Les Combes.  The Mercedes is still in the fight.  My heavens!  This is hot stuff!  In the rain, through Pouhon, the Mercedes has the grip, the traction, the bite.  Can Froggatt reclaim second spot from the Mercedes?  That is the question, and he runs wide going into Courbe Paul Frere.  Car #72 and #96, ten second time penalty added to the next pit stop for causing a collision.  Hello to George Kurtz.  He says it has been start and stop and getting through the rain, the penalties, the shunts.  It is a survival game.  

They don't have a driver order at CrowdStrike by Riley in the Mercedes.  They just want to stay around before the end.  The rain might just come.  Kurtz had a flat tire and got spun off by the #888 Mercedes.  The repave of Spa has been good but they didn't quite get to corners ten through 13.  Do you stay on the dryline or the wet line?  That is the big question.  The new surface has sheared the surface of the Pirelli tires off.  Three weekends in a row for Kurtz of racing in the rain and Nicky Catsburg is at the controls of the #4 car right now.  Kurtz is the President of CrowdStrike, the presenting sponsor of this race, on the track with the best drivers in the world and of course the history with the 100th anniversary, the centenary, this year.

Adapting between a prototype and a GT3 car, it is pretty easy according to Kurtz.  Now we check in with the #998 BMW M4 GT3.  This is Augusto Farfus in fourth spot.  Understand the differences in the car between GT3 and prototypes.  So, in the points standings it is still Farfus, Harper, and Hesse leading with the rest of the results.  We'll talk about points after the race.  The rain has arrived, and Lucas Auer has spun off the road.  During the night, we are going to hear from Martin Haven and Bruce Jones for the night shift.  So, grab the coffee and hunker down with us as the night is well underway.  Marco Sorensen leads from Maxi Gotz and Ricard Feller.  

15 minutes taken in the pits for Aston Martin and the #9 Mercedes and the #99 Audi.  18 minutes and change for the #48 Mercedes which slithered off the circuit.  The rain is coming.  We'll see what is going to happen next as they accelerate from Les Combes and back down the mountain.  127 laps completed by Marco Sorensen so far, 553 miles.  We'll see David and John tomorrow morning and now we are welcoming Martin Haven and Bruce Jones to the booth.  John was right, the opening lap worked out well but we have lost a third of the field and the ink in the marker of doom might be gone soon, the Sharpie of doom, and it hasn't rained yet.

Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen have been regulars to Aston Martin for so long.  Good night, John.  We'll see you in the morning, mate.  If they gave a clown like me a Hypercar or a GT3 car, I wouldn't know how to drive the damn thing fast.  But the pit crews and the drivers, they are flying right now.  So, now, Nicki Thiim will get into the car.  Mattia Drudi  are heading into the pit lane.  Thiim is in the car.  Keep an eye on the #998 BMW M4 GT3, the Farfus, Harper, Hesse, Rowe Racing entry.  62 minutes is your maximum green flag driving stint line to line.

But they had 67-minute stint potential with the safety cars and we've got the points slice of the pie to come.  BMW #32 went to slicks and then back to wets and the reverse for the #46 WRT BMW of Valentino Rossi, and "The Doctor" became the crash test dummy.  Jordan Pepper in the Lamborghini has taken yet another pit stop and they've done so for tires as Augusto Farfus is in with a very wet windscreen.  The pit crew is cleaning it.  There's gravel bullet holes in the screen.  That car is still on Pirelli slick tires.

The #48 Mercedes is also in.  So, we have our mates Martin Haven and Bruce Jones taking us through the night.  This is the centenary of course of the Spa 24 Hours.  100 years ago, cars looked so different, the most basic things you can imagine and now we have these high tech prototype and GT missiles.  It's amazing!  Maxi Gotz leads the motor race as our pal Bruce Jones has an A4 paper pad to write down details on all the cars.  Things are really changing.  Ferrari #51 of David Rigo getting the windscreen cleaned up.  Because of the safety cars, Full Course Yellows, blah, blah, blah, it is very hard to tell who is where on the fuel situation.

Don't give up track position.  That would be insane.  Le Mans, Daytona, Spa, 20 hours to stay on the lead lap and four hours, try to win the race.  Hello to Ryan Myrehn in the pit lane who has Marco Sorensen.  Slight adjustment on Ryan's microphone, only audible in the truck.  OK.  We'll have to see what he has to say to our mate Ryan in the lane.  The first slice of the points pie has been awarded and we'll have more later after halfway and at the very end for the top ten in each of the classes.  But you need to survive to get that final pie slice.  

We have not had the form found yet and we've seen a handful of incidents where the big names have been dropping like flies.  With this weather, and heavy rain coming, they had a red flag in football, in soccer, a game rain delay.  But now, we are hitting more rain and we had Martin Konrad upside down on his lid during the safety car to rejoin the queue!  That was stone cold bonkers!  Everyone is peachy though.  They've been through the medical center and cleared by the doctors.  So, we have another car off the circuit.

It is a blue and orange car.  It is a McLaren I think, and it could be the Benji Goethe, Dean MacDonald, Tom Gamble entry, the #159 but Gamble is back on the road.  Not to worry.  Not to worry.  The tarmac makes it impossible to lose time.  Let's bring back gravel traps.  Trouble is, gravel gets all over the road and the cars stay buried until they are rescued by the cranes.  In endurance racing like FIA World Endurance, British GT, here, the 25-hour Fun Cup race, the Spa 24 Motos motorcycle race, things get crazy!  I wonder if we will soon reprise Ryan and Marco's interview.  We are under Full Course Yellow currently and the camera crews, ladies and gents, have your rain gear, your ponchos and your brollies.  

Heavy rain and storms expected in the Ardennes tonight.  So we'll be on our toes just like at Le Mans two weeks ago.  OK.  We have our conversation with Ryan and Marco back on.  Marco tells us that Nicki is dealing with a ton of rain and this is just like Le Mans was in the wet on slick tires.  It is a difficult situation.  How do you keep your head for when the sun comes up tomorrow?  Keep it on the road and that is tough to do.  A driver is not sure how wet it is.  You as a driver are taking risks.  During the fireworks, Marco Sorensen was in the car, the paper from the fireworks was all over the front grillework of the car.

This is our mate Ryan Myrehn's third trip to Spa in 2019, 2021, and now in 2024.  Ford Mustang #64 has just received a new nose.  Dennis Olsen from Norway at the wheel of it and maybe they wanted a new nose.  Actually, the Belgian, Fred Vervisch has taken over.  That Mustang has the highest top speed terminal velocity at the top of Eau Rouge and the Kemmel straightaway.  Ross Gunn in the Walkenhorst Motorsports Aston Martin has been on an upward trajectory but there is a little damage to the car.  Ross Gunn, Henrique Chaves, and David Pittard.  From the lead, the #60 2 Seas Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 had just come in.  

Frankie Bird sharing with Lewis Williamson, Isa Al Khalifa, and Martin Kodric.  Some teams are going to be looking at surviving and we have a track sweeping tractor taking the water off the circuit.  "I lost the rear in Eau Rouge, with the #888 car.  The vehicle was hard to get out of.  But I am OK coming from the medical center" says Martin Konrad, the Austrian, who was upset, disoriented being upside down and blinded by the dark!  Scary business!  We have had a jet dryer on the road I think to move the gravel.

We are still into Full Course Yellow.  The Race Director is trying to give people equal opportunity to come into the pit lane if need be.  Also, once you are more than a handful of minutes in we swap to safety car conditions.  The rain isn't as heavy as it was and parts of the track have steam coming off, of the new surface anyhow.  Black tarmac absorbs heat.  I think they resurfaced the fast lane and not the apron.  17 degrees track temperature, or air temperature, 22 degrees track temperature and of course that is Celsius, not Fahrenheit.  17-22 Fahrenheit would be wintertime and it would be too cold to even start a race car.  Now, everyone is just staying on the road and the rain is heavier here at La Source than it is upwards from Eau Rouge.

Pure Racing and Joel Sturm are the erstwhile leaders in the Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3R.  Sturm leads in a storm.  Hehe.  He did the same at Le Mans in GT3 as well.  Coincidence?  No.  It rained at Le Mans, too.  Sturm could be the rain meister.  Ugo de Wilde says that the gambles have been taken o tire choice at the Sainteloc Audi team.  Some drivers are hoping for a safety car as we are seeing more and more spray on the road.  It is so dark here at Spa at night but with the rain even more so.  With the new pavement, it is a major question mark for everyone.

Things did happen with some rain at the Speed Week last weekend for British GT.  In the Prologue test it was dry as a bone.  George Kurtz told us that in the dry, the surface is super grippy.  The British GT boys said that it was pretty good in the wet but there's been lots of rubber down on the road since the other races last weekend.  My goodness.  The track temperature is still warm.  We don't have a breeze or a wind to blow the rain through the forest.  I must bring the rain at night here at Spa when I step in to write about this race on a yearly basis!  But, I digress.  We are half an hour from midnight and at hout eight we will be at 12:30 A.M. Sunday morning.

We are not ready for a restart by any means yet so I will just bore you with my observations.  The safety car driver is of course, Marc Duez, rally driver, GT racer, and a man who manages a company doing track days and teaching people who to high performance drive.  Duez is a three-time winner at the Spa 24 Hours and has done will in the Ardennes Rally.  Duez is a Walloonian Belgian and not Flemish.  It is different between the French side of Belgium and the Dutch side.  At this speed with small amounts of standing water, it is boring but it is slow at 80 clicks, 50 miles an hour in old money.  The Pirelli slick tires are stone cold and ought to be carved out of mahogany.  Wooden wheels, like antique cars.