6 Hours of Spa: Full race replay

[Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to spa franchise we're high in the belgian art den on a beautiful may day the first of may is also the first race day of the new season for the fia world endurance championship season nine commences here in spa and finishes in bahrain at the end of the autumn and in between times we go to le mans and a bunch of other historic european race tracks well let's get down to hear from luis beckett to set the scene in the pit lane hello you join me in the pit lane because we are continuing to follow kobe protocol there will not be an official grid here for this race here in spa however it is the dawn of a new era for the world endurance championship the hypercar will be making its debut race here in spa with the number seven toyota leading the pack we've had the prologue earlier in the week and three practice sessions and it's shown us the competition continues to be fierce amongst all of our competitors and one thing's a certain it's looking to be a great season ahead thank you louise we'll also have duncan vincent down in the pit laying down in the pit lane at the moment as well is alan mcnish who will join us in the comedy booth meanwhile me martin haven and graham goodwin but absolutely right about the dawn of a brand new era with hypercar this new uh category for the blue ribbons the top tier of sports car racing it begins here in spa frankesha for the middle of june what would normally be the lemon weekend we will go to the delayed eight hours of portimao standard points here for the six-hour racing in spa in monza and in fuji for portimou and for bahrain eight-hour races earnest points and a half and the 24 hours of lamar the winners will earn double points so it's a short season in terms of only half a dozen races but three of them are extra point paying at races and we talked to a number of the drivers over the week so far and all of them very much in the opinion graham that you cannot afford to drop the ball from here day one you have to get points on the board you have to score strongly particularly if like the two toyota teams you expect to be battling your own teammates for a championship 100 right good afternoon good evening good morning good night whatever we are in the world it's great to be back isn't it fabulous day here at spa franchise but you're absolutely right one thing i would add and you're making very clear there about the point situation martin uh around this fabulous seven kilometers circuit is if you are gonna have a problem this is the one to do it at because this is what we're gonna lose fewer points but there's not a lot of wriggle room is there well and you know spa as everybody knows a legendary racetrack does not take prisoners it doesn't look like monaco but the penalty for a mistake is very similar we've seen a number of cars in the prologue the preseason test two days on monday and tuesday four cars were written off and new cars had to be brought in we already lost one of the potential contenders from team project one yesterday in qualifying two more cars had heavy shunts on the out laps and one of those the second team project one car is also not going to start the race so that's an entire two-car team day one they don't even get to go to the grid what about reigning champions well united auto sports in lmp2 they won everything last year in fact they they more than won everything they just dominated in lmp2 in world endurance at le mans in the european le mans series in michelangelo mp2 and lmp3 they are a sports car team graham who are on a roll and that showed with the dominance they produced in qualifying now it's a very short run to the grid gr racing there the gte and porsche looping around on the exit a piff path and into the barriers firmly and that's mike wainwright's their bronze driver team owner and car owner can mike drive away from there that was quite a cloud wasn't it and there's there's heavy damage there oh dear oh no and there's the team that is appalling look well that's not a good start to the last race for one of their team coordinators uh is it sarah smith who will be stepping away for a while from the fi world endurance championship with gr racing uh off for a very happy reason uh this has started her seventh season uh with the team been there from the very start but sarah we wish you well well and the boys in the team as well hopefully mike will get the car back looks like broken rear suspension possibly just a puncture if it's just a puncture then that's a good thing but it didn't look like just a puncture well here's another car that crashed very heavily in the hands of team boss christian reed on and out lab before qualifying in the am class the am had to do the qualifying and christian lost it in a rouge and a heavy impact cresting the brow car flew into the barriers maybe the good news is that he is a-okay and the great news for the team is that despite what was a very fast very big accident they have managed to rebuild the car and graham goodwin it's not always a given that just because bits fly off there's no further damage under the skin i'll be absolutely blunt i came in this morning i went down to see project one team and dempsey proton racing unexpected the opposite news because that to me looked a more violent accident uh but an astonishing job by the number 77 team but what that does of course apart from putting the 77 card back on the grid is it uh it retains christian reid's ever-present status in the championship absolutely none of the previous 66 races it's one of our new additions this year ts board of course back but with a very different looking car a very different looking driver squad the 33 car and this is our pole sitter in the gte am class as well courtesy of ben keating we had two red flags in a 10 minute qualifying session for the gt car so he went out set him out lap was on a hot lap red flag second time also on his out lap luckily he hadn't started a hot lap uh it was red flag but he put in a really strong run aston martin a one-two in the am class porsche and ferrari on as even porsche claimed pole courtesy of kevin ester not one but two lap record setting runs consecutively in the 92 porsche and that was after actually having two at least one hot lap aborted by the first red flag so the second time they hadn't left the pit lane when the red fight came out they had always intended to wait in lmp2 poll went to philip albakirk in the number 22 united auto sports car and again not once but twice beating nick dufrese and in fact they outpaced the third of our hyper car entries they did indeed a bit of a problem we'll talk about that when we get a chance to look at the alpine as to what went wrong yesterday in qualifying for the team an unfortunate failure for them but uh two dominant pole positions in the classes is on board now with the number 31 team wrt oraca two astonishing laps kevin s flapping the 92 porsche amazing if you've got more than one screen take a look on twitter at the frwc tweets for the onboard there and look in particular at what might be called a kind of code ground moment at puwon um so it was an amazing lap from him and the same with felipe albuquerque he's been absolutely stellar or weak and continued that form and the significance day of that last on board team wrt making their world endurance championship full season debut wrt supremely experienced in gt racing they've run audi's in dtm as well they've been very much a founding member of audi customer sport racing for a decade plus with with loads of success here at spa particularly in the 24 hours but now they are embarking on a lmp2 program they raced in barcelona in the european le mans series with that car and absolutely decimated the opposition so they're looking for a good race here but at the front of the field the outright pole sitters toyota let's hear from jose maria lopez hey maria lopez this is the start of a new era the hyper car for toyota and you're starting out on pole uh yeah yeah it's a very important day for us i think for moderation for endurance racing and uh yeah in this circuit which is a special spa with a good weather sun it looks like it's not gonna be snowing today like like the other time but uh yeah very excited um a lot of unknowns on the race but uh yeah looking forward for the challenge what do you think today is gonna bring ah yeah i mean i think it's going to be very hard i think tire degradation is a main concern for us because it's a heavier car um less aero so yeah even if michelin did a great work still we will have to manage and it's a new track for us with this car well pachito and mike conway joining kobayashi in the number seven car the man who set the first ever hyper car pole that's a 22nd outright pole in world endurance championship racing and now i beg your pardons more than that because their their last poll here at spa in 2019 was their 21st poll so they have also claimed the first ever hyper car pole number seven ahead of number eight and graeme there is a third hyper car and that is the alpine alpine elf matt mutt car run by philip seno the senior tech team stepping up from lmp2 with a car they don't know in a category that nobody knows so big big challenge for them and big challenge here for ollie gavin as well obi-wan having his final ever race this weekend after a 50-year coat not quite 50 degrees something like quarter of a century 30 years of success amazing stuff for molly 1990 he was the former first winter series champion so yeah we're going back to uh the dawn of time i think he probably tells people about that down the pub even now holly calvin it will see ollie by the way in the middle of this race not to start of the finish at the moment but so great to see him here absolutely great to see the corvette c8r here yes exactly and the fact that ollie is here is because corvette have to be here they've brought one car here because the car has to be ratified before they come to le mans they had planned to come to portugal but of course that race has now been pushed back and so that race will take place in mid-june with the 24 hours of le mans in august so cars heading out and they've had a final warm-up session they'll be fueled and fresh driving talent if required will be put in before they head to a very short grid of course we're racing behind closed doors again here at spa as we did in the autumn and graham that means there's no grid walk there's no pit walk there's no autograph session it's a much more downbeat build up to the race perhaps for the drivers yeah but if you are joining us from homer we hope you are we'd love to have you here at a sunny spa nine degrees by the way air temperature 29 degrees on track 7 degrees 9 degrees official what i would say is you can download free the race event program from the wc website that's 86 card does not look well no that's coming back on a truck but at least it is coming back you know well that's always it's always an issue on cold air tires on a cold track getting the pressures and the temperatures right so the cars got the grip because cold slicks are essentially made of mahogany rather than nice soft sticky rubber and that the the grip just disappears alan mcnish joining us in the booth and once your tire is out of its operating window we understand that we see more often that it's getting too hot and it starts to give away grip but going going the other way being too cold is is equally dangerous yes too cold is definitely uh the the worst part of it because when you lose the the tire at that point and you don't feel it you just spin instantly the other thing is pressures and you know at the end of the chemistry there's a big long straight uh the pressures would not be up to operating full temperature essentially pressure and uh clearly he's lost it the thing now for him is to get the car back to the pits but they have to be able to repair the car and for it to drive out the end of the pit lane within one hour of the start of the race or they cannot continue so therefore effectively they've just got over an hour to get this thing whatever damage it's got to be the prayer so i'm sure that uh louise and duncan down in the pit lane will be following the progress of that but there's going to be a lot of work by the mechanics very very quickly well we'll talk during the race particularly graham about new cars and new teams new drivers that have entered but there's even the teams we know have got a lot of new livery so there's going to be again good reason to download and print the spotter guide from the website to give yourself a fighting chance this is team wrt great lineup in that car robin freems formula e driver young ferdi habsburg young single-seater and gt racer from austria and then frenchman xiaomi lazy there is the uh pratt miller corvette racing crew always good to have them back but with the new mid engine corvette a very different look and sound to the car you could easily pass that for a ferrari so the belgian anthem rings out over spa frogger shot it's the 1st of may 2021 it is day one for hypercar the new top tier of endurance racing globally it's a catch-all that will cover or currently covers le mans hypercar with or without hybrid with road relevance or without and will also encompass lmdh the insert sports car championship version of hybrid well let's get down to the grid we'll catch up with united auto sports our p2 pole sitters and phil hanson phil hanson you're going to be starting in the 22 united auto sport what are you thinking about the start of this race ahead yeah i mean obviously it's a six hour race so you can't you can't win the race in the first corner but you can definitely lose it um luckily because of philippe's great lap yesterday we're starting on pole which is theory the safest place you could be but yeah we're looking to hold a nice lead and hopefully pull away and create a nice gap the others and if he is lightning away from the start there is always the potential of getting in amongst or even maybe ahead of the toyota gazoo racing zero tens the other thing that he needs to do is try and avoid any problems with the car that starts alongside him which is the third of the hypercar entries from alpine and stay ahead of his p2 rival but graeme goodwin nominally we've got four classes two of prototypes so you've got hybrid and lmp2 two in gt you've got gte pro and the proam class gte am effectively we've got all the prototypes together and all the porsches in the same mixing pot so neither of the top categories is gonna have an easy time let's hear what porsche's kevin ester thinks kevin you put in such a great performance yesterday there was such a gap between you and the rest of the gt field can you continue that throughout the race today i think it was a great lap the car was fantastic and i and i just managed to to get everything perfect and it's it's tough to get that around spa and i'm really proud to have achieved this lap but uh but for sure the competition will be closer in the race we've had a lot of time to practice with the prologue two days then fp1 f2 fp3 where we've seen where the others are in in terms of pace and and the red cars are quite fast as well in the long runs and it's the same for a sister car and corbett somehow you always have to count on them so i don't think we'll see such a difference in terms of pace would be nice but i don't think so well to answer your question yes well done uh what's going to be interesting here is just the way the ebb and flow comes particularly with the the lower ranked drivers in the program classes when are they going to be deployed by the teams lmp2 and in gtam is that going to leave some of the real young guns the real fast guys in the lmp2s and the gte ams to get in amongst and give trouble to the hypercars at the front of the race and i mean you've got a well-formed view of exactly what the the one task that should be performed by an lmp2 should they have any chance of success with that but in particular in gte where we've seen regularly through the week it's been a lot of track action this week with the prologue test and the race meeting we've seen the quicker of the gtes up ahead of some of uh in fact most of the gte pros at some point alan yeah i think when you come to the lmp2s getting into the hyper cars for the overall victory and overall podium they've got to keep in mind the long game the long game is at the end of the season and so you know in that respect their battle predominantly is with the other lmp2 cars however if you can get that opportunity you're going to take it to really make it work at the beginning because strategically they're more than likely going to have to do more pit stops because they can go a lesser distance on their fuel tank to make it they're going to have to lead going into lake home for a p2 car to break the gap and that unfortunately for them though is the area where the hyper cars are significantly quicker this drop down through oh who's the long pool up to the top of the hill here at riding and then up towards lake home that's where the hyper cars are very quick that middle sector that's where the lmp2s are very quick and then it's kind of nearly balanced but a bit more to the hyper cars in the third sector what we've already seen through the week and i think what we can certainly see here at spa maybe less so as these hyper cars kind of bed in is the fact that if they are going to win this race they've got to be fault free there is not the margin that there was previously with the lmp1 cars that's better for the racing surely yeah look at the end i i'm uh i've got two hats i suppose i've got uh the sort of team principle acts which is my kind of day job and there you obviously want to make sure you protect your team as much as possible but predominantly i've got my fan hat on and my fan hat tells me this is going to be an absolute cracking race i think you've got these different battles as you said the hyper cars have not got any margin for error in their strategy game at all in gte pro we've known there's been no margin for error at all for the last goodness knows what four or five years and it's great to have the corvettes here as well coming across that stunning looking car and in gtam and in lmp2 then it's exactly the same it's a hard battle all the way through one guy though very pleased to see that he's doing his final racing i don't mean that in any derogatory ways of having because oliver i remember in his formula first days i've seen him come through all of his career absolutely sterling career but it's nice to be able to hang up your hat your helmet in the way you want to do it and there's no better circuit than spa well here is our gte am pulsator stunning livery it's going to be very easy to spot that car not least because he starts at the front of gte am let's hear from ben keating ben keating that was a superb qualifying from you yesterday and starting the race today uh what are your thoughts going into it well it was a very strange qualifying yesterday with the two red flags only six minutes of uh of hot qualifying means only two hot laps uh and with the track limits being an issue at this particular track it was pretty difficult to make sure you had at least one good clean lap and i had a really really good lap and very grateful to be up at the front uh it turns out we have an all aston front row and it should be good i'm excited to start the race i'm most excited that the weather is beautiful so i was a little concerned about starting a race at this place at this incredible track in the rain because it can be tricky in the wet but mother nature is smiling on us today so very excited i think it should be a good race well let's hope the weather stays that way yes all right thanks very much thank you [Music] well ben keating is i'm sure very delighted as he said graham that it is dry the outlap from the pit lane in the rain last year saw not one but two cars spinning down the hill into our rouge we nearly lost two cars within 300 meters of the pit lane exit before the race had even started so this place is not easy on the driver or the car in good conditions it gets considerably more not easy i know that's not english in bad conditions one minute board is going to be due in just a couple of minutes time just a quick update by the way from the pits and paddock uh gr racing have got their hands back on the 86 car they're going to attempt to fix on that we'll keep you posted about what happens with that particular porsche but yes i mean i'm sure alan's got um plenty of depth of experience of the teams he's been involved in and around him about just how tricky it is how easy it is here to make uh those kind of mistakes that can lead the team on the back foot over a race week yeah the thing about this circuit is it's fast but very unforgiving so you know accident damage basically energy is a square of the speed so you know if you're going off at 100 miles an hour 150 miles an hour then there's a massive difference in that energy and we've seen the the incident so far the thing about racing teams though is they are fantastically able in crisis situations to adapt and pivot and they do it so so well we've seen it so many times in the past it's not what's behind you it's what's ahead of you get it fixed get it back out there and get going again well i think that so much of that is is absolutely correct and if you just look at which sports were fastest to come back in the the current pandemic motorsport was the one that was able to react to juggle to move things because that's what motorsport does faster than ever so you know that's one of the reasons that we are able to go racing and an awful lot of sports are still waiting for the green light yes we don't have fans and and they can't come back soon enough because the passion for endurance racing is part of what everybody shares um but it's just you know the fantastic chance for everybody motor racing to go and just bring a little bit of light-heartedness and at the moment the world needs it now the bad news unfortunately from golf from gr is that the uh 86 car is done it will not be fixable so that's really tough on the team really tough on mike wainwright but graham you know we walked down the pit lane before lunch this morning and project one who came here with two cars and high hopes their garage is empty and they were packing everything into the truck before anybody else had even thought about pushing cars out onto the apron so that is a third brand new brand new porsche gone before the race that is gutting i've got to say this which is we are missing the fans trust us we are genuinely missing seeing you here the track hearing your enthusiasm but you've got some representatives here on the grid we heard from ben keating ben a gentleman driver a businessman who's been successful is investing some of his success in his passion they're the fans here for you so rather than actually thinking about how they're not quite as quick as the professional drivers think instead they're your representatives right here well there's three in this booth who are died in the wool motorsport fans endurance racing fans and alan and there's every single every single person in this place is not here because it's a job they're here because it's a passion and they're here because fortunately it's become the life it's become what we do so we're we are living the dream no question at all and we share that passion with you and the sooner we can physically share it the happier we'll be the field rolls away here at spa the final formation lap before the start of the 2021 fia world endurance championship season nine is about to get underway here at spa frankenshaw the beginning of the new hypercar era let's hear from the most local local team there is in the business wrt try to maximize heating the brakes and the tires because the pressures will be dropped out of it to make sure we are ready for turn it's message to robin friends who's starting that car his first wbc race fantastically experienced in pretty much every other category in the world but not in this one and uh just a reminder that the slow speed behind the safety car is not necessarily going to just drop the tire temperatures but the pressures and that is key for that first run down through or rouge and the compression that it puts onto the tire especially that left rear and so robin is going to be starting that car their 10th overall not exactly as we expected because they won the el s race in barcelona the first round and they were very quick in uh all the running up till now but in qualifying didn't quite run out for them yeah it's a new era for wrt i've been absolutely stellar in gt3 racing could continue to be stellar in gt3 racing but making a big run into lmp with the dawn of this new era it's good and it's going to get better and better and better big big names coming and a lot of these drivers know they're coming and want to be part of that storyline gentlemen into the pit lane has come miro kanaka in the arc bratislava lmp2 car not quite sure why we will find out for you that car was at the tail of the p2 field but he's shown now as being on the pit lane and louise beckett will head down there so one of the stories we're going to talk about as you watch the grid roll past you'll notice some of the names that we've got in lmp2 likes again van der gard we've seen before stoffel vandoorne juan pablo montoya robin freeze of course is earning his living in formulary as well stars in reasonably priced cars which is what lmp2 is there are an awful lot of teams drivers positioning themselves this year to be on a shopping list for a manufacturer who's coming into hyper car maybe in 22 probably in 23 there's a lot of people trying to get themselves noticed um we need a bit more on the rear if you want to do two things before the start and then come back yeah that's to stop van dorn who many fans will know from formally but also from formula one that's two turns of the brake balance two clicks half a turn of the brake battery sorry to the rear for the brake distribution for that first breaking into the source then once the tires are up to tempering pressure he can go forward again but probably at the end of the first lap little gentle reminder engineer to driver engineer is actually the driver coach at some points and we talked to neil gianni who instead of being in a porsche 919 leading the field is in the porsche gt car leading in gt and he was saying he has to be reminded to look in the mirror we will need to be side by side turn 15 side by side turn 50. [Music] this is turn 15 the beginning of the bus stop that was a reminder to sebastian buemi in the number 8 toyota 2x2 like noah's ark they come across the line they should get the green this time round the red lights are on we are ready to start the season mike conway leads the number eight toyota's looking to drop in behind but phil hanson the blue dark blue 22 united auto sports car was there a little bit of contact one of the joker cars in the middle and a big lockup from the better of the two ferraris that's a of course's miguel molina ferrari going second and third and phil hansen can't slow down he's just got to get speed into the car and if that means going by the hypercar toyota so be it yeah it was gonzales that we saw getting a little bit out of shape coming into the first quarter but hanson's now dropped down to third that straight line speed of the toyota has just gone straight back that this is a section where the lmp2 car should be significantly quicker down the hill here if they can make something here look at the yellow carpet van the gardener he's up to second he'll be the one in the charge and roman russonov starting the first of two g drive cars they're not season long entries the orange and black cars gator vanderguard trying to go the long way around the outside phil hansen behind a slow toyota and he is trying to find some speed rusanov battling in fifth place he's just got ahead of the elf uh the elf started by andre nagrau has dropped back a fraction it's still in the familiar bright blue colors that we saw in the lmp2 senior tech car last year but that is a hypercar entry certainly is conway's got a little bit of breathing space but sebastian blame is having to watch his mirrors because hanson's all over the back of him in guido van der garde just to watching brief as they come down to the lowest point of the circuit from here it's a long gradual it's flat out but it's a long gradual climb all the way through this stavalo corner and then down toward or up towards blanchama and back towards boston there you see straight line difference of the toyota just pulling away from the lmp2 car but it is so minimal in comparison to what we're used to in a previous era and that is purely because they're deploying the hybrid system there gives them that extra boost of power the internal combustion engine is very similar to a p2 cars power and angiogram dive bombs roman rusinov so he moves back up to fifth position for alpine and we hear from the pit lane from louise beckett that arc bratislava have a fuel cell leak that is really tough for one of our debut teams in the championship the first time a team from slovakia has raced in world endurance championship in gte pro the porsche is in front 92 ahead of miguel molina and alessandro pierguidi in those two ferraris we watch behind with tail gunner richard leitz and antonio garcia is behind him here comes the alpine up the hill it is not a hybrid car so it doesn't have that extra boost three goes up uh the inside of gear van der garde the gt classes by the way big key to get a stellar start was by the corvette in the early corners and was nibbling to get into uh fourth position past the number 91 porsche didn't quite make it has dropped back but leads the class ahead of francois parado in the championship defending 83 af quarter we're pointing out that ben keating the texan car dealer runs 14 car dealerships that's what he does for a living he's not a pro race driver third seasoning world endurance championship first season in a ford gt second season in a porsche third season he's in an aston martin i'm assuming next year he'll race a ferrari because he can obviously not brand loyal when he's selling cars that's for sure as we see now battle coming down into pool the double left-hander and that's a little bit of track limits slip wide when you're on the outside you're always going to get squeezed and compromised there but that's dropped back and now the porsche's got a bit of a breathing space over the two ferraris which were on the back of them however when it comes back to the lead battle here the two toyotas are not dropping phil hanson in united auto sport car at the moment what we've got there by the way is the gte pro leading cars with the gentleman drivers at the moment trying to get the heat into the tires at the back of that lmb2 battle that battle by the way pr one motorsports uh collaborating here with palace racing and board here with the number seven totor with real team racing so it's patrick kelly and esteban garcia running wide there one of our two garcias esteban dropping back there in the real team racing car of course you've got antonio garcia in the corvette as well in the gte pro class found the first time that antonio garcia and olly gavin have actually been in the same car together they've spent many years as good friends racing for corvette racing never had the chance to share a car so toyota gazoo racing the 0-10 1-2 and they're easing creeping away from phil hansen but as you said alan fastest car in sector two is an lmp2 car that's where the downforce works most or is needed most in the am class there you can see the 83 ferrari that is francois piroto he's second ahead of paul dalalana a different delivery on the 98 aston as well it's now that yellow and blue paul with a couple of brazilian teammates and so that is a different livery from the factory yellow and green that we've been used to seeing and there's the leader ben keating the bright blue four horsemen car in front but francois perot has actually got himself up into second because dalai lana started second on the grid and was tracking keating for the first lap however now per order and the ferrari has got himself up into that position be interesting to see how he can catch up during it because what we have seen historically is that the ferraris are much better in the race than they are in qualifying whether that's strategy or whether it's just naturally the way the car is but it seems to be consistent in pro and also in am seeing here with ben keating coming over the rise there look back further in the field though if you're watching us on live topic big leap over the crest there from paul de la the number 77 car remember started from the back of the grid matt campbell uh pro driver the uh porsche factory driver making rapid progress up through the order great start to race by the way too from tomorrow fuji in the number triple 7d station racing aston martin the second car handled by tf and another car had big problems earlier in the week in fact the 77 and the triple seven were the last cars on the grid and they are now running in fifth and sixth place in gte am so fuji and campbell both going well that d-station racing team it's a dark green and black aston martin but ahead of them chetila racing now chetala have spent the last couple of years in world endurance in lmp2 struggling to make a delara work they've decided to go with another italian brand which is a little bit more turnkey ferrari so they're in gte am same driver lineup that we're used to seeing and it's roberto lacourte who started that car it's a bright blue ferrari with the chickalaurey stripes down the middle it's a glorious looking livery and also by the way adding associate sponsorship to the gte pro ferraris you'll see that on the front quarters of the two uh pro cars the 51 and remember not 71 this year but 52 is the other car this year and they run in the opposite way 52 at the moment ahead of 51 miguel molina and of alessandro pier greedy kevin ester the leader in gte pro has put about a three second margin and growing on the two ferraris and his teammate richard leads in the porsche so estra has seemingly found as much pace in the race as he did in qualifying change the position here alessandro pierguidi drifts up the inside from third three green lights on the side of his car up to second at the next split that will change and set two green lights on the side amigo molina will become three you can see the corvettes not being dropped by much i think the warmer race day temperatures are going to help that the team were saying they've struggled with cold track temperatures it's the same car the same drivers and exactly the same tyre that they use in north america but whereas the track temperature here is in single digits a cold day in america is very very much warmer than that as we see the mp2 just getting a little bit loose as it came into lake home the track temperature actually with the sun now that it's came out has gone up to 27 28 degrees celsius air temperature still a little bit chilly it's got an edge to it but the track which is what the tire sees that's the only thing that it really cares about is the abrasiveness and the speed of the corner plus also the temperature of it then that's now starting to get into a window where it maybe is helping the corvette as you said on the other side of it for whatever reason isn't helping miguel molina because he seems to be sort of holding back his teammate now his teammates ahead of him and uh he'll be in a position where he's looking in the mirrors more than looking at the windscreen yeah so one ferrari free to chase the lead porsche the other one will have to fight off the second porsche looking back here at the battle between the g drive car that's number 25 with dragon speeds one pablo montoya chasing john phelps in the g drive car and we ride on ball behind both of them with robin friends man that you've spent plenty of time racing against allen but he's got he's got a good rep on his on his cv already robin hasn't he he's an impressive young peddler no i know him very well not racing against him as a driver because he's much younger than me but uh certainly from a team perspective yes he's uh he's got a great cv he's been part of uh different programs that have been involved in for quite a long time now and uh i'm sure he'll get sorted out with this at the moment their seventh they've moved up from tenth on the grid to seventh and uh it's sort of sitting there i would say in a learning position but right now there is only one car that's really streaking ahead as it was all of last year's united auto sports and lmp2 that is a big lead 6.7 seconds at the moment phil hansen ahead of ghetto vandergaard who's no slouch in the second car in lmp2 car number 29 in fifth place overall you see hanson here with the paler blue el alpine elf catching him very slowly but it is creeping up behind and then you get in the twisty stuff and it gets dropped again by the p2 car indeed fighting back from uh their qualifying performance hampered by the way by uh has faulted the center unit to one of the new torque sensors that helps with the balance of performance closing in there through the bus stop though andre negro has been rapid in lmp2 for several years now getting to grips as are the team with pressure precious little testing before the season just four days uh with his number 360. now that he's stuck right up the back of the gearbox of the united ultra sports car he actually equaled the toyotas on the last lap and so the speed of uh the alpine is there relative to toyota uh but he needs to get ahead of united auto sports to be able to show it and to well maybe take the fight to those two japanese cars remember the other big changing dynamic here is going to come pretty soon because these are not as quick as the old lmp1 hybrids were that means traffic is going to be more of a challenge for everybody so it's not going to be as easy for any of these cars in particular but the lead is included when traffic becomes a factor well we were having a meeting with the porsche gt team boss this morning and he echoed what the drivers have told us earlier in the week that in a gt car it's very hard you know for a p2 car or and also the hyper cars to get by a quickly pedaled gt car and that doesn't just mean the pro class that means the am class when all the other drives are in it i was about to ask when was the last time one problem on toilet raced at spa john phalp who has just passed raced here last year raised here in elms he's raced here a number of times when was the last time montoya raced its part would have been in formula one but that's 15 years ago i mean the tracks no real difference but it's a it's been a long while since he was driving into frankfurt i bet you anyway he moves up he's got ahead of john phelp and in fact robin friends for wrt has also moved up so montoya for dragon speed fifth place robin friends in six john phelp down to seventh there's antonio garcia he's actually closing in now on miguel molina and richard leeds but molina seems to be the sort of cork in the bottle i wouldn't say though uh that piergidi when he overtook two or three laps ago is able to streak ahead but molina seems to be a little touch slower on the last lap it was only three tenths of a second but those three tenths of a second you know do add up very very quickly yeah the last lap actually garcia was as quick as the ferrari and not far off the pace of porsches the two porsches are doing well the lead porsche kevin ester doing a 2-14-0 lead ferrari 2-14-7 now of course they only have four and a half sets of tyres for the entire race so old tyres will become a factor when you use them how you use them so the balance of power in gte pro will change joe just bought here ahead of g drive so stoffel vandoorne has also just got by john phelp because that is the 2025 g drive car roman rusinov in 2016 which is visually identical is still in third in lmp2 and he's actually three seconds behind gear vandergaard and three ahead of alex brundle would have been quite surprised that is this particular battle for third place overall and uh this is between united auto sports as we've got a replay here of coming down into the bus stop and that's yeah never going to happen around the outside there i have to say that was the real team prototype coming up behind gte pro leader kevin est so uh i think uh esteban garcia ran out of road quicker than he was hoping meanwhile his first season by the way lmp2 so there's lessons to learn there's a tough one there matt campbell dives by paul dalalana that puts campbell in the 77 car crashed did not qualify up to third and down the inside comes the d station machine as well so this is domino fuji in his world endurance championship debut he moves up for d station run by tf sport and that car now up into fourth position in the am class and again like 77 from the last row of the grid uh the answer by the way for juan pablo montoya i believe is the 2005. that's the real team car again just pushing a little too hard that's out of the brussels hairpin looks like he's looped it around long right-hander slightly adverse camber maybe get a replay of that and he gets it gets a bit of a touch he wasn't quickly enough on the throttle for the ferrari who clearly had felt he had a bit better traction a bit of a nudge now is where we're going to talk about you cannot afford to make mistakes all season long and traffic was always going to be where the mistakes were going to come here at spa if that's not a penalty for miguel molina i will be surprised which means they are suddenly right on the back foot against their own teammates never mind the porsche drivers in the pro field well you've got this particular race but you've also got five cars in the category so you can't afford to have any slip-ups not just now but through the whole season and the other thing is it's not just pro drivers that take overall gt points am drivers do as well so if your tenth of all the gt cars that's all you get perfect and now energy map four engine map four okay for so clearly there it is that was just going to say engine map four could be one of two ways it could be a lean map to try to save fuel if you can't overtake then you use it to try to extend your uh stint length or alternatively uh you have got a little bit more power to try and overtake but i was going to say it later on the one thing i've not seen is that alpine actually be able to attack the lmp2 card on the straight but now he may be able to do it well one of the reasons why he's gonna be desperate to get by and b there might be that possibility he's looking to fuel save allen is something of a enigma really which is chatting to philippino before this race they cannot carry as much fuel in that car as their bop says they can uh i would allow them to so they're going to be short a few short stopping if you like against the totals little maybe a lap maybe two laps longer than p2s that's a side by side there between number 77 and the number triple seven all the sevens the most experienced f uh fia wec driver versus one of the least experienced a man in his what race are we now 67th 68th yeah i think it's fair to say the flashing of the lights from bufuchi there was not congratulating him on the move get out of the way so that way in fact that's not christian reid that is matt campbell so the young porsche star got by the d-station uh car for third place now in gte am juan pablo montoya leading robin freeze down the hill two different generations of driver and that's one of the delights of endurance racing you get super experienced drivers and hot young hot shoes and that here again you know you've got phil hanson and andre negrow they've both got super experienced teammates but you've got two young guns going at it and alan as you say we may be on the second sheet of a4 in the setup notes now for alpene on this new car and turning up the boost little by little yeah little by little but exactly that point the graham just mentioned basically you've got a fuel tank and to try to change the volume of it they put in effectively like plastic balls which then reduce the amount of fuel that you can put in or increase it if you take the balls out and so i'm a bit surprised they haven't been able to get to the maximum it sounds like there is a tank issue as much as anything else it's as much as the tank will take the the bob allows them to take fuel that they physically can't fit in which is pretty remarkable it is pretty remarkable but that will mean that they have to then compromise and try and think now it may not mean they do one lap less than uh the competition it just maybe means that uh they can't quite run it as full power as they would have hoped side by side again here and a little bit of contact maybe again this is the 83 in the triple seven these two cars from the back of the grid are just slicing their way through the gte and field ben keating still leads 77 matt campbell now up to second tomo fuji now up to third ahead of francois parado in the a of course a car that's back down to fourth and again phil hanson in third overall ahead of anjana growl and this time hanson just steps aside sees andre negro is coming very likely gary robert shaw was on the radio again just coast let him go get him go because they've got seven seconds advantage behind and at this moment it's quite clear the alpine could have a little bit more overall pace for the lap but uh they're united are seven seconds ahead of guido van de garda that's second in that category and the other thing that having the alpine in front up the kimmel straight and and uh down towards rouge will do is give you a little bit of toe well let's hear from the number eight toyota team sebastian bremi lies second okay so prepare this one position mike conway the car behind you is going to be taking the lead very soon prepare to swap position to buoy me boy second at this moment in time and so i would uh swimmy hasn't shown any sign whatsoever of trying to make an overtaking maneuver clearly he's not being on the road to going in the up uh you don't know this could be exactly the point you made earlier on about conserving fuel and if you switch the cars and then they can maybe drag it forward we don't know the reason behind it however what we do know is that there's a radio call to said boy me to say that they're prepared to swap positions and that clearly the only car they can be swapping positions with is the sister car that's up ahead well to do that my conway's going i think i have to have a big lift up before the bus stop or miss a couple of gears because not that close he was a second behind but you know if they're looking to if they're looking to finish the race one two which clearly they are on the debut in hypercar having one car tow for half the stint and the other karto for the other half the stint they both are on an equal footing i don't think the team are playing favorites on in in the first 20 minutes but we're not quite halfway into their fuel stints but is that a reaction to the fact that the alpine is now in third no i think that's only six seconds behind it's possible he hasn't swapped yet they've just put a lead on the 28th place car that was the second deputy proton car the porsche of andrew harianto the indonesian driver and yeah smashing prepare to prepare to swap positions i.e hurry up nice now just looking to the inside to see hello remember me mojo and uh that's uh a little note there's no flashing of lights there's no radio calls coming back yet but uh a bit of a nod very frankly the more i think about it of a bit of a nod sort of call at this point unless it is purely just to swap from a strategic perspective to guide them into a different operating area uh other question by the way uh which of those two pet stores is it put out yeah but i would be always wanting to be the car ahead whatever you get the strategy advantage i've led so far then i wouldn't want to give it up just purely for that seven is a pit out right so in which case it's it's [Music] are you on you should be on yeah they've just switched no boy is ahead [Music] yes now coming down so mike conway moved to the left-hand side uh coming down in towards pujol and that allowed uh sebastian bowen just to sweep round the outside i think louise beckett down in the pit lane you had a little bit of information from the team about this particular switch yeah what the tiptoe the sub was the faster car from the start so the sev is the faster car at the moment meaning that's the reason for the switch that's the only information i can get about it at the moment thank you very much gotta say that they've got more data than we have we're looking at timing screens they're looking at a significant amount more data but uh it was uh after 10 laps then switched between one and two feeling that sava said boyemi was quicker than uh mike conway at this moment of time in the race but with five hours 30 minutes to go there's a lot of playing around still to come yeah if seb was that quick you would think he might have been closer than 1.1 seconds behind but we'll wait and see how much mike conway closes up now to prove that he's the quicker of the two cars riding on board with the corvette of antonio garcia the car is still in fifth place in the gt category in gt pro big on molina richard leads in front of him again losing no ground really to that battle once more the g drive car number 25 is in the thick of the action and that's against the choker car that's john fouled yeah roberto gonzalez so the mexican and the american battling side by side roberto's been it's now his fourth season in the world endurance championship john felt very experienced in these cars in elms and right behind car number one the richard mille racing team and that is significance because is looking to put in a move here on john phelp as well yeah she's been running just in behind the this group for quite a little while now and got a run but not quite a big enough run up the long straight there as uh falbe had to take a little bit of a lift as he came down to the bottom of august but now she's right on the back of that car i think perhaps the richard mille team have just been bedding themselves in quietly you know the first thing you've got to do here to get a good result is not hit anything in the first 20 minutes so but they did this blindingly well at le mans where they just were very quiet managed to do all of their strategy correctly without making any mistakes whatsoever and that's what put them into a good position back to the ferrari battle here in pro miguel molina's got richard leach right behind the elites is really pushing hard now reason leaks is pushing hard is alessandra piergidi once he overtook molina's pulled three seconds up ahead but eight seconds up ahead of um of queer kitty is actually the leader of the category kevin astra he's on a different level this week isn't he a completely different level it's very busy that much double contact that was double contact the uh the g drive car on the iron lengths car punted down into the jota car and a little bit of debris there too yeah in fact both iron links cars were there the yellow car is the male crewed car the one with the pink highlights is the female crude car so that's the iron dame's machine so that was actually and the richard meal car was in there as well you know that was potentially a fairly major incident real team into the pitch there and uh like to val just wandering away he's not getting in at this moment but that i think was a replay we saw the switch between those two cars about uh maybe a couple of minutes before and this is a replay of how it started off change for the lead in gt yam about to come up here this is ben keating in the bright blue tf sport aston and matt campbell in the 77 dempsey proton car they started at diametric opposite ends of the gte anfield ben on pole but the gentleman driver with a porsche factory professional coming from the back row behind him but what is interesting here is tommo fuji in that d station racing aston martin the green highlights on the black car is right in the mix as well this is the top three yellow flags around it turns one one and one so that's the exit of last source now yellow removed back in so somebody went off he was debris it was debris yeah we had a quick uh message that just before that incident involving links that there was debris between one and two well elites was very quick in the first sector on the last lap he needs to get a really clean run out of here but it looks like molina can get off this corner well and he's also able to go through the next one flat out the ferrari seems to have have a touch more straight-line speed than the porsche at the moment the porsche looks to be very stable the middle sector but the ferrari looks just heavy enough to keep himself ahead but the battle for the lead in lmp2 that's came down a little bit guido van der garde has pulled within three seconds now of phil hansen hanson went off into the distance like a scalded cat behind the toyota's initially now he's got fourth overall guido van der garde has made a match in i remember how hard the porsche team was saying the lmp2s are having to work to get by gt cars lmp2 less powerful heavier low drag aerodynamics this year it's not as easy the closing speeds are smaller it's going to add more drama in traffic throughout this season there's no doubt about that we said at the top of the show and we've seen that exactly that what olympus is talking about that gap coming down a hard earned gap you've got to work hard in traffic and it's going to benefit the bold and we just saw juan pablo montoya closing in on roman rusinoff colombian versus russian in between them the chetila ferrari that's roberto lacourte who's in sixth in the gte and class where he may not have been to spa for the better part of two decades but juan pablo montoya certainly knows how to pedal the car around here quickly again plenty of success here for g drive and roman rusinov particularly in european le mans serious racing but they've raced here with world endurance for the last three or four years at least the new team remember this year this is uh stepping up it's the team they've run within the age of le mans seriously won championships the last two years uh in the angel le mans series now with our guard pro racing david leach has carried over with the team as the new technical director looking at tyres there so again look at the start of the race which is where phil hansen oh is that contact there for the real team car is that where it all started there was a bit of a squeeze with three into one and then there was a nudge from the back it was a 24 car it was the 24 pr one car oh is that right okay well then he had contact didn't he at uh for fania with the real team car briefing yeah he took the lead i'd missed that the first time around but uh got i thought he got between them he briefly took the lead and then try to defend you know we saw we saw that where did we see that from bruno cena last year in uh everywhere getting between the toyotas yeah and this is the start in gte pro yeah you know that big lock up down the inside the problem there is just when you're at maximum retardation allen the track drops away on the inside by that pit wall and suddenly everything's free-wheeling yeah it isn't if you're behind the car ahead of you you lose a little bit of the aerodynamic and especially the braking efficiency i don't mean uh brake pad to disc i mean the actual aerodynamics on the front of the car to load the car and stop the wheel locking sebastian buemi leading and pulling away not at all from mike conway whose car appears to be equally quick in fact mike conway half a second quicker on the last lap yeah on the lap well traffic related i think there so we've got to see how it evolves over the course of maybe 20 laps or something like that but uh certainly conway uh has been able to hang on to the back of wyoming i think the radio call would obviously g you up a little bit i know from personal experiences a driver never likes those radio calls but uh you have to accept them because of a little bit like penalties in football they will come and go with you through the course of a season and the worst thing that toyota can do is have their two cars fighting against each other at this stage of a race this stage of a campaign when they've got a five second gap and only a five second gap back to the third place car and again you see mike conway there in the second those two white and red toyota's going by the ferrari of alessandro pierguidi and it wasn't the rate of closing that that anybody is used to still this battle for the lead in gte and ben keating he put in some really big performances last year in the project one porsche that he was driving he's doing the same again in this tf sport aston matt campbell is as factory a driver as they come with porsche you know if they had more cars in the pro class he'd be in it but he is doing everything he can to try and get by paul dalalana in the 98 aston being warned about track limits so clearly their car is not handling as well as either of the two f's tf sport cars he's dropped down to fifth place he's second on the grid dalai lana but he kind of got shuffled down to fifth place and just got a track limits warning black and white flag but i've got to be honest with you i'm super impressed with not only tf sport because they've delivered consistently but ben keating you know multi cars he's delivered in multi cars all the way through and teams and everything else but he just gets on and does it he's kind of always up there yeah ben keating i think risk has been the first real gentleman driving a goal ranking but not only that but in the last couple of rolex three-four hours races at daytona he's double-dutied with a prototype and a gt car in the same race he is an exceptional gentleman driver and to hold off matt campbell a very much a young gun uh in the porsche factory roster is no mean feat it is a great performance from ben keating after what was not an easy start to the week no not an easy start one of the other gentlemen drivers last year particularly who really really shone was a gto pathetic so it's a real shame not to have his project one porsche in the gt anfield as well but the big surprise there in that top three is not ben still there from pole or matt campbell coming up there in the porsche it's tomo fuji now we didn't have a barometer to measure him against we do now a good try from him it will no longer be a surprise we will now be starting to expect that well super tyco a champion in japan super gt racer with this team in japan race winner in gt3 aston martin in the asia le monster is with this same team and now coming to wec and what he's showing is he's got proper talent previous races at spa i'm sure you can count on no fingers i'll be astonished if i'd looked and found anything yeah i i'm not sure that he's ever raced in europe never mind spa again john phelp versus bytes kavissa in hyper motion there that was the battle for where are they now they're 10th and 11th in uh yeah and here's the battle oh and the ferrari's just got a little bit white didn't lose very much you can actually miss the apex at the source and not lose or gain anything but as long as you don't go more than maybe two meters from the apex but again it's got the speed down through this section of circuit to be able to keep away however look at the car that's in the middle of them that's the lead in lmp2 and the gap back to guido van der garde is now only three and a half seconds yeah phil hanson's been trying to get by those two cars for several laps meanwhile matt campbell trying to go outside got alongside ben keating ben's going that's my racing line there you see campbell holds on and right behind is tominobu fuji so those two aston martins both run by tf sport whereas the amr the factory run master martin 98 does not appear to have the speed that they do so this is where campbell makes his move and he just toughs it out on the outside out yeah i've got to say ben keating was very kind and gentle there because he could have run him out and over the sort of rumble strip area but decided and declined to do that was very gentleman driver but gentleman the way that his conduct was i'm sure if it was the last lap of the race it might be slightly different we're not quite there yet and now third place uh fuji is trying to also get past and he's been pretty quick i've got to say he's looked good and i think he's now got a run on it is keating runs slightly wide in the hairpin and allowed the aston martin switch for second place ben just ran a little deep there down into rivage didn't he and so a change for the top three it's still the same cars but it is now matt campbell that leads from tomonobu fuji and ben keating in third place a kiwi ahead of a japanese and a texan so that is your porsche aston aston battle out front sebastian buemi leads by 1.4 seconds now over mike conway and luis beckett we're someway yet from we're somewhere yet from where we're expecting pit stops but the drive is getting ready now yeah there's definitely some activity starting some of the p2 teams but what i have seen is jimmy bruni in the 91 getting ready the 92 there's no movement whatsoever so they were obviously splitting their tactics there well the two teams or the two car teams seem to run i mean they can flap but they run independently so they will be running a different strategy and this happened with ferrari last year with alessandro guidi and james collado basically alessandro stayed in the car until he needed an espresso and then james got 20 minutes whereas the other car they swap their drivers at each stint now possibly what we'll see from the 91 car because it's behind is they might now go for a new tire and a new driver and the 92 because it's in front may well double stim their tire keep kevin in and then hand over when they are due a tire change rather than a fuel stop very possibly but going on the last couple of years even when they were not changing the tire porsche would very often change the driver and they would do that single single single strategy all the way through the races like duval one of my old teammates there just a little bit of uh pep talk tds or the team running that car and one that have well a team that's won many many lmp races through the course of it and like uh is racing in america namesa championship extremely extremely fast guy yeah good to see him back in this championship actually it really is and and there's there's been a real influence influx of uh very talented sports car drivers young and not quite so young heading in here well let's get down into the depths of the lmp2 field and talk about newcomers team wrt what have they got to say with robin friends currently all of the cars in front are on the same strategy so close again as much as you can before the pitstop close the gap as much as you can you're six overall the issue that he has his average lap time for this race so far has been a 208.8 if i take that to guido van der garde that's a 207.8 into hanson 207.6 so it's over a second off the pace of the lead two cars who look to be absolutely on their own in terms of performance yeah wrt been struggling for straight line speed they've been telling us all week here and i think uh just trying to find that gap uh just catching up with that tomorrow fuji uh points has raced in europe we'll tell you a bit a little bit about that uh in just a short while we're gonna go to team radio from united auto support with phil hanson okay [Music] all right that's the voice of his engineer gary robert shaw so he runs the 22 car overseas world endurance and the elms programs on a spin from the ferrari the pit lane is open he's in the pit entry he's actually spun on the exit of the bus stop was not planning to go into the pits i partly went into the boots but only the really kind this is why around the outside and a little bit of a tap yeah trying to get round paul dalalana for fifth in the class that's not sure where to stand on that very honestly yeah the car behind was dalai lana but as we see the 91 lost these breaks or something yeah oh no there was a look up no he's just aborted and then when he's been very quick to realize the quickest way to recover is actually to let off the brakes and go around the escape road yeah which is an official escape road now it used to be just a sort of bumpy run-off area [Music] sorry i was coming back to that investigation now between the two cars i kind of sit more on racing incident if you round the outside like that especially in that corner it is a little bit tricky and there's always a risk you're going to get a hit but there's a second hit is that a result of damage from the first one i asked yeah cause or effect possibly picked up a a slow puncture possibly he's had another go there he can't done can he he wouldn't have been close enough no he's just off so united auto sports and racing team netherlands both in the pit road there you are live pictures so driver doors not open on either you imagine gator vandergaard will stay in i think we're going to see you know not going to see a driver change now there's different rules with driver changes now it doesn't have to be the outgoing driver who straps in the incoming driver it can be another team member or a third driver if you have three drivers in the cars 21 is in as well that's the dragon speed car and that is high class car number 20. very different looking colors on there as well and a quicker stop by racing team netherlands there as they're able to get out and not quite enough to jump into the lead they were three and a half seconds behind coming into the pits and now right on the back of it so the tds refueling is significantly quicker for whatever reason than united that's interesting that is interesting was it a shorter fuel stop for track position but tds are hugely practiced in the pits i mean united are no slouches that was close and what was once a seven point something second lead is now not even seven feet between them well for the moment into europe or competition go to the lead damage on the 25 g drive we saw that didn't we that was side by side with the iron lynx car but the steam coming out of that hole in the side pod and just so you know that side pod isn't meant to have a hole in it no and it's and it's the uh yeah the cooling area there for the 25 car that might well be going back in the garage as you see now the this is effectively the lead of lmp2 not because of pit stops alex brundle in europe europol competition is actually leading but when the pitch stops play out it will be back to this and guido van der garde has been able to get that three and a half seconds gap but on circuit it definitely looks like on full tanks the united auto sport is better let's see how it plays out in this thing if it's the same where the tds racing team netherlands car comes back as the fuel comes off their car and they become more competitive but right now is there's a flood of lmpd guys a train is that what you call a you know a lot of lmpd is a flood or a train or whatever a busy time for louise louise call all these pit stops well actually they're all stopping fairly closely together you see the yellow and green there that's into europol that's alex brundle g drives 26 roman rusinov wrt there car number 31 that's robin freins and also following in both joe to sport cars stoffel vandoorne in 28 and roberto gonzalez in mighty 38 and that means as they cross the line back into the lead go 22 united auto sports and second racing team netherland now not stopped yet the reach up meal racing team in they come so here's bytes gavissa and following her in in a couple of seconds in fact 12 seconds should be patrick kelly for pr1 away goes roman rusinov in the 26 g drive car housekeeping uh for this one 1.4 seconds is the gap now for the lmp2 lead uh so some dramas out of race control it's a black and white flag for the leading car for sepaymi reported to the stuart for ignoring a black and white flag yeah for repeatedly running off track after being warned about it and the the race control can tell the driver in the car which corner in particular he is causing multiple offenses at um so they do try and do everything they can to avoid penalizing you they don't just slap your wrist hard to start with but the alpine is in the pits as well so the first hypercar class pit stop is happening for albin but toyota still won two sebastian premier mike conway half a second apart this is what we uh said earlier in the broadcast we expected that the alpine at the moment on its current balance of performance that might change of course for race to race uh but uh the current balance of performance cannot go as long as the turret is on fuel it's a negative it just depends how big a negative it is because if it incurs an extra pit stop then it's uh it's a one minute negative if it doesn't incur a pit stop then it's just effectively the extra sort of time delayed time that you're spending there with maybe reduced power or something just just to complete the point before i forget it um the about tomorrow fuji has raced multiple times on the nurburgring in the vln and the nurburgring 24 hours has won at le mans uh actually took part in the aston martin festival some years ago in 2012 and won at least the class if not the race of gt3 aston right okay as we watch one of the g drive cars were just heard from louise in the pit lane that actually the sister g drive car with john falbe we saw that the at the pit stop the left-hand side radiator side pod was damaged and the team didn't realize the extent of the damage so they sent him back out but they may have to bring him back in for repairs so it's bigger damage than they thought when he was actually in the pits that is a little bit of a mistake in the pit stop because there should be someone especially in an incident situation and he's and also from the pit side wall who could look directly in at it to be able to flag it up an extra pit stop will take them right out of the game an extra time in the pits could maybe save them 30 seconds they change those are just correct united states yeah first and second phil hanson gate of vandergarde this is the battle for third roman russo still ahead of one pablo montoya half a second in it so again tds turning around the g drive car very quickly they lost nothing to dragon speed in the pits the ride on board in 28 jota with stovall vandoorne so one of our local belgian drivers in the g in the uh joe to sport car and he's not far behind is he 1.2 seconds was the gap at the last sector and that's going to close right up because they're now up behind ben keating's aston that will hold up rosanov and montoya it's going to be a three-car battle oh it's going to be in three-car battle we've got an overtake we're going to go three abreast down the hill here comes jp oh and ben keating on the grass can he hold it is he gonna hit anything that's possibly one of the few places in spa you can get nudged off that's down is the double left andrew pujol well that's going to be investigated sorry to jump in there that definitely will be investigated keating was 100 the innocent party there as uh montoya moved a little bit over on rusenov there and this squeeze and three definitely doesn't go into two doesn't go into one here we see it again yeah rusanov in the center moves over to deny montoya room there's contact montoya's going oh don't think so sunbeam i'm having some of the racing line so does he give bruce enough room to survive well rusanov couldn't give keating to survive in that one the driver in the white car triggers the incident i'm afraid yes he got a better run uh he realized that uh roosevelt was bottled up behind the gt car went for the move by him it was certainly a move to block by roosevelt i think a bit of rafters from my problem yeah i think the actual incident with ben keating is the one they'll look at not the build-up to it because the build-up didn't affect keating no i have to say they i agree with you on that particular one that um juan pablo montoya's maybe going to have a little visit to the pit lane at some point on that particular issue but i do feel for keating because he was completely the innocent party there lucky he didn't do anything hit anything but he will have uh he'll not have good vibrations but he will have vibrations he will and the team are expecting him to come in and that's gonna be some way shy of where we expect a gt car pit window maybe two or three laps i wonder if it's that bad or if he can just keep going to the end of the fuel watch this again it's a bottle up behind the gt car watch where montoya sees he's got the opportunity there's a move and a second move to the left but it gets to be the afters and at that point yeah the problem is that i think when pablo montoya could only see an orange car at that point and he couldn't see the blue car on the other side so actually the blue car effectively for him disappeared however in reality blue cars can't disappear like that i don't think frankly either of b2 drivers came out there with very much credit not particularly no and poor ben keating was over on the curbs trying to stay out of the way catching russian off now is stoffel fan door before we're using the real too much he can fall off power okay let's normally they used to be able to overtake into this right hand and now they can't and van dorn has got uh now a little bit of a run but maybe not enough he's got to be careful because the front of that car doesn't look like it's actually gripping too well but he's also got to keep be careful of the rears it's not going to happen into blossom maybe a bit of a lunge in towards the bus stop and tom ferry is going not again stay away from my aston luckily they did stay away from his aston because he also runs that dark green one as well as the bright blue one right behind by the way alex brandle and robin freeze so brandel in the uh yellow and green car and robin friends in the white and gray car white red and grey and that's the battle for six so we've got russian off fourth van dawn in fifth brundle in sixth freeze in seventh that's a nice tight lmp2 squabble fabulous stuff there but the lead to cast now 30 seconds ahead of this battle that is some pace from the lead two cars when you look at their average lap times they are 207 mids where everybody else's two eight highs they're over a second to lap master on average consistently as the leader is into the pits mike conway first of the toyotas stayed out yeah coming in from second place isn't he so he was our pole sitter he started at the front and then after 10 laps or so was told to drop back into second place so buemi stays out and it looks like he's slightly staggered but they shouldn't be any questions over [Music] fuel and more if you feel no take it you're talking for me you can push on your tire more and more thank you at the beginning but after it will be good well out goes mike conway sebastian remy still leading the alpine coming up behind not too far away but it it's exactly what we heard with the engine map there alan from from the senior tech team that are running this alpine elf they're not trying to go 100 from the beginning okay where are we how does it feel okay now you can do a bit more we'll give you a bit more power you can turn you know some of the the controls down and just try and get more and more out of the car they can and uh this is after the pit stop for both of these cars and you can see the alpine's still in the game so now they're saying look for the rest of this stint and you've probably got 20 laps you can actually lean on it just put a bit more energy into it driver can feel that it can sense it the data's in there for the team as there's an overtake robin friends dives down the side of alex brundle a bit of a late one alex tried to turn in but then had to pull out of it and so robin friends is now up a place up to sixth place from seventh the next card up ahead of him stoffel vandoorne in the green uh johto sport car right behind fifth place roman ruiz and in the back of the shop shooting into the pit lane the race leader number eight toyota of sebastian buemi is in the pits but good move there from stoffel vandoorne that was fully lit robin bigger part and robin friends fully lit down the inside of brundle who had to open up the steering in a bit of a hurry watch them right roll to a halt so there a quick point about andre negrow in that alpine and the instruction he's getting from this engineer remember this is negrow's first uh race in a prototype other than an lmp2 and those tires are fundamentally different from the monsieur development lmp2 last year on the older cinetec alpine lmp2 car now we also heard from louise while we were hearing the radio message there that ben keating is happy to stay out for the remaining three laps of his stint so he will come in oh and drama for the number eight car it's left with something attached or without something attached nothing's attached it's left and so therefore i think uh there was obviously a radio message stop because they needed to check something before they release a bummy so that will mean conway i would expect he's behind very annoyed there squirted the car out of the pit lane actually slid out of the pit lane but he is still in front drive through for 98 paul dalala he cannot keep that amr aston martin the northwest amr car on the gray stuff i i i wonder if you know it's the 35 seconds it's the 35 seconds okay explain this now graeme because there may be a penalty for that we were looking at the fuel man he was looking at whatever gauge he's got let's have a listen to this first [Music] gonna hear from totoro right panic basically i think what we're looking at there is the regulations say for a full stint stop you must have the fuel attached for 35 seconds on both the hyper cars and the gt pros i suspect that's what's happened there there's a gauge if you look at the business end of the of the uh the fuel hose and i suspect that's what went wrong there if he didn't have that hose attached for 35 seconds there is going to be a penalty did you see the way it came off and went trying to put it back on he was looking at the gauge and that and that is a potential problem and the other thing is he was quicker in that fuel stop than the other car there is no reason why he should have been quicker in that fuel stop than the other car it was two seconds quicker even with the stop even with that pull up well the stop when stopping the car would give him the delta to bring him back in line but you're you're correct there in terms of he's going to be significantly six seven seven minutes for causing a collision with car 47 drive-through penalty car 98 for causing a collision with car 47. okay i was going to catch up with that bit of housekeeping so paul dalalana almost earning himself a drive through for track limits gets a drive through for causing that collision there was a driver change in the 91 porsche jimmy rooney is now in the car with left sides only so they are splitting strategy look at the way the plaque burns and in the compression there in urus as we catch the real team racing car and we are waiting then by the way after that spin still in second place in the gte am class matt campbell leads in the dempsey proton 77 porsche ben keating second in the field and he is just how long two point three seconds ahead of francois parado the 83 car of course that won the title last year in the am class uh they are in third spot and uh confirmed by the way total they did take the fuel hose off early uh not planned hesitated because the lollipop went up and then down again so it was something of a miscue reese's unknown at the moment but um a little bit of chaos there fort toyota very interesting because uh you came back from a discussion with them where they were very clear on that particular regular it's one of those odd ones when you're very clear of the regulation how negative it can be how often you actually trip up on that particular point you know it's almost like they misread 25 was 35. genuinely it was that long a period almost dude look watch this now already coming back i think it was but he tried to get it back and it will have a readout on there you see there's a big thing on the top of it a data display and that's got the fuel information pascal vessel on the technical director they're getting a bit of a debrief of what's going on pat in the back of the the fueler and uh let's go and discuss this and see what we need to do or how we need to improve it as opposed to pointing the finger how do we make it not happen the next time that's the only thing they're interested in i would ask a second question which was they clearly had a miscue in terms of the timing in your view alan was that an unsafe release the crew member was still hanging over where the rear wing is when that car was released yeah the crew member was out of the way um with the fuel hose by the way yes but he's always he's got to have the fuel hose yeah yeah it's the question is was he behind the line and that's where we could not see the line there's a line on the ground as we see the two toyotas chasing each other there with uh conway chasing the held in the pittsburgh but there's a line on the ground where they have to have got past when the driver leaves the bids here's the 91 porsche now with jimmy bruni aboard let's hear from his teammate richard leeds [Music] unfortunately we have you hear me yeah unfortunately the the advantage they have is out of the corner and basically on the on the top speed side so to raise them it's very difficult if you're behind um when you're in front i think we could actually pull away a bit but when you're behind to overtake after a long straight is impossible because they make the gap on the straight so it's a bit a bit sad frustrating because you you destroy the front tire because you follow them close you lost the downforce and and then you cannot overtake because they are so fast in a straight but it's a six hour race uh we we changed the strategy for this a bit and we are still in the game i saw also that you only changed left side only on the tyres yeah it's our statue i will tell you after the race if it's better okay we will see how that works out for you thanks very much well this is all part of the game when you don't have fresh tires every stop you've got to find a way of getting the best out of them and and if you're behind and you can't pass on pace you can't do the same thing that they're doing you've got to do something different so in fact the 91 porsche got out from behind the ferrari by stopping early both ferraris are now in and out of the pits uh pierre guidi stays in the air of course the car of course he does miguel molina actually stays in the 52 which is interesting but that means the corvette's up to second place behind kevin ester who still leads the race in gte pro meanwhile stewart's decision number 31 gives car 21 a 10 second stop and go penalty for causing a collision 10 second stop-and-go penalty on car 21 for causing a collision all of the rest of it would just have been a racing incident had they not whacked ben keating's aston martin do not touch that car here's our gt pro leader montoya will be in the pits i imagine this time round to serve that penalty uh yeah i was just about to say about the other uh porsche pit stop lovely little bit of theater there was uh as uh i think lou slightly caught richard leads unawares that she'd spotted what their strategic ruse was and that was the professional porsche drive and professional pit lane reporter uh the clash of intellects and i think lou won that one well it was it was richard trying not to give away anything it's what they so often do is left sides only should do that a lot aston martin made a big deal of it last year and really successfully a number of times left sides only because the car seemed to be a bit a little bit lighter on his toes left side is only on 92 as well what you can do we can do and still stay in front but that left-hand side graham gets a massive amount of load if you think going through a rouge and then you've got also all the section round the brussels hairpin and then round stavalo and coming back again it gets an absolute pounding not that the right hand side gets an easy time of it but the left hand definitely gets a harder time with it they only have four and a half sets or 16 tires total that's sorry 18 tires total for the whole qualifying race we're just over an hour into a brand new era for the fr world engineers championship with the changes we know that have happened the off-season what a fundamentally different race it's been than what we've seen before in so many very wonderful ways well we flagged this up at the beginning didn't we although we have two prototype classes classes with hypercar and lmp2 there's very little separation between them in terms of pace between the brand new hypercars and the lmp2 cars and in gt yes the all pro lineups are fractionally quicker but not that much quicker so the hypercars are struggling to get by all the slower cars on the circuit yeah and in that pit stop cycle by the way the corvette's leapfrogged ahead of the number 91 porsche i wonder if it took team tires at all uh you'd let's see in a little second there if we look at it now look down from the helicopter you can see the two toyotas eight ahead of seven those are the red and white cars and they're up behind a pro-class ferrari and the porsche oh there is there's the porsche going by the corvette slightly muscular pass there by jimmy bruni on still antonio garcia the porsche drivers were saying [Music] yesterday in the press conference he said in the in the middle sector the hyper cars are in the way of the gts because they can't and the toyotas are in the way they can't carry the corner speed that a gt car can which is all right it's very early days yet but the hyper car the whole point of toyota's car is that it is a road relevant car a car it's it's like a hyper road car so the real difference is between something as hugely developed as a 911 and the hyper car not that much at the moment montoya has served his drive through you just saw him coming back out and robin freeze now ahead of robin roosevelt for fourth place in lmv2 yeah third place and stuffel van dorn as well he overtook stoffel vandoorne and he's made his way up through so wrt starting to make their way forward however united auto sports are 30 odd seconds up the road in fact 45 seconds up the road of this battle wow but they're leading with hanson however guido van der garde is only 1.7 seconds behind so in the battle chase so they've got a bit of work to do but certainly robin friends has started to make his way forward what a great start to his career as a gold ranked wc drama this has been from phil hanson not in any way overall by the massive quality that sits around him in this grid well and it you know this you see that the pass of frames here on roman russo for roosevelt's you know worked his way up from being a very raw driver gentleman driver to being a gold standard driver as well and and so has phil hansen but look at the speed that was carried there by the wrt car that was really yeah that was only because uh they both got held up by the aston martin through him so therefore um you know both russian of and also vandoorne they were sitting ducks in this respect and allowed friends just to sweep past both of them and so it was all done in the one pretty cool maneuver i have to say but uh certainly assisted by a it was a bit like the banking in daytona go left go high go down go up go down you're through let's hear from robin friends and team wrt they now run third four man you saw that yeah i saw that you were alive nice job mate keep cool watch this hey guys guess what i've just done yeah no we saw that yeah well that's my belgian beer but you know we talked about the fact that this is their first race of the world endurance championship their first encounter with an lmp2 car in a number of years they've only done one lmp race before mp2 raced before that and the fact that they didn't really fight at the front in qualifying and they didn't really set the track on fire in the opening few minutes okay i think they've now found their feet and are quite happy with the car the way it's working they may have just changed a couple of little things in the pit stop we didn't see maybe an adjustment here or there but robert freeze has dialed himself in as a world endurance driver but at the same time van dorn has followed through past drusen often so he's up into fourth place and i suspect they will start to march ahead one person that hasn't marched to point seven of a second so conway's just basically following in the wheel tracks of wemmi right now toyota just i'm not worrying too much about it you know again in the briefing this morning with the porsche gt team they were saying okay survive the first five hours then see what you're left with and that's got to be the deal for both of these two cars here toyota want them to finish one two that must be among their prime concerns but each of the driver lineups wants to win the title at the end of the year and so actually if you have to sit behind for five hours it might be frustrating it might not look as good as being allowed to sit in front for five hours but there's only one lap you need to lead dempsey proton at the front of the field in gte am so we've now got all the sevens at the front 77 and triple seven that is the back row of the entire grid that is now one two in gte am third place is alessio rivera he makes his first start here as he takes over the 83 af courser car ben keating in fourth six and a half seconds behind him so a bit of a longer stop for the tf sport four horsemen cart then andrew harriento fifth for dempsey proton roberto accord for chetillar in sixth position ahead of the 98 aston marcos gomez the brazilian has taken over from paul dalalana in that 98 car but lana had the drive-through penalty for well somebody has been watching video of alan mcnish and his daughter dancing on the patio i'd say what that's birdie habsburg uh limbering himself up but he's he's got some dad dancing moves going on there hasn't he tell you what they look like pretty good moves to me look like aggressive get in there and get on with it moves as uh he's about to take over i suspect from robin friends there spoke to him just before the actual race and he was yeah he's enjoying this he was saying it's a very different car to get used to from what they were in testing but managing to sort of now click in with the car and understand it a little bit better look at the very different look at this car from any toyota that we've seen before now it is very very different if it wasn't graham you said it yesterday to pascal if you painted it blue or or or orange or anything other than the colors of last year everybody would be going wow what a different car that is it was however six seconds short on fueling it's going to get a penalty [Music] the first hour of season 9 of the fia world endurance championship is complete the season starts here at spa frankenshaw and with the new race season starts a new category of racing the top tier is now hypercar two toyotas and then alpine the early adopters of the formula in lmp2 a big field not all finding quite the room they needed into the first corner lock up from the jota sport car and the real team car but there didn't seem to be too much damage phil hanson briefly leading for united auto sports getting by both toyotas porsche leading the field in the pro class [Music] a couple of early passes d-station coming from the back row of the grids this new entry run by tf sport for all japanese crew and with them fellow back row starters after not setting a qualifying time 77 ferrari turning around the real team car got away with that that was judged to be a racing incident and then drama as well with the alpine finally finding a way past phil hanson took the better part of half an hour for alpine to gradually bed themselves in with a brand new car after 10 laps of the race leader mike conway was asked to move aside for sebastian puemi in the other toyota number eight taking the lead a little bit of of seven kilometers to play with and everybody always wants the same bit at the same time number 25 uh g drive car there triggering contact matt campbell in the 77 dempsey proton car finally getting past ben keating as paul dalalana battled with roberto la court la court getting spun around in the chetila ferrari juan pablo montoya it was the cue ball and roman russo off the pinball as ben keating found himself punted off into a separate postcode drive through penalty for montoya for that and a robust move past antonio garcia by jimmy bruni to move up to fourth in gte pro in the second porsche the gte pro leader the 92 car driven to pole by kevin ester lmp2 still being led by united auto sports phil hanson and to her to gazu racing 1-2 in hypercar well after snow two years ago in torrential rain last year a beautiful start to the six houses spa the g drive number 26 car the team manager has been saying summoned to race control with extreme expedition immediately please so we haven't seen a penalty for roman rusinov but there might be something that's still to be talked about there you can see our class leaders dempsey proton at the moment in front exit of car 26 that's the g drive car under investigation so possible unsafe release i'm martin haven in the booth with me is graham goodwin and alan mcnish in the pit lane duncan vincent and louise beckett and allen opening hour of the season it's been worth a six hour wait so far hasn't there a six month wait i beg your pardon yeah certainly they're uh dustin off the cobwebs pretty quickly as they're going at it we've seen some plenty sort of action what they think the overriding thing for me is the gap uh between the top three cars is seven seconds right now uh between the toyotas and also the alpine uh in lmp2 it still is heated but there's massive depth in that category as uh like duval straps himself into the tds run operation there uh to come back to the wec but it's been really really frenetic all the way through real team they're making their way in this new category with one two in lmp2 it's uh these two united auto sports leading and uh second place is guido vandega racing team netherlands uh but by the way looking at the hypercar class that uh despite all the kind of travels and tribulations and whatever else has been thrown at the alpine health map squad they're just six seconds back from second place now with what we believe may be a penalty hanging over one of the totals it's not been a bad start has it and actually lapping as quick as the toyota's last lap for andre negrow 2066 for the leader sebastian bremi 2067 and for mike conway in second place 206.9 so very little to choose between them as we saw it took them a little while to light the blue touch paper for andre mcgraw they wanted to get the race underway and get a little bit of a handle on the car i think they're comfortable they've got a handle on it now and in traffic here phil hanson the dark blue car with the red roof that's the leader in lmp2 again of vandergarde the familiar yellow and black the minardi colors of racing team netherland in second place and both cars both teams have been mighty impressive last season in lmp2 not a surprise to see them at the front here again i would say the one thing is there's a clear in my view a clear difference is that the united auto sport car is better after pit stops when it's on heavy fuel whereas the racing team netherlands seems to be better on lighter fuel loads later in the stints because uh guido sort of hangs on there can't really do very much and then he comes right back at hanson towards the end of this thing now right now we are uh well about halfway through the second stint so we've got a little bit more to go probably another 10 laps to go before they pop into the pits well that's the way you'd want it isn't it as a driver that you can pull away once you've been in the pit lane and the other guy's got to continually try and catch because it's much easier to have an advantage when you get to traffic the further you can be in front the more options you have geared a van der garde here trying to get around is that the real team car yes it is yeah so just over the pits starting to climb through radio along the kimmel strait just creeping up behind him like with more fuel on board and fresh tires but straight out of the pit lane he'll contest positions whenever he can but right now there was the run aston on aston dempsey proton has handed over the 77 car to christian reed af courses alessia rivera in second satoshi hoshino took over the d station car that is now down to fourth because ben keating has just passed him for third place correct change of position there between the two aston martins two tf sports operated cars the baby blue car often arc bratislava who reported heading into the pits at the end of the formation lap have accepted the inevitable they cannot get the fuel cell out of the car stop it leaking and back into the car or they can't stop it leaking anyway and they have given up that on the equal struggle so their race debut i'm afraid will have to come next time out on the roller coaster of portimao in mid-june and they will need that to head into le mans in august you don't want to go to le mans with no world endurance racing experience under your belt portamel for them will be an eight-hour test of proof toyota's still one two mike conway still sitting just six or seven tenths behind sebastian vuemi not getting away and conway frankly not bothering to close i don't think he's just keeping pace with the leader who is now through behind the dempsey proton car and christian reed the gte am leader and alan look how long it takes the top car the leader to get by the gt guy he just i think was doing it into brucell 25 is in we mentioned damage on the left side pod that's the driver's side and it looked like steam was coming out obviously the side pods are to contain the cooling radiators oil and water cooling radiators doesn't look like it's steaming particularly which either means it wasn't too much of a problem or it's run out of water well it's a big it's still a big hole so aerodynamically i don't think the car was ever designed to have a hole there and at the same time as well it is uh aerodynamically it's definitely negative and so i cannot imagine it being positive the question is what is the least negative continue or to actually then change this ipod which i presume is the negative is changing the cyborg well we might be able to find out actually because we're going to get down to g drive we'll hear from esteban garcia who handed over the car to laurie davao and he's with louise beckett estevan garcia bringing in the number 70 from your first stint in spa i could see your reactions with norman how was that for you there was damage on the back the rear has been changed what was that like yes i can say that it was a very easy beginning actually for lmp2 in work but anyway it's always pleasure you know and you have to keep this in mind and of course i can say that the pro are very aggressive even in gt so it was hard for me to to pass and i have to to to concentrate myself also to not make any mistake because you know the guys were kicking me you know in my bag so um after that tire went flat and had to stop and uh unfortunately it was three laps before what we had in mind so it's just a shame anyway but uh you know it's a work so that means uh endurance and that means also team spirit i'm fortunately not alone and i love i'm i'm sure that laurica norman will do a fantastic job right now and i have to jump again for three laps only before the the end of the race right okay so you've done the majority of your driving but you've just mentioned your other two drivers you've got great support there with norman natto and lloyd davao who's out in the car now so how are they how are they training you and what are they how are they guiding you through so they have a lot to do to train me anyway but uh you know we are doing it with a lot of pleasure we we know each other better and better they help me also they give me really good advice especially also with a huge experience norman also so all the time we are three together but with the rest or so of the of the team so very very good team spirit great thanks very much excellent thank you very much the key area there is that we haven't realized they had come in been forced to come in a little early because of a puncture and that means that he did not get to his minimum drive time which he will have to complete otherwise the car will serve a penalty will be excluded so he'll have to do three laps at stamp stage meanwhile juan montoya alongside robert a wrong side i mean is that putting a lap on the g drive car oh i think there might be a little bit of a vendetta building here that's the 26 star of roman rusinov and that is one problem in 21 the white car from dragon speed goes by or is that roberto marion 25. it's so hard to tell which of the g drive cars it is because they are identical livery uh so it's the one is that the hole in the side yeah it's here tell us 25 okay so it was roberto mary but then again juan montoya won't have known who he was he's already had a beef off one orange and black car so he was going back and uh making sure he didn't get another one roberto mary then in the 25 g drive car that car currently in 12th place in lmp2 juan montoya in the eighth place in p2 crest in the rise in radio in theory all four wheels or no you can't have all four wheels inside the apex curb if you do then that's uh breach of track limits and 25 with that number plate oh more contact under breaking now that is russian off isn't it yeah that was the incident that's under investigation oh no that was the original that's a replay i thought that was a replay of the other g-drive car in another instance so that's where the damage came on the side and that's the 25 getting damage on the other side battle with juan pablo montoya so montoya had roberto gonzalez in the toyota sport car behind him and now coming up behind is the race leader sebastian puemi and roberto mary not a man in my experience who takes very kindly to being biffed for no reason when he's been entirely innocent so um yeah there might maybe a little bit of of uh latin temperament coming in here and of course is going to try and get by these two mary's gonna dive you knew he was gonna dive i knew he was gonna dive and suddenly and davidson and mike always rather in second place again yep i'm in here let's have a go first otis threads the needle between the two p2 cars good example here of cars are going to match up against quick lmp2s answer is it's not going to be easy there he goes by safely without clipping the dragon speed car and this is right under the nose of pascal vasilon who's on the pit wall right almost right there at las sources another moment that you don't want to look at as a as a team boss on the pit wall here comes the alpine he's the next to catch this little group the dark green car with the red highlights that is the jota sport car of roberto gonzalez the mexican driver up behind the white car with the blue highlights that's the dragon speed entry of one montoya and the next car in the race in lmp2 is by visa she's in 10th for rishabh meal they might know the rpg well that was a message to mike conway and pictures of the car about which they were talking that was andre the growl we were seeing in the alpine and as he said 1.6 seconds behind mike conway conway is 1.4 seconds or 1.3 seconds behind the toyota so the top three the hypercar class covered by under four seconds despite all this traffic or perhaps because of that's exactly the point we're making from the start of the race is that traffic is going to play a much bigger part now you've got the alpine struggling with the same traffic as the two toyotas were but uh with the toads is not able to blast by uh with the power they've got available it's gonna close things up it's the 21 at the moment well that's one down and one to go that makes it a lot easier for the alpene because you don't have to worry about the car that you're closest to chinking out to go by the car that's further away so andre mcgraw gets by the jota sport car roberto gonzalez with no problems and it's very encouraging for the growl don't forget you know in the rebellion he spent a bit of time trying to chase toyotas that just disappeared that ground never broke drove no beg your partner this is the growl's first time in a tough task yes you're right so he's but he's still you know they're sniffing distance not just in the dim and distant distance uh montoya is out that's henrik hedman in in comes the other p2 leader yep and this is phil hanson expect to see racing team netherland behind as well we do when we get the shot of the pit lane they will stop together don't forget they turn the car around fast at the gap this time 1.8 united will be very fired up not to be beaten on pit road joe hanson climbs out of the car they're inserting the albuquerque indeed they are now is there a driver change now i would if if i were in the position i'd be putting fritz van aird in now in racing team netherland the weather is good they're in second place put fritz in there's a big gap back to wrt in third okay you've got friends vandoorne all the other guys let him go let him go get fritz in the car now this is the time to put him in for me is a surprise from united i would have expected fabio scherer at this point but clearly they're looking to do what they can there's a driver change there pittsburgh habsburgs going in robin fringe jumping out from third place let's hope that all 30s boxing exercises haven't uh tightened up his forearms managed by jamie campbell walter and out goes the racing team nederland car that will take the lead for now at least of yeah fritz van der is in the car so i i think that's absolutely the right time to put him in four seconds they were quicker in the pit stop than united now if we remember back before when guido van de garda came in he came in about four seconds behind and he left directly behind united so twice now tds have been four seconds faster than the pit stop than the united car so if you take five of those that's 20 seconds over the course of the race 30 habsburg with fresh tires and a full tank off he goes oh there was a wheel not rolling away there or a bit of rubber debris or something so this is the battle now philippe albuquerque up behind fritz van aird fritz is the boss of jumbo supermarkets a hyper enthusiast and actually a pretty decent peddler as it turned out last year in this car and he will do everything he can to hold off the united car but on coal tires albuquerque seized the moment fritz just a little deep down the hill there and through goes felipe immediately yeah cold tires well certainly they come out the blankets are straight on but not up to optimum pressures that's for sure but uh wrt also they were slower than even united so they did a 120 pit stop united 117 but the racing team never learns this car 113 and so the tds run racing team netherlands blasting it in the pits right now got uh their amateur driver in there so they're definitely going to drop back but as it rolls out they've got i think nick dufrese coming up later on and he's been pretty quick in the car before no they've not so they haven't you're right made the same mistake earlier this week going in in place of bites in the number one car this is the richard mille racing team all female crude car so philip albakirk and fritz fanard taking over the first and second cars 30 habsburg dennis anderson in at high class the all danish crude entry leicester brought the recent mill car in pat kelly brought in the pr1 motorsports car as well chota drive with roman rusinov alex brundling from third with into europol great to see by the way not just some of the new big name drivers into lmp2 the stars in recent price cars dennis anderson stepping in now into wec the gentleman drivers coming up through that pyramid uh from elms and now into the wec are looking forward very many of them to their first opportunity to race in the modern 24 hours there's a lot of good stuff to come well quite a number of them will have started in michelangelo cup then world endurance but you're you're absolutely right it's that pyramid isn't it you know it it encourages ambition in drivers in engineers in teams one of the jota cars out of the pits one of jojo cars into the pits 28 is out and running with sean gale at the wheel the 38 on pit road with roberta gonzalez and sean gale predominantly explains the color scheme change here because he's responsible for kfc [Music] not not globally but on the car and coca-cola as well so taco bell and taco bell yes taco bell it's on the front of the car very good uh so yeah so sean gale has had a a junior single seated career right up to f2 and now uh racing strongly for the first time in the world endurance championship but in prototypes raced in uh the asian le mans series as well so he's got a little bit of experience under his belt of the lmp2 cars and here is the third place car in the race andre negrow now they stopped just shy of where the toyotas could stop earlier on in the first stint we expect that may well happen again but look at the way the gaps have come down down from 3 to 1.8 seconds the growl is closing on my conway well robin friends is no longer in the wrt car but he is in the garage with the microphone robin friends coming in from the wrt uh how was it it seemed like from the team radio you enjoyed it oh definitely enjoying it yeah we had good fun uh also fighting with snowfall i mean i know it's taller for for many years now so it was good fun out there i felt pretty strong in the car so it makes it even more fun i'm just a bit struggling on on top speed because i couldn't really overtake the guys in front but in the corners the car feels good and we're moving our way forward i think we are p3 now or we are just on a podium position which is definitely the target for today i heard also on team radio there was some water in the cockpit do you know what that was i don't know it started to leaking um i don't drink i don't have to water troop while driving because i just never use it um so maybe that's why i was a bit leaking so my right side is a bit wet but it's not sweaty it's just water but everything seems to be okay so further than just using the waters hopefully that doesn't have that issue okay great thank you thank you well robin friends certainly had a very entertaining first stint as he said got himself up into third place got the team up into third place at 30 habsburg 32 seconds behind the lead duo in fact philippe albuquerque now nine seconds to the fritz found out third place then in lmp 214 wrt just saw the pit stop there for jota over the car or taking over the car antonio felix de costa the reigning formula e champion nico lapierre takes over at alpine elf matt mutt i should say by the way that was an excellent couple of stints from andre top class learning as they go they've had only four days of testing before this week with that package and it is a mighty step step up whatever people might think from an lmp2 they're learning all the time that's i think that both well for the season now we talked about graduates up the ladder sixth place alex brundle brought in the inter-europa competition car the yellow and green machine into the pit lane kubis makovsky has taken over the polish driver who's been with into europol right from the start from v de v through uh michelangelo cup through european le mans series and now into the world championship so it's his first drive in the fia world endurance championship with a full season entry all big wobble there for the number 77 car that's the leader in gte um or was because af courses alessio rivera has now taken over the lead from christian reed who had more than a big wobble uh on the way out to qualify in the 77 dempsey proton car almost destroyed it in a big shot here got a big weave on in the middle of our rouge as you saw there and by the time he crested her eyes at radion was facing backwards at unabated speed let's hear from mike conway in the seven toyota it's quite a big difference to the alpine though who has done 21 and 22 laps stints conley told five more laps so they're going to be coming in probably around about 40 lap 48-49 wow they almost collected the p2 car ahead as well yep that's uh dropped the seven back just a little that means he's got to re-pass the corvette now and yeah that's an interesting little incident isn't it well that's partly due to the fact that he's coming to the end of the stint the rubber will have come off the tire he was in behind the other car and so arrow wise wouldn't be quite as good on breaking efficiency and uh as well just the different way that they're recuperating energy on that car with a new car well let's catch up with racing team legends fritz panetta is in the car in second place which is where it was handed over by guillermo van der garde [Music] guido van der garde putting in a great effort for racing team netherlands uh but the main thing i want to speak to you about is pit stops i've actually seen your team here just timing and watching and recording of the pit stop and clearly you're saving time there yeah i think the guys they work quite hard on it during the winter and i think that was one thing that we had improved from last year and the crew did a really really good job i think the cars getting better and better during the run the beginning of struggling a little bit to say phil hansen and united they were strong all weekend he pulled quite a big gap and on the end i could come back and it was nice that we were leading for a couple of laps but fridge now in the car we are leading the the pro-m series which is the most important so we'll see where we end up today is that the key you've got to find other ways of where you can make up that time when they have performed so strong so far yeah for sure i mean you know um we still have a gentleman in the car uh and between the gentlemen and the silver driver it's always hard this is like a big gap but yeah we tried to fight hard we tried to win on several points like pit stops or fueling or whatever so yeah so far so good great thank you thank you well they've had nearly six months since the last race in bahrain that's a lot of pit stop practice and with however much they put in they have certainly earned their keep with it it's been very impressive stuff in the pits here's the dempsey proton and a of course a battle [Music] so the 88 dempsey proton car this is the second car being driven by indonesian andrew harianto and francesco castellachi in the 54 car manchester spent a lot of time with this crew and it's a it's a well-knit operation let's see if he can find a way to go past is the battle for sixth position leading in the class 83 the air of course the car alessio rivera joins the crew from last year that won the title christian reads second for dempsey proton ben keating third in the tf sport the four horsemen aston satoshi hoshino in fourth place he's taken over the d station aston and marcos gomez back up to fifth in the 98 aston that started on pole and then slipped way down the order and paul delano was struggling to keep it on track great hyper motion view there of our gte am leader uh martian we've got a fastest rap of the race uh under 205 for the very first time and it's gone not to toyota but to nick or lapierre recently aboard the number 36 alpine elf mac mud car now is that a mark of what we've got to come here of course there is a difference in this pit stop cycle between the two hyper car teams yeah but he was only three he's only got three laps less fuel and i and i think you know as you said andre negrow was not going to really really rag the car from the start not least because the team hadn't given him a hundred percent of everything but also because it's first ever stints in p2 nick lapierre he'll get in oh he'll just give it the beans because that's what he's used to on full tanks yeah just had a message in from the pit lane from louise becker now what was that but uh we've got porsches in with jimmy bruni and that's going to be a driver change as well that's uh the pit stop for the 91 porsche and jimmy bruni jumped in at the previous stop we saw him getting his elbows out and uh barging his way through but now it's so they're going to change their strategy and flick it around there number 32 gives a drive-through penalty on car 25 for causing a collision with car 60 drive through penalty car 25 for causing a collision with car 60. that's from very much earlier in the race martin and fans often go well that was an hour ago it was over an hour ago you know nearly an hour and 20 minutes ago why is it taking them so long we saw that happen you know a tea break and lunch ago well the deal is you review the video you look at the data from the cars and then you get the drivers and all the teams in to give their view of it because a penalty in a race this tight is a very big decision to make and you you've got to be certain that you are penalizing somebody either for carelessness or malice a forethought and not because it was somebody else being in the wrong place at the wrong time so richard leeds in the pit lane for the 91 porsche team and louise i think he's got some information down there martin let's see what have you got for us yeah well i didn't think that was very early for the 91 to come in so i just went and asked the team and there was a problem with the right rear tire and that's why they came in and did the full change was it a puncture louise do you know i will find out i couldn't see but then you know maybe i wouldn't have been able to let me find out and get back to you yeah the important thing is there if it's a problem then they've only got four and a half sets now yeah you think one tired out of it however the strategy for the race is to use four and a half sets and it's not to keep the couple just in case so it will definitely compromise that and with five cars uh it's a loss of tire pressure louise is saying so it could be a slow puncture maybe a valve could be something else but whichever way it is certainly not optimum for them because that tire will then come out of their strategy for the rest of this race and it's dropped them down sorry uh graham it stopped them down to sixth in the total category fifth for pro but actually with the lead amcar being ahead of them now but in fact if they were only three laps on that tyre then it may well be used again if it hasn't got a puncture if it was just a valve problem or something like that let's hear from mika lapierre and the alpine team [Music] do you understand no but what they're saying is he's going to jump them at the pit stops with this performance then nicola lapierre when the two toyotas come into the pits and they won't come in on the same lap i do not expect because they didn't on the previous but with this performance delta he will go into the lead of the race by the time the toyota's come out so we expecting a couple of uh a couple of laps like toyota to start doing their pit stops so he is currently 59.2 seconds behind the leader and it is a one minute pit stop minimum for each of the toyotas so yeah from where he is it's gonna have a significant advantage it's a straight answer the point was gonna make by the way about that uh uh porsche remember that was the car that uh we had lou talking to richard leetz changed lefts only uh at the first stop so they are hold their tires on the right hand side so so they were due to go anyway so they're probably out of the thing so so the new tire has done three laps more than you might have expected now the other thing of course that is going to help nico lapierre is that the number eight car will actually stay in the pits for the 35 seconds of fuel than it's supposed to have had the first time round i don't think so you would like to think so still no news on that [Music] first race of the 2021 fia world endurance championship battling lmp between chotas antonio felix de costa st seasoned single-seater sports car and gt racer and reigning formula e champion and young poly star kubat schmikowski for inter europol both of them are gold rated of the two antonio with a lot more experience in a lot more things but had to dive bomb here alan mcnish to make a good clean pass to move up into ninth place overall and sixth in lmp2 yeah joe making their way back through the field a little bit as we see the second place toyota following the first place toyota still buoy being shadowed by mike conway as they come down into the bus stop skiing expect a toyota pit stop as uh where we see jose marie lopez just getting prepared to jump in pochito and the first of the cars is in that's conway who's in second coming in and boy me continues on for one more lap and so we've got the first one this will be interesting because this is going to be in about a minute's time where we see where lapierre is after this stop yeah lapio is 56 seconds behind it's a 22 second pit stop delta which means from in to out at speed limit that's how long that takes plus they must fuel for 35 seconds so it's a minimum of 57 seconds and that's before you change tyres the driver change you can do while you're fueling you can see the team man in here to help and they are going to strap in jose maria lopez that set the first ever hyper car pole so a hyper car record here at spa frankesha and they're not yet leaping in with tyres but here comes the alpine he gets a good car quick run goes by the af courser ferrari that is our gte leader and he is now up into second place overall that'll be reflected at the next timing sector because the toyota is oh they got a box of bits out and they're twiddling a thing this is gonna be a significant advantage isn't it oh it's huge lapis already on the way up to leecom now toyota was six seconds shy of the 35 that they have to have the fuel hose connected for for the first stop in the eighth car 25 seconds slower stop than the previous one it's a huge huge drop one minute with tires this time though yeah but still tires are not there so they dropped probably 10 11 [Music] seconds well now the advantage that the senior tech team have is that although this car this year is called an alpine elf macbook it is fundamentally the rebellion that has raced for the last couple years in lmp1 now it's new to them they don't know it's ins and out they don't know its intricacies but it is a reliable race car just and it doesn't have new car problems whereas the two toyotas may because this is their first race these two new hyper cars the race leader is in driver change here as well sway me out hartley in so like the new chrome dome on brendan's uh helmet that a lot of chrome on this year's livery and again two team members in there to help out while you're fueling you can do safety and driver change so safety includes cleaning the windscreen you can also measure tire and brake temps here comes the alpine onto the start finish straight as we watch the pit stop for the number eight crosses the line now and this will be a very significant lead at this stage well we're nearly at a third distance we're an hour and 48 minutes in so another 12 minutes will be at the two hour mark and despite their pace toyota have not been able to capitalize the question is now very quickly with the strategy laptop alpena running shorter stints they'll need an extra stop okay so that's the game now the game now is to build a bleed that means that it counts that in that very well i i almost hummed it as the car came across the line actually but but you know for a team in their first race in a brand new category it's very encouraging yes it's a it's a proven machine but they don't know the running of it and they don't know the setting up of it and that was clear in prologue and in qualifying and free practice but for toyota it's an all new car 92 porsche team let's hear from our gt pro leaders no puncher right rear box and now the 92 the lead car kevin estrada is leading by 14 seconds into the pitch right rear issue as well i do not believe in coincidences two right rear issues on a porsche suggests a common problem well and yeah you can go back two contacts between the 21 dragon speed car and g drive that suggests a problem as well but you're right it's something that they're doing it's a curb that they're riding somewhere yeah it could also be then it's going up through a rouge and that inner edge on the right rear takes a lot of heat and temperature and it could be something there there's many many things it could be going uh it's best we don't sort of sort of speculate on it but uh it seems to be i would say consistent well here's the first neil jarni his first race drive in a gt porsche as he told us yesterday or day before yesterday now you know he spent so long running in cars at the front he does not remember to check the mirrors he said you know they're i'm still trying to pass stuff and there's lots of quick stuff whistling past me he said it's a very different world out there and when you're in a prototype you're following a gt car going where's this guy going what's he doing he said now i know the answer is you're trying desperately to keep the car on the track while not getting hit by a prototype so he's now discovering all the things that prototype drivers don't necessarily know about hauling a gt car around but neil gianni begins his gt program and of course this is a build up to when porsche come into the hypercar category the top tier of sports car racing they've announced will be from 2023 onwards audi will join them and graham ferrari will join them in the top tier of sports cars that's the first time in 25 plus years absolutely and uh before that of course peugeot will be along next year for a bit of a go at this it's already bubbling up quite nicely with the three cars and a lot of other manufacturers expressing a lot of interest because essentially all there's more to come do you want to build a road style car you can do you want to build a prototype you can do you want a hybrid you can do not want hybrid that's fine don't have hybrid it's a very open church well let's hear from united also sports catch up with phil hansen and louise beckett [Music] phil hanson you've come in from the united 22. what a great performance you put in there yeah it was good um obviously the plan was to hold position as we were on pole at the start tried to make as big as cap as we could but it was tricky with the tied egg catching traffic at all the wrong moments it seemed but yeah same for everyone did you try and battle it out with the uh racing team netherlands i don't think he ever really got close enough obviously the um the first lap he was very close it got held up a bit through a roost by the porsche toyotas which wasn't ideal but yeah he never really quite got close enough in the in the rest of the first and second stint we can see that those teams are trying any other way they can to get closer to you so pit stops maybe where they can save some time or gain back some time what can you do to fight back from that yeah we we need to understand why their first pit stop was so quick i i doubt they were doing anything to try and you know fill three seconds less fuel unless they have some crazy fuel saving strategy which i highly doubt um yeah we need to find out why we lost so much time in that first stop but ultimately you know they've got an am in the car so that's not the car we're really fighting the most important thing which is to stay out in front and stay out of trouble in the early early parts of the race okay thank you [Music] volley gavin getting in so antonio garcia brought the car in from fourth place in the gte pro class because that 91 porsche puncture has dropped it back down to fifth again and ollie gavin announced at the beginning of the weekend this will be his last race as a pro race driver he's already started other careers began his commentary career with graham goodwin in the asian le mans series encounters in the at the end of the winter and has also established his own driving school so if you think the new corvette road car looks and sounds fantastic i need to have a quick word and check out the oliver gavin driving academy because he will show you just how sensational a road car really can be in good hands i'm going to do something a little bit out of kilter here and it's um we've not got fans here and this is for me it's a significant moment yeah ollie's been such an ambassador sport it would be very nice when he got out the car and eventually checked into social media if some of you guys out there have enjoyed watching his wins through the years uh showed a bit of appreciation at oliver gavin hashtag six eight spa show him that you've really enjoyed the last 25 years of achievement what an ambassador he has been and he remains an ambassador for corvette little position change there nick the freeze dive bombs sean gale to move up to third place in the 2016 drive car one thing about g drive they are never short on driving talent to accompany roosev roman himself very decent uh prototype peddler racing team netherlands fritz fan out with the two going around the outside and that was galileo followed by defrees so fritz just getting there onto the dirty part of pif path and losing a bit of ground the deal for the gentleman drivers is to lose as little time as possible and that's what it's about keep your speed up as much as you can and if that means letting the hot shoes and the ex-grand prix drivers and the pro cars go by let them go it's about the long game and fritz has been very good at playing that he's put in some good solid stints and he always brings the car now i shouldn't have said that sentence should i he's been very good at that by the way i should say by the way it's a very good point because when there was the incident for the uh the jumbo car at the rolex 24 hours of daytona i think i'm right there second or third ever um retirement from a race they've been very strong fastest first sector of the race for jose lopez uh in the number seven car fastest of all for brendan hartley in the first sector on the last lap so the two toyotas now really starting to motor unsafe release five seconds added to the next pit stop of car 26 blocking car one that's the uh richard mille racing team car which is currently still in tenth place with sofia flourish in lmp2 but it's car 26 that is actually getting the penalty which is nick the freeze which is in third place we just saw him taking that third place from sean gale in the jota car and so they're gonna have five seconds next time they come into the pits basically they'll have to wait for five seconds before they can do any work to the car am class battle here this is the dempsey proton car of christian reed and ben keating in the tf sport aston martin very differing results of their qualifying sessions a very badly damaged 77 car and a shaken christian reed as he went off on a warming up lap ben keating ended up with pole position in the tf sport aston this is the battle for second alessia rivera in the af course at 83 ferrari that is currently our leader in the gte pro class alessia rivera the italian a silver ranked driver so ben keating and christian reed alessio with success last season the italian gt endurance challenge and uh part of this worldwide network of let's find someone quick that no one's heard of yet but we've had a few of those and they've moved on to significant careers in endurance sport here we go one of two alessios in the race one who is italian and alessio picariello who is belgium who the least belgian sounding name but there we go and uh we'll race sat nam on this year with the absolute racing crew they're uh assisting the 88 dempsey proton effort this weekend are we expecting m-class pit stops at the moment because d-station are in satoshi hashino yeah four hours and two minutes of the race remaining and real team racing also in the pits with lloyd duvall but they are out of kilter fritz van aird in fifth place for racing team netherlands yellow and black car that's also the car that's leading in the pro-am challenge so there'll be a separate trophy for pro-ams if they're not on the overall podium and a little run out wide there for the 98 aston martin of marcos gomez discovering the gravel trap he's not the first as he runs over somebody else's bit of debris there as well but you see if you run out wide the tire drops off there the that outside edge of the gravel is not smooth it's the 60 car remember this was the car involved in that side to side contact with the 25 did notice the right-hand mirror was knocked off the ferrari in that moment what if they might change the door at some point i know they've clearly fixed it their previous pit stop drifted in yeah we're on a two-pot strategy here in the booth uh it is tea time and courtesy of the lovely fiona miller we have two brand new teapots so we are on a two-stop strategy 52 is in here we go this is miguel molina coming in from second place it's a one-two in gte pro for ferrari 51 stays out with alessandro pierre guidi and as ever james collado's probably not even left the hotel yet knowing that alessandro was starting he wouldn't be needed for at least three hours of the race so ferrari won two neil johnny in third in the 92 quarter that was the leader before it too picked up a puncher there he is so all three hyper cars have left this race now uh i think other than the pit stops only the 22 united auto sports car has led in lmp2 and we've had porsche and ferrari lead in 2t porsche ferrari and aston martin have led in gtm 52 off the jacks underway now alan the pit stop times for toyota the last stop yes how significantly different were they okay so the if we take it from the leader alpine uh they did a 112-3 pit stop total pit stop time toyota number seven which is in second with jose maria lopez 130.3 and then toyota number eight is a 146.6 so effectively they've lost uh 15 or 18 and 34 seconds gets away with that so is that the jota sport car of sean delau so is that nick dufrese who's been there it was [Music] quick knit rally cross star so how's the number eight toyota served a 30-second penalty a 30-second hold in the pits or has it still got to serve a 30-second hold i'm assuming since it's 15 seconds behind the number seven car it can't have served a 30-second stop well let's get down to the pit lane with louise beckett and here from mike conway he started this new era from pole for toyota racing might come away from the number seven uh the biggest question we have is that that swap over between the seven and eight and do you know the reason why that was the team called that uh yeah i don't know i thought it was a bit early but um yeah they just wanted to see the pace of the other car uh i think at the end we were quite similar throughout the the two stint so it didn't change too much um but yeah in the end it was just management of the tires really um quite hard on the tires so we knew the second stint would be pretty crucial to to keep them alive you know so first thing just kind of taking it pretty easy and uh just make sure we have some of the ends and we did but still on the limit so uh as you can tell the nfp2s were all over us when they came out of good ties so yeah they really kill us in the second sector when we have a much left of the tires so but you know we do what we can do and um yeah the alpine right there as well um now we're keeping us honest our way and catching us at actually the end there so i expect a good race the first racing outing for the new car for hyper car was it as you expected or are you still do you still feel like you're learning stuff i think we're learning for sure um just getting mileage at new tracks is always good for us to to understand the car a bit better and yeah we had a lot of issues at the beginning of the week so um just to get some good smooth running in his the goal really um but yeah we're fighting out there which is good so that's kind of what we wanted in the end have you been working hard in the office it sounds like it in the cockpit yeah for sure i mean i don't look too sweaty but um yeah the car's not so easy when the tires go off pretty bad but yeah that's what it's all about okay thank you all right thanks a lot and uh there's conway's car with juarez maria lopez as it drops down in second place 24 seconds now though behind the leading alpine with nicola lapierre at the wheel and the important thing for me there graham was when he was talking about the tires going off and how difficult the car was we've got to remember that the complete way of driving has changed uh with the way the boost strategy is now they don't have that huge and jose marie lopez going wide there just locked up a little bit and ran a bit wide in the chicane so clearly when that the best performance of the tire does drop off they're right on the edge of the working windows it looks like they don't have the security into it that they had before and that's going to be something they'll learn about in racing conditions because of course it's very different from testing when you've got traffic and everything else to come into this instant revolving car triple 726 under investigation that i presume martin was the incident we saw the g drive car going across the gravel throws 25 and 26. you know we talked about this earlier there's only one rule in endurance racing don't hit anything and stay out of the pits right two but they they have hit everything both cars have hit things now we didn't see anything on the screens but we've heard from totor that that last stop for the brake car they did serve a 30 second hold which we can only presume is for the short fueling of the car we talked about that little ago the actual not uh holding the car with the 35 minimum refuelling time where sebastian boehme at the first pit stop of the race actually sort of hesitated went and then had to stop and then went again so effectively he did the total time but he's also got a 30-second hold as well so he's been double penalized in a way however that's a new regulation they had to get around didn't get around it and right now they that particular car is 38 seconds off the lead as lopez is starting just to creep back in to the lead off nicola lapierre as well yeah 205's and 206 as we've been seeing for the toyotas 206 and 207s i think i'm right from nicola in the recent running as we've got the corvette now with oli gavin looking to get by the 77 dempsey proton car and with the northwest amr the 98 car tucked in behind looking to take advantage of that yeah you've got to use the the openings that somebody else creates haven't you and that's exactly what you saw from paul dalalana he's at the wheel of the 98 northwest amr machine up behind christian reed so two leading lights in the field i mean dalai lana puts the 98 program together christian reid very much puts the 77 and 88 dempsey proton programs together because of course he owns the team father gerald is here his son is here as well who's beginning his racing career you know is there is there a hand stuck moment where gerald will make a comeback and get all three of them in the car read read read because obviously that'll be a joy for all commentators i i think it would be great to see it wouldn't it be [Music] spotted christian having a good chat with the puccini brothers and that's he tells me it's about potential f4 plans for his son so it's coming tell you what if he's uh getting into the spanish f4 championship that's had three support races 54 behind of course is francois pereira who leads the races ferrari 1-2 at the moment tf sport in third with dylan pereira in the 33 car in and looking here at this battle again between jota and g-drive and this is sean galer recovering nick dufrese and in front oh no tom ferry's heart sinks again because it's the pale blue car absolutely right the car that got clattered off earlier in a uh a g drive and a dragon speed encounter sean galel gets by with no dramas this time great stuff and in the slip stream there the g drive car goes to the outside well defends there and will successfully defend [Music] 26 receives a black and white flag for contact with triple seven presumably because the d station car stayed on and nick dufrese did not little replay here [Music] encumbered by the passing toyota and well read there by just still marcus gomez and the mastermind that's paul paul is back in now yes um thomas floor has taken over the 54a of course of ferrari that came in from second place so floor at the wheel of that car which is is that one of the unchanged i think unchanged melodies same drivers because obviously livery in the driver's squad remains the same at toyota gazoo racing but the car is just 100 different yes and that you know we heard mike say that you know it is road relevant is the key word for toyota with hypercar it's leading the design of new hypercar toyota direction they're using a very much more road production based hybrid system which is different from the pure racing one they had heavier less powerful and heavier the car is heavier it's harder work on its tyres it's got less aero than a p1 car and so in a lot of ways it is a much harder car to wrestle around according to its designers and according to the drivers anna mcnish is giving me that look um one other quick point before we move on to whatever else is happening on track here we did say at the start of the race didn't we that the hypercar teams could not afford to put anything other than fault free we've seen what that the effect of that is that toyotas are not leading this race we're also seeing the bets are still on the lead lap yep one minute and 14 seconds behind the alpine is the top lmp2 car felipe albakirk and to put that into perspective he's 39 seconds behind brendan hartley who is 35 seconds behind the alpine and hartley's in third so there's a similar gap between first and third in hypercar as there is between the lead lmp2 car and the third-placed hypercar toyota so there is a little ripple of applause as we saw the replay of nick dufrese getting by sean galel back up to third place for the 26th g drive car and actually this has sort of been the format of so many of their elms races here graham where they've been up and down the order like the assyrian empire that i think yes of course when did dave would expect to be pretty stellar in this he was astonishing in the racing team netherland effort last year also going well at the moment for the jota cars they've been just just creeping up the order throughout leader is in in lmp2 phillip albert took over the car after a double opening stint from phil hanson and that car is now in the pits here he is over 22 from united auto sport so this will trigger our next round of pit stops car 92 under investigation for its pit stop that is our gte pro leader neil giani don't forget he came in out of kilter with the rest so he is now cycled in front of as courses james callarde it's not four hours into the race and they've managed to get alessandro pierguidi out from behind the steering wheel this is obviously a new regime that battery pre-glasgo has uh initiated at af quarter richard lee's third in gte pro daniel sarah fourth for porsche and ferrari and oligar in fifth for corvette there goes your lmp2 erstwhile leader ferdinand habsburg the austrian prince is in the lead now for tmwrt it's a bit of a quicker pit stop by united auto sports there for philippe albuquerque and now we ride on board coming up towards le com with as you say habsburg that's uh now leading got a bit of traffic up ahead of him though you can see the gaggle of cars and he's going to get that gaggle of cars i would assume as you sort of drop down towards pujol area of the circuit we can't really overtake that easily and so it may be just okay for him in terms of keeping up the momentum but that car has got much much quicker the first stint dropped back it wasn't very good but second stint robin friends brought it back into contention and since then habsburg's been actually able to shadow the united auto sports in terms of lap times the delta in time between him and united in gap on the circuit stayed the same all through this lasting remember ferry habsburg has had plenty of lmp2 experience this year did the full age of le mans series four four hour races in 10 days and then the european le mans series was racing for argo pro racing as well so plenty of opportunity to get into the rhythm of the oracle 07. and you just saw the sense that like alpine wrt have just not given it 100 right from the start they weren't really happy after qualifying and free practice so maybe they're just allowing the car to build speed naturally ben keating great opening stint in the four horsemen aston martin let's hear from him now ben keating you've come in from your stint i was in the garage at the moment you were the casualty in that lmp battle lmp2 battle uh that ride must have gone on forever yeah it was really crazy i i i feel really lucky that we had enough of a gap and i was able to gather myself up quickly enough to be able to keep the lead that was the craziest thing in the whole part of it but uh you know i should know juan pablo montoya from racing with him at imsa uh if i didn't know him that was him behind the wheel i would have watched more carefully because i know from there you can't trust him when you're close to him in a prototype yes i have tried to speak to him and he hasn't had a word for me just yet but um you did really well to recover it yeah it was uh it was really good you know most people watching probably don't know that i completely totaled the car on the first day of the prologue and so this was a backup car and i had so many things running through my head this team did an amazing job of getting the carpet put up back together again qualified on the pole and uh it was so close i don't know how far i was from the wall but it wasn't very far uh and you know as i'm sliding back i'm trying to downshift the first gear and you know finding the starter and trying to get going again uh like i said i just feel really lucky that uh there's that much runoff and it's asphalt runoff uh and uh we were able to keep the lead so yeah it's good aside from that you put in a great drive uh matt campbell was coming in behind you i mean he's not a slow driver no the uh the engineer was saying hey that's matt campbell you can let him go i got on the radio and i said what kind of fun would that be so i had a little bit of fun with matt uh you know eventually obviously he got by i was really upset that i made a mistake when the 83 was behind me i was hoping i could hold up rivera for a while but he's been he's been fast so we'll see how it ends up at the end of six hours yeah we will do thank you very much yeah thank you remember i said that they start the show about uh the general drivers living your life for you you fans back at home that's your life that you'd like to have ben keating what a glorious personality he's got chips enthusiasm from from every port that's it yeah last minute dive for the pits for herdy habsburg 30 hats works i don't know whether that was a late call from the team from to go in but boy he only just made it through didn't he look blue car blue car blue car it's like senior tech alpine have got three cars suddenly in the in the road that was the race leader nico lapierre weaving his way between pr1 and real team racing yeah habsburg into the pits and that's dropped him back but also high-class racing was the one we just saw shooting in at the back of uh our shot there so now it is united autosport sitting back out the interesting thing is going to be at the end of this lap martin when we've got the g drive of nick dufresne also the jota cars of galel and de costan where it all shakes out but it certainly looks like it's still going to be albuquerque it's actually sitting pretty at the front as we are now looking at the race leader alpine nicolas lapierre yeah bit of a busy lmp2 pits at the moment there's eight seven cars in there's the g drive number 26 car i think the free stays in jota's 28 car sean gale got out ahead of him wrt is ahead as well that was ferdi habsburg so he will hang on to his place fritz van aird also stopped for racing team netherlands and dennis anderson as you said for high class also in into europol come out commission that's your chat i should because then you get a hard consonant before you get into schmakowski and all those extra coopers we're close yeah phillip alba kirk then for united also sports usa cycles back to the top of the pile united with three cars on the lemon entry list that's starting to uh you know that's rothman sport in fact they never had three car enchanted there rothman's porsche that's a big multi-car entry prototype racing here's the iron dame's car down the inside and the chetila that's for position oh and uncomfortable the chateau la ferrari turns around the 80 car 85. so that's on page two of my timing screen al who's in which all right so the answer there is rajel frey was the victim she got turned around in the iron dame's car and here is the pr1 machine in the pit lane see a little pro am delivery on the and look on the right hand side there there's a sports car there's an endurance racing name from the past van merkstein that takes us right back to porsche lmp2 territory doesn't it he's here josh verstappen i believe is here this weekend uh driver coaching uh somebody the the lower paddock so that was high class in fact not uh there was pr one gabriel aubry taking over the pr one car high class dennis anderson was down and gone and brendan hartley in third place in hypercar last lap at 208.7 and still the alpene going two seconds quicker let's hear from brendan who was driving the car we almost had a big okay so this is the jota car of brendan hartley he goes outside and antonio thought he was coming inside and tried to leave some room [Music] yikes that would have been a big crash as well that's not what they were hoping for i definitely don't think that antonio felix decosta was blocking there that was last lap antonio's just been in and out of the pits he's now on an out lap that is cooper schmikowski and gabby aubry but for brendan hartley that was uh a big heart in the mouth moment hence his slightly agitated sound on the radio [Music] three hours and 40 minutes remain of the spa six hours the opening race of the fia world endurance championship season nine here in 2021 and let's have a look here this is where brendan tries to put the move in and again antonio was having a little think about getting by the gt pro ferrari and didn't moved back i think brendan was a little bit wary by that stage alpine is in the race leader nicola pierre doubles in from andre negrow to start nico will stay in and also in the locker felipe signo has matya vasiviya another superstar in junior single caesars turning into a very quick endurance racing driver as well yeah the seventh total goes back then to the lead eight goes through into second and as it does so uh the alpine is rolling yep so again this is shaping up if they continue untroubled to be quite a finish yep it's exactly what we hoped for in all the classes actually we were saying look everything seems to have concertina together and of course that's what you want from motor racing you want as much close racing action as possible car number 20 this is the high-class racing car complete change of basic color for high class they've never had this sort of clarity and white before which is what's completely confusing me i know but it's not even a danish red really is it and it just certainly doesn't look like a danish fight well unless they've gone for metallic piece remember what between the two g drive cars again no such thing as a coincidence but that was oh that's weighed as well that's yeah yeah he's struggling for grip there isn't he is he i think he's also a little bit looking in his mirror as he came down you know make one mistake and you've got to calm yourself down instantly you can't let that mistake build up to make another one you've got to instantly forget it you can't change it once it's gone you can't do anything about it you just gotta focus on going forward and i think that running wide there at all rouge and he got out of it very well stunning recovery i have to say stunning that is one for the one for the wall but um the second one i would say was maybe a little bit more uh heartbeat moment from the first yeah dennis anderson bronze driver has been in the lms for a couple of seasons now getting quicker and quicker but you do see this from the gentleman drivers if a mistake comes in if it throws them off the rhythm it will just take a little while longer remember high glass racing in the news before we got here into uh spa with the announcement the first of their uh the first of their uh le mans cruz that is going to be uh anders fjord back as the silver driver but then kevin and yang magnuson in what uh told me uh last week the last possible opportunity for that to happen with the father and son and all danish brewery in the second of the hard class racing cars we'll wait to find out who's going to be the other one that'll be very good news but we just saw neil johnny leading for porsche those are words we say quite frequently or have said quite frequently over the last few years but in the last couple of seasons not so much however he is currently leading in gte pro for porsche this is a new position for him as a gt driver in one of the quote slower cars head of a of course is james collado by nearly 30 seconds richard leads three seconds behind collado's ferrari in the second porsche and daniel sarah 15 seconds back the 52 ferrari doesn't quite seem to have the pace in this middle sector of the race but we don't know what they are doing with tyres in any of the gt cars here's the corvette fifth place for olly gavin and up behind him dragon speed versus g drive hold on to your hats dragon speed versus both g drives the 21 car has hit both of them being hit by the 26 and has hit it back and also sideswiped the 25 car so now the drivers don't necessarily know who is in there nick dufrese is in the 26 g drive car he's a rapper yes he is because the dragon speed car number 11 henrik hedman and roberto mary in the 25 t-drive car which was the first of those they are actually battling for position 10th and 11th in the class which means that sophia fleurs is up to ninth place here is gain the ferrari battle with rahel frey and there is the dempsey proton car is that 88 or 77 they now both got blue highlights that's 88 you know it looks totally different um when you see them side by side but in daylight it's now very difficult to pick out the difference in daylight with the sunlight reflecting off my tv monitor it's hard to tell it's a porsche that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it marco seaford was ahead of thomas floor dropped back and just got back in front so he's running sixth thomas floor in seventh and the battle for eighth is what's right behind him 85 the iron links a iron dames machine and the 47 shetland racing porsche a ferrari rather and who do we think that was in the uh car give me one moment sorry i'm completely wrong screen yeah we haven't got this number was it pleased 47 47 was setting the auto giorgio and in fact easing away from him rajel freya is now closing in on the af courser car of thomas floor is the replay of that incident yeah so that's where she got by that was a clean pass she got spun around two laps previously and that investigation continues and she goes by thomas floor it does as does sergioto so transform dropping back down the order chops a couple of spots rahel frey started out in junior single-seater she raced in dtm in gt racing now up into seventh place her next target marco seyfried we saw that dempsey proton porsche not far away only a three second margin and rahel is going quicker there's no uh uh no further action by the way for that instant involving rahel and the 47. so that has been adjudged a racing incident and on we go he's uh pulled back that uh disadvantage and more and here are our two leaders number seven toyota jose maria lopez leading hypercar and the number 22 united auto sports car just in front leading in lmp2 and fleet made that easy i think doesn't want to be under pressure going through and up the other side of ours you don't want them taking the air off your rear wing as you're going through oh rouge so by the way that is the first time that the lmp2 leader has fallen off the left oh yes so it is after two and a half hours it would have been uh 22 and a half minutes possibly not here at spa but uh yeah it's a very different uh balance between the hypercar category and nfp2 right now so now mp2 sleep albuquerque leading by a minute and 10 seconds over g-drive's 26 car with nick dufrese he is four seconds ahead of sean galileo and that gap is not changing much kalel is not giving away much wrt with 30 habsburg four seconds behind him in fourth and then the jota cart of antonio felix de costa seven seconds behind habsburg in fifth and eighth head of guerrero vandergaard who's taking over from fritz vanier in the 29 racing team netherlands car rick sean cole you're talking about sean in the 28 car capable of being very rapid indeed and consistently very rapid but is another those drivers that has made mistakes before now and lets that just get under his skin a little bit if he can stay it's confidence if his confidence is high he's extremely able driver it's very difficult to balance that line in your early career between being really quick and just that bit too quick where you have the big one absolutely and that can come with experience number seven toyota leading the race here for toyota gazoo racing and that ts-010 had not turned the wheel until the beginning of the prologue on monday graham is what we're being told what's urgent is literally a brand new chassis we understand obviously that motor manufacturer in europe is struggling at the moment lots of car manufacturers can't get hold of semiconductors semi-what well those are the chips that allow your engine management system your gearbox management system your sat nav and all the other stuff to work and if jaguar land rover bmw and mercedes can't get a hold of them then small fry like racing teams no matter how big a racing team you are also can't get hold of them and the reason is not that the manufacturers have stopped making them all that they've stopped shipping them because being everybody's by buying electronics while they've been locked at home for a year and so they've all been diverted to different places it's the number 60 car remind links unlapping himself from the uh race leader in gta transfer upper road herrera 53 seconds back on the race leader the new chrome livery saw debut in the elms prologue but first time we've seen it race here is the 83 i think it looks stunning in fact dylan pereira rajel freya and marco seyfried are the three fastest cars in gta yam at the moment there is dylan pereira in that we we do need to find out what they officially call it that really bluey blue very blue yeah very that's caribbean sea blue isn't it that's the the water off barley apparently you know i can tell from the photographs i think it's possibly a color he likes from one of his shirts but that may be a different story and the four horsemen well that's tempting fate at spa isn't it you know we had snow we've had hail we had you know torrential rain biblical flooding almost last year at the beginning of the race we we haven't had plague of frogs but the four horsemen i never really expected to see them appear absolutely enjoy your snack yeah well that's what everybody's doing everybody's on in on a packed lunch aren't they because of the uh the covert separation and again we're racing behind closed doors here at spa but finally almost six months after our last encounter bahrain we are back to racing in the world endurance championship so again after that uh stop for the 36 37 seconds from the lead let's hear what's going on the moment the cockpit with nikola pierre we are b3 will box in five laps you can push on your tire i let you in this uh they can sniff something here can't they they can they can sniff that there is a maybe the possibility of a of a of a real result here for the alpine team worth mentioning what other here about this effort this is of course uh it was reasonably in motorsport terms a last-minute effort to get this together for the hyper guard glass but this is about a bigger deal this is about attracting the attention of the alpine round the renault empire to come with a new car that is still very much on the table and success at a race like this and success against toyota could be a very big deal indeed for the future of this program i think you've got to remember within that particular group you do have renault you've got alpine you have nissa and the alpine name we clearly know from the rebranding of their formula one operations but at the same time all comes out of the same house and that same house is sitting in paris and they are clearly looking at their motorsport involvement across the board luca de meo is now the new head of the the group and he's restructuring moving forward someone that has been actually at le mans many times in the past and a supporter of that with a with a great passion and it's uh it's a moving time as you say as well with quite a lot of manufacturers now looking at the new categories and how to get involved yep it's gonna be an interesting few months ahead an interesting few years ahead with brands who've already big brands have already committed big big brands are committed other brands still to come battle between the dempsey proton porsche just being lapped by the toyota and rahel frey in the iron links ferrari the gap is at 1.8 seconds rahel finding six tenths of a second on the previous lap closing in and again that car was crashed in the prologue quite heavily uh catherine legge who was due to race with the russian mill racing team in european le mans series last year crashed in the prologue in uh paul ricard because of a car failure badly broke her leg didn't get to race until daytona again this year she's racing in imsa with christina nielsen but she now comes back with the iron dame's team and then she's he was saying after the press conference said it's just me in europe i get into a race car and have a big crash at least this time she was able to literally walk away from it the team have rebuilt the car at the wheel at the moment and closing in on the porsche in front manuela gosner and catherine legg the other drivers of this car and one retirement in gte am so far that is the gr racing car mike wainwright crashing on the way to the grid uh gets ready to suit up and get aboard the number 25 car it's been a while since we've had visit angola on a race car it's kind of takes me back a decade or more mccarter to sarah i think was the last driver with uh visit angola signage on his car raced up to formula two level did a bit of sports car racing as well rahel fry pulling closer and closer to marco sifrid and both of them catching satoshi hashino this is developing into a three-way battle for fourth in this class bigger gaps before we get into the poking positions at the moment how long in the m-class stinks in gta it's about now all right so hoshino has got maybe 25 minutes to go he's starting to run out of grip i think he's now being warned about track limits mind you sir is matteo crosoni but hashino is in his second stint here yeah and one person not being warned about track limits is this car we're on board with now which is uh ferdinand habsburg wrt closing up for third place and the car ahead is the jota sport car of sean gale and habsburg's been actually consistently quicker through the course of this thing since he's got in and like i said previously the uh the wrt car seems to have basically the pace of the leading cars not quite as consistently but it can do it on occasion but habsburg will be taking third place i think very very soon the habsburgs last lap 209.77 brendan hartley's last lap in the toyota hypercar in second place was a 210.6 now they may have met different amounts of traffic but on the other hand it shows you that the hyper car and the p2 cars are not worlds apart here comes rael frey marcos seafried right and satoshi in the background 6.3 seconds behind paul dalalana i would put decent money on her being in a podium spot by the time she brings the iron links car into the pits for a driver change very determined driver rahel she really gets on with it throws the car around but she's got a pretty steely focus on what she's actually doing and uh yeah you think you're right she'll be charging in on the back of dalai lana and here we see the wrt car again getting a little bit closer and we'll be going to the radio to listen to sean galileo is right behind you this is for position yeah it definitely is for position and it's going to be one that'll come very very soon uh just behind though habsburg you've also got antonio felix de costa in the other jota car as well and so therefore there's uh quite a little sandwich there all within six seconds as you saw in the background anthony davidson suited and booted [Music] well look in the garage there you know outside lovely sunshine in the shadow in the garage hat scarf everything pulled up around your ears it's not a hot day it's been like that all week i mean out the sunshine you can get sunburned but actually in the shade it is freezing yep it is rusty it's not warm it's not warm i didn't see many sunburned people around i've got to say in the paddock earlier on but here we've acted coming back to this when you talked about the black times habsburg's average lap which in reality is the thing we need to look at as opposed to peak lapse has been about one second faster than sean gale over the course of this stint distance so far is about 10 laps in and so got about another 12 laps and you can see the rear of the jotter sport car up head just moving around underneath galel is he tried to commit to the chicane there and it's not secure it's not sitting underneath him that left rear tire is the one that takes a pounding round here and it's a left rear tire that looks like that galel's struggling a little bit with as habsburg takes a nice big run to try to look towards the stream but i think he's still too far back into the point where we expect to see the totals down bit lane the gap at the moment first to third where the alpine sits is 43 seconds so that will put the alpine back up into the lead at this stage although the pace of the toyota's right now is pretty strong compared to where nicolapierre is although that last lap bit of an outlier with traffic well great on board with ferdie habsburg not a whiff of a lift all the way up the hill and he has reeled sean gale in it is now down to a car length as you were saying he's not going to get him at the bus stop i thought you're right but if he doesn't get him by le cobb i'll be very surprised [Music] trying to get back in front of the porsche just not quite having enough room to get it stopped and squared away there's a four or five second loss there as we think back to this battle for third place and he is in the slip stream but glail will go to the left hamsburg's gonna have to make a dive if he's gonna do it no not this thing no but there's traffic in front and he may well have seen that as they come up the hill be thinking okay i'll buy my time number seven is in this is jose maria lopez pachito leads for toyota gazoo racing his brand new hypercar the ts010 now remember a one minute 30 was the last pit stop which was a very slow one and they were also charging uh the oil in and we saw them uh not doing it this time though at the moment a little check in behind to make sure that this is actually checking for rubber pickup big balls of rubber are now out onto the circuit and so they're checking around to make sure that uh they can scrape anything they can or it's not sticking into the suspension because it can actually restrict the suspension movement and around the back axle especially lights flashing now from the wrt man if you don't mind uh checking in for the first time this year you are fundamental change in terms of the arrow on the lmp2 cars this year they're running lower downfall somewhere between 50 to 20 less downforce but lower drag too that will affect their ability to make it stick into the corners seven car is rolling that was one minute one second on pit lane for jose maria lopez drops in behind nicolapia it's gonna be somewhere between seven and ten seconds the gap when they come through the next timing a little bit more i would say it'll be about your 10 seconds sorry gap and that's going to be in a as we see the leader at the moment brendan hartley and he should be popping into the pits on this particular lap as well as uh and he'll drop there we have second place nicola lapierre he's made it around lacombe was the last lap where he had uh run wide and straight across the sort of runoff area he's got to be careful not to have too many of those because it is going to be reasonably nip and tuck with the extra stops that this particular car's got to do in comparison to the toyota and so if they keep it neat and tidy they're in the game if they don't then they probably won't be absolutely indebted to sam smith for sending us the um rules regarding pit stop times versus your energy consumption and your stim length you definitely need a slide rule and advanced mathematics to work it out there's the toyota off at the top of the hill and that is jose maria lopez on his out lap whatever you can do nickel up here i can do better i can do worse here comes the eight car down pit lane as well this is the race leader brendan [Music] hartley high promotion shot of the car shows just how hard it works also gives you a great view through that sort of double you've got a flat floor and then basically the first story has got open windows and then the second story has got the driver and all the gubbins so there's this enormous air channels underneath the nose of the car through that come out in front of the side pods toyota and testing must have had a lot of problems with pickup because it's now a strategy to make sure all those areas around the back are as clean as possible it's possibly something with a new hyper car but it's also possibly something just with the evolution of the circuit and also the amount of pickup that's on the track drivers may be reporting small vibrations pick up you get it a lot here at the bus stop chicane funnily enough where it sits on to the camera i don't know why it sits on that particular curb there's now that toyota's back on its way dives out just in front of the real team racing machine car number 17 now has norman nato aboard we saw him in the garage a little earlier on as we were hearing from esteban garcia it's starting driver and nico lapierre wasting no time in traffic in the lead of the race once more for alpine jota now under pressure from wrt and through immediately goes goes bernie habsburg dives past immediately in that one pretty good so galel did defended really well habsburg now passed and i would suspect that he's going to actually pull away but the person that's gained out of those two battling against each other is the second jota car which is antonio felix de costa who's now pulled from six and a half seconds behind to about three seconds behind this one and he's got guido van der garde right behind him as well there they are in the background so that's gonna be a four car battle very very soon indeed the nrp2 is still serving up the entertainment cracking racing lmp2 it certainly is as a 91 forces in the pits and that's a fourth place car richard leads at the wheel now remember both porsches have had an early pit stop on their second stint after 18 and 19 laps with a right rear uh tire that has been dropping in pressure for whatever reason something that they hasn't seemed to be able to explain so far however their third stint looks to have gone all okay be interested to see what kind of stint times neil yanni was putting out of course this is first race in uh wc aboard a gt pro car as we've been talking through the week a fundamentally different challenge for the excellent p1 driver not too badly i'd have to say 23 laps a 2 minute 15.790 was his average james collado x gte pro world champion in the ferrari two minutes 15 8 9 7. richard leads his teammate very experienced in this car at 2 15 5 5 7. there's a change i think that's the 88 and the 98 together on track that is a switch a position marcus seaford going through and ahead of paul dalalana rael fry already before you even finish the sentence dalai lana came back in him through rouge but through radioact runs out all four wheels wide he needs to give the place back because there could be a penalty for that if he gains advantage it's a three-car battle because the scheduler car is in there as well as well as one of the toyotas i could get caught up in this if they've checked that one out where he goes to gentle car it's the number eight car the third place come off brendan hartley who's in a rush to make up time yeah squeezes through so marco silva came out on top in fourth giorgio cena giotto now up to fifth and paul dalalana down to six and this is where it started allen porsche sends the aston where he wants him to the outside and then cuts back yeah and once dalai lana's bumped over that red point he has to wait all the way until the end to come back but that's brave you don't want to go in there and well he ran what i was going to say you don't want to go in there and have to run wide but he ran wide should say by the way end of the pit stop for car eight the last pit stop is under investigation so is there further drama to come for toyota kazoo racing well clearly they're still trying to work out the formula for release i've taken a look i think the thing is was whether 70 car braked or not the lmp2 car that was already in the fast lane going towards that pit exit and the thing is i have to say that in that situation the driver brandon hartley would never have been able to see there's no way that sort of angle you can move your head and the mirror would not pick it up and so therefore he's going purely on the lollipop man at the front when he releases the car you go without any real vision of what's around you we're on board with sean gale ahead of us is van der garde and antonio felix decaster this is a three-way battle yeah fuel at the bottom of that steering wheel so that's flashing that means that uh i would suggest he's on he's in lap yep come in now or don't bother coming back fantastic uh by the people there in our van to be able to pick that up in the steering wheel and you see there the tire pressures just above it there's 30 habsburg third place antonio is fourth yeah he doesn't need to now you've got a strategy and there is a so when you get to a point where the fuel has gone down to a level and you get your low fuel alarm it may be that on certain circuits it's different it'd be once past the pits or immediately and if it's le mans if it is a shorter circuit you maybe do two times past the pits before you come in uh because there is effectively a not a reservoir like you but it's similar to a road car when you come on to your fuel light then you've got a period of time and you don't just come in immediately when the light is on you go to the absolute limit yeah interesting moments here still the lead with that uh leapfrogging again the two toyotas with their latest pit stop it's under seven seconds is the gap both the lead cars it's the number seven car that's chasing jose maria lopez uh laughing in the 207s moment this is an interesting point in the race now of all the things that you would have thought the toyota gazoo racing would not cost themselves time with its mistakes in the pit lane and that's what's dropped the number eight car 30 seconds behind its sister car here's the battle for third place in lmp2 we talked about antonio felix de costa catching three seconds on ferdinand habsburg he's caught the other three seconds now he's right on the back of him and he's pulling along guido van der garde in the racing team netherlands so he's gone for it into the essence of that squeeze but habsburg just told him not here mate you've got to wait a little bit longer he shot the door on him politely i have to say but he certainly shut the door on him then you've now got guido van der garver sitting there to pick up the pieces and sean galil sitting just behind him as well third fourth fifth and sixth all in the one shot and they could all be on an in-lap maybe this time round yeah fernie habsburg held his line antonio trying to pass on a real formulary tight dive didn't happen for him yeah but he got the dtm shot from very happy didn't he [Music] you know it was a late move by by uh de costa and de costa would need to have help and he knew that from habsburg if it was going to come off these three run through and uh on to another lap whereas in the background we may see the knowledge other car keeps on going freddie habsburg sliding there through the bus stop as he goes by the iron links car that's mateo crossoni who's in seventh place with the yellow highlights the ferrari the yellow highlights he's in seventh in the gtm class and they are now starting to close in on the number one car as well the richard mille racing team carved sofia flourish so they're about to put a lap on that yeah they are but the person that got held up there was the racing team netherlands just a little bit not too much but uh now habsburg's got to think a little bit strategically how is he going to get past flourish and use flourish to try to get away from the cluster and that gives him maybe one or two laps of breathing space where he can collect his sort of thoughts but more importantly try and get the tire temperatures and things under control as well and so now in this section of circuit he's got to go and do to flourish what the costa tried to do to him yeah but not leave the door too wide open what he doesn't want is to run her out off the road he wants to get by and then her shut the door right behind him yeah but he needs to get by that's the principal point get by first gt traffic coming ahead of this battle as well and he's got a nice run through there but flourishes she's well neat and tidy no problems too far away yes he is but look how much closer gear vandergaard is coming now he's coming with a head of steam yeah that 92 porsche graham that's going to be quite easily when you get towards blanchamone it's more it's a few as we see mayor vincent voss who's led this team in fact i raced against vincent back in the day but uh vincent vosser led wrt team to all the gt glories as well as into dtm and now into lmp and world touring cars i mean there's very few racing formats that they haven't tried jakob schmikowski pits for into europol so the first of the lmp2 pit stoppers this battle continues can't get by sophia flourish this is a little move there yeah but that was very very opportunistic he saw that habsburg was trying to line up flourish coming into this corner and went for it but that's giving guido van der garde a bit of a move but now now he's done it again and habsburg has got to settle with this one though i think oh no he's not he's on the kerbs he stays on yeah he's he's dropped the momentum though though what he didn't want was to allow both cars to go through he's alongside the rear wheel he's side by side door handle to door handle well there's nothing wrong with the bravery element in any of these drivers sofia flew us trying to find her way through the cars in front antonio felix de costa is still there door handle to door handle but now he is using the gts to box in 30 habsburg the wrt driver is stuck behind the porsche loses both places that's experience on the part of antonio felix de costa and bravery on the part of 30 habsburg and it was also a little bit inexperienced by habsburg as well to get blocked in behind the gt cars and van de gaarder there he just squeezed himself into the spot where hasberg had nowhere to go he had to lift off and this is the the end of the first part where the costa went down the inside he squeezed hasberg out onto the rumble strip hamster lost a bit of momentum at this particular point and that allowed then uh everybody to sort of concertina what happened down in the rouge was definitely the stuff of bravery which is what we see now both of them going around the outside hamsburg's on the dirty side and then runs off the circuit so i'm sure he got a little bit of pickup there yes only in the co in the pit but also in the comms box we were holding our head wait and see what was going to happen see van san voss would have been very happy to do that when he was sitting at the wheel of a chrysler viper but when he's having to watch it happen a little less so now that the quick two have gone by as well so uh decaster and and uh vandegarder have gone by sophia flourish and now ferdie habsburg goes by as well leaving her to deal with sean gale and gabriel aubry who'll be the next in the line ahead of all of this felipe albuquerque still leading by more than a minute over nick the freeze and antonio felix de costa and vandergaard are third and third b because it's not really much of a gap down from third to fourth yeah first and second they're basically shadowing each other at time but it's one minute in between them which was predominantly taken out in the first two stints of the race and we have to remember that uh you know this particular car also had a true gent in it being fritz fernard as well and uh without any safety cars or full course yellows so far then hd has been pure racing for nearly three hours of this six hours of smart yeah don't worry folks allen was touching laminate then yes which is as close as we get to work neil johnny the gte pro leader is in the pits in the 92 car rue andrade takes over g drives number 25 car so james collado cycles to the front in gte pro but all eyes on the battle in lmp2 we always knew it was going to be exciting with more than a dozen p2 cars and it has not let us down going on at least left side for kilchani it is left side again left side only well all this is happening by the way lead battle overall between the leading alpine elf mac mccall the 36 cast still in the hands of nicola pierre and jose maria lopez's number seven toyota gazoo racing gr010 hybrid is around four seconds and lopez just a fraction quicker lap on lap so he's closing the gap on lapierre and you wonder again you know as ttr are learning a little bit more about this car as we ride on board are they just massaging it closer and closer into its sweet spot exactly as we've heard oh big that's the third lock up from a toyota at the top of the hill there the second from the number seven car so the number eight car has done it as well yeah but one thing louise beckett in the pit lane and she's got a fantastic temperature thermometer it's called her hand and she said it's getting much much colder out there the colder it gets at the end of the lake home the long straight up the hill then the less also the longer you run on the tire the less rubber it is which means that it dissipates the heat quicker which means it's much easier to lock well the other thing with three hours almost completed is that's how long it's taken louise to complain about it being cold duncan would have been up three minutes we'd have heard it so here we go there's the race leader the alby and the gap is now down a was at the last split under three seconds despite that run-off jose lopez not losing much in terms of ground [Music] he's struggling the 98 aston he has been in all of his sticks has been abusing the track limits and being reported to the stewards he's had two drive-throughs one for a tag with someone else and another one for abusing track limits already so definitely he's he's going to know the stewards not only by name but also by paul family and probably invited to christmas dinner at this rate well they probably know his credit card details by heart now that was the lmp2 leader philip alberkirk he hits his marks at united auto sports skates to a halt and drive a change so he is out phil hanson did the double phillip did a double come here this is their new boy in the lineup fabio sharer the swiss he's a silver rank driver this will be his first world endurance championship start with united auto sports it's a great looking helmet livery isn't it all sorts going on there temperature is currently 10 degrees down four from the start of the race air temperature that is track temperature is a different thing tracks what the tire actually knows the part of the track temperature change will be the fact that it's significantly more cloudy now than it was at the beginning of the race where it was very sunny watching anxiously from the garage there phil hansen and trevor team manager and in the g drive garage they are about to go for a driver change as well the argentine colors on the helmet of franco colopinto and that was close ahead of dragon speeds henrik hedman that was exactly the same as what happened with the toyota as well and it was being investigated for an unsafe release so i'm not sure whether the same again would come up i get as i said previously though it really depends on whether the car behind had to break or not and from this angle it's very difficult to see as well i must say one thing here van der garde de costa got ahead of habsburg however habsburg and this is the replay of it all start that's just the opportunistic dive by decosta pushed hamster quell wide very dusty tires at this moment in time another little push off and then he had a run around the outside battling side by side wheel by wheel all the way through rouge ultimately habsburg seemed to be leading at this stage however it was all to sort of go a little bit wrong when he got blocked at the end of the kimmel straight uh in behind these gt cars as vincent voss yep holding his head wait and see what happened all turned out okay but what i was about to say sorry gentlemen is that that was a bit of a unsettling nervous lap for habsburg but he's got back into it and he's hold himself right back onto the back of the costa and guido van der garde so he's forgotten about the problems of the previous lap hasn't let him affect him and gets straight back on with the job real mature drive from 30 habsburg and still very much part of this story developing nick davis by the way moves into the lead of lmp2 for the moment but uh he's going to be on pit lane before too much longer then hanley by the way took over the 21 dragon speed car that was the car that we saw the 22 united car chop in front of coming out from the pits so he's taken over from henrik hedman so henman headman rather has done his uh minimum drive time now we've just got a quick look inside the cockpit uh driver's view from the number seven car and clearly visible now the 36 car under two seconds is the gap the lead gap and we are at the halfway point now oh yes well done that's like spotting when your car goes over to a hundred thousand miles north allen would know what that's like but three hours down three hours still to go and into the pits comes racing to netherlands vanderguard and followed in by also wrt with bernie hasberg as well so jose going a lot longer how many laps was sean gale's thing uh digital dash saying low fuel it's like 20 minutes ago wasn't it yeah i think he's just hitting reset all the time it could actually be a sensor issue in reality it could be a problem where you just have to hit reset and once you've hit it five times and it doesn't go away and the car keeps running and you've only done x laps in your stint then you kind of just start ignoring it it's like the snooze button [Music] keep hitting it snooze snooze ignore that wait for the team to tell you to come in they won't forget you need a hungry cat if you're doing that sofia flourish is also in the pits in the richer meal racing team car as uh we now get a flurry of lmp two pit stops in a battle here for the lead of the race josie maria lopez has gently been catching back in on the back of the alpena nicholas lapierre and how many laps do nico needs fuel well nico's on 19 laps on this stint at this moment and what are they doing 21 yeah they're basically doing 21 22 laps 22 is more likely brendan's only eight laps into his 24 laps pit stop car 22 reported to the stewards for unsafe release there's another issue as well and it's just as i speak it it's changed he hadn't changed the driver indicator it still showed philippe yeah you've got to then inform the race direction if there is a problem and it is not the driver that is in the car if you do not inform race direction he can't actually serve a penalty change just changed on the screen so obviously somebody in united has looked to tell your screen and go fabio switch the switch over well yeah he it's not quite it doesn't quite work like that but there's a bit of an issue going on there it's wrt [Music] well louise beckett is right down there yeah that has taken the team by surprise they weren't ready for this car to go onto the dolly's and come in like everything was in its way in this pathway they've just cleared it out so i'm going to get in there and find out i don't know if you could see anything they've got actually they're in the footwell area so they're going into the driver's foot well they've got a little uh there's a like an access panel and it's a right hand side so i would suggest it's something in and around the driver's foot well so some master cylinder or electronic issue perhaps g-drive was in front as well that's the 26 car nick dufrese didn't look like the door was open and behind the dragon speed number 21 car ben hanley but a lap ahead of them fabio shera now the number 22 car back in the lead of the race they are only losing the lead in the pit stops here comes the alpine [Music] the toyota has dropped back to seconds behind so nicolas as one of the ferraris dives into the pits while daniel sarah has just left so i'm assuming he's not back that'll be james collado in from what was the lead of gte pro nico lapierre coming to the end of his entire life but pachito with fresh rubber on the car we saw him taking a look in the mirrors as well as they came down the start finish straight though and then slightly easier for the total with the ferrari diving out the way two seconds almost dead as they cross the line lopez won't have fresh tires will they will be a stint fresher they were not brand new this stint though so that's where it is at the halfway point alpine toyota toyota then united jota and g-drive the top three in lmp2 but as the pit stops cycle through wrt back into the garage for a brief hold af quarter pitting from the lead of gte pro and that will hand the lead back to the porsche team and it is porsche ferrari porsche ferrari corvette in gte am 22nd overall is af courses number 83 ferrari from the tf sport car that started on pole and dempsey protons 88 machine after 77 had a delay that car was up to the top three early on in the race having started right at the back of the field but there's been big problems a hold up for the triple seven aston martin and arc bratislava pitted very early on the at the end of the formation lap or end of lap one with a leaking fuel tank gr racing did not make it round on the formation lap a crash by mike wainwright at uh the top of the hill at uh sorry apologies for button in there just they've got the engine covered off now and also the nose and so therefore it's it looks like a brake master cylinder yep that's always the worry electronics tend not to be in the nose you never quite know how cars are designed normally when they're going in front of your feet it's either brakes or clutch you can see three cylinders there with fluid being topped up and at the back are they bleeding the clutch you see clutch i think it's clutch not brake actually but why would you come in mid stint because you don't use the clutch it's not like a normal 21 laps so they couldn't leave because he couldn't select a gear because he couldn't use the clutch shot watching these dramas by the way the um the lead car the 22 united auto sports car 16 seconds ahead at the moment of antonio phillips de costa in the jota 38 that car i think oats is a pit stop though alan yeah they seem to be running on um on a wing and a prayer on fumes but tom blonkist has taken over the 28 car of sean gale so we expect antonio in very soon in this slap in fact he's done twenty one thousand like the 31 was just about to be wheeled out the other thing to remember in that league battle is the united car is under investigation with an unsafe release 22 seconds for a drive-through that's the pit delta so probably slowing down and speeding up 25 maybe 30 seconds total at the moment he's 16 seconds ahead so he would lose the lead if he had a drive through this level full service for that car nicola lapierre has done two stints and uh two very quick stints i've got to say a two six eight men a two seven eight so he's only dropped a second on the tower life which is very impressive actually and uh that's led them back into the lead of this race now they're on a completely different sort of strategy to the toyotas due to the fact that the toyotas can go three four laps longer and so therefore it's slightly offset however a pretty good performance but the totals did not catch one pace in that stint no there's been a driver change by the way at wrt the car is now back on track xiaomi lazy starts his first stint in that car so whatever it ailed them hopefully it's fixed clutch it's confirmed by vincent voss that it was actually a clutch issue they had and so they are now back on their way that's a bit disappointing uh for them because clearly they brought it back up i think they were 10th at the end of the first lap and into fighting for a podium position but uh these are one of the lessons that you learn when you only get into racing well that's not a new team problem is it clutches don't fail just because the team don't know what they're doing or they don't uh need bleeding necessarily so that's just particularly unfortunate but uh yes of course the audi family connection of course alan's got uh vansonfoss's phone number in his phone so a change there as well at alpine nica lapierre has done his double stint andre negrow did a double early on so it's now mature vaseville as we get into our four of the six hours of spa frankisha the opening race of the fia world endurance championship season nine for 2021 and how the world has changed from two three years ago when we began a super season that would finish with le monde every year in the middle of the summer and race through the winter well yeah fate had other ideas that the great lake plans of mice and men that that fell back and we are now in a calendar year calendar season yeah they definitely do again after glee is robert morton said as now he goes back out onto the circuit matthieu xavier very very quick very aggressive in traffic and someone that certainly cut his teeth as we see the 31 moving on its way and the lollipop's got to go up yeah he's not releasing that are they just testing to see if he can can he get a gear there with three hours in if you're gonna try and start it on the problem is the batteries are about the size of a aaa in these cars they don't they're not supposed to do anything other than start it once not even then normally even on the grid you have a slave battery so they aren't like a road car battery they don't have that [Applause] oomph [Music] wrt well ferdi you've just been watching the pictures you were here in the garage seeing it uh tell us what's happened with the car yeah i felt um already on when i first started that there's something soft with the clutch i was not able to kill kill it manually and then uh yeah i already knew the soft is getting bad and as i set off it could not really it was jumping and it's just getting worse and worse so hopefully we'll be able to finish the race after the next couple pit stops yeah and you put in such a great drive that was so good to watch that battle out there yeah i i i enjoyed it a lot of it but unfortunately i came up came out on the bad end because i've got a bit unlucky at the end but it's really hard to overtake with us at the moment on the straights uh we're quick in the corners not so quick on the straight so something to focus on for the future but yeah i enjoyed myself a lot uh battling with a few of my friends out there yeah i'm gonna call them a bunch of bastards after that because i feel like i should have had more space but i'm always going to peed out and i'm going to rough it up out with a beer after the potato we do apologize for any swearing that may be happening but thank you very much there you go cheers there's two indicators of when a foreigner learns to speak english well one is the fluency and and the uh innocence of his swearing and the second is his ability to tell a joke and he combined two in one sentence there so he is yes the scion of the habsburg dynasty so austrian young austrian driver making his first steps in world endurance championship and uh definitely making his mark there he may give a little bit less racing room the next time now i think jamie will say all right son you were nice to them this time elbows out the next time elbows out is definitely the way that it's got to be in this championship but you've got to make sure that you don't actually lose the skin off your elbows as you're fighting your way through in the uh pr what was going on yes uh just a quick note uh very rapid out on circuit at the moment the second place car in lmp2 uh the 26 g drive racing car the hands at the moment franco colopinto just put it on the previous lap at 205.917 which if it's not the fastest time in lmp2 is very close to it the young think still 17 year old argentinian just came out onto the circuit new set of tires on there so we'll definitely be in a uh good place that's for sure oh here we go racing team netherlands versus is that 28 that's tom blonvis going by davidson in the 38th jota sport car is already ahead in third 23 seconds gap now between the two jota cars in what is going to be a battle for third position in class is fritz doing a double uh no he's just got in again isn't he okay no but he is his second stint isn't it yes okay uh fastest lap of the race got popped in by matthias in the 204 8-2-2 the gap from the lead to third place is 64.6 seconds or a pit stop almost exactly a pit stop isn't it not sure what the alpine team are doing with the car to massage it and getting it closer and closer to where they want it to be but it's working it's pretty much where they want it to be isn't it now yeah absolutely so three hours and 13 minutes into the six house of spa processor the season opener for fia wec [Music] a beautiful may day in spa frankesha in in perfect weather conditions in which to start a new golden era of top tier sports car racing with the introduction of the hypercar class toyota gazoo racing and alpine first second and fourth on the grid but the lmp2 pole sitter phil hanson for united auto sports the reigning champions and le hmong winners was always going to be a bit of a thorn in the side of the toyotas and so it proved briefly taking the lead down the hill on the run to our rouge as the toyotas struggled with each other further back in the tt class porsche evanesce just starting from an enormously convincing pole but ben keating ahead in the gte and class the back row starters the triple seven tf sport aston martin the d station car and the double seven dempsey proton porsche soon finding their way through trouble for the number 70 car getting turned around real team racing by a hit from behind and the alpine after a number of laps andre negro who started the third hyper car a non-hybrid hyper car got by into third place ahead of united auto sports toyota 1-2 initially car number seven the pole sitter was ahead but after 10 minutes ten laps rather the number eight car was waved in front the team thought it was quicker didn't seem to be much in it paul dalalana in trouble in the 98 aston turning around the 47 chetila ferrari in the am class and then trouble for ben keating somehow there was room as he got really shoved off the track as he said afterwards though i don't know how far it was from the barriers but they were close they were indeed corvettes antonio garcia getting shoved out of the way by jimmy bruni in the porsche in the battle in gte pro pit stops as these super competitive lmp2 fields staying together fritz van air being waved out in front by racing team netherland but then going back in front of him philippe albuquerque to retake the lead united auto sports that was the only time united have lost the lead other than pit stops in the gte am class the battle between the 54 ferrari and the 77 porsche 92 porsche in front in gte pro despite having an unforced pit stop for a right rear puncher which had also afflicted the 91 car wrt and jota battling third man habsburg and antonio felix de costa for third place barely daring to watch as they went wheel-to-wheel the team boss in wrt van sam boss [Music] and after three hours toyota one-two ahead of alpine that's the hypercar class positions united auto sports lead t drive with jota in third and fourth in lmp2 in the gte pro class it's porsche ferrari porsche ferrari corvette and in gte am 83 ferrari ahead of the pole sitting 33 tf sport aston martin dempsey protons 88 car lies in third place so far there have been even scant wavings of yellow flags lots of blue flag action and with the big am class field attracting even more top-class pro talent in their pro-am lineups and the pro-class field struggling to stay in front of very similar machinery but with more fresh tyres at the am's disposal gt has been a dog fight and so too has the prototype class the hybrids after the first couple of hours have eased away from the lmp2 cars that's predominantly because the lmp2 battle has been so intense it is toyota number seven that leads this is brendan hartley third driver in the number eight car in fact it's he's only the second guy to be behind the wheel sebastian bremi did a double stint brendan in the second part of his double stint as is jose mourinho maria lopez who took over the car from the double stinting mike conway who started the race with the first ever hyper pole uh hyper car pole being set by their teammate kazuki kamui kobayashi he will wait to go in later in the car and kuzuki nakajima who qualified the number eight car will also go in later on yeah the end of the flow in the lead this race fascinating stuff at the moment we know there's the likelihood almost certainty the 36 car will need an extra pit stop because of that that that's uh imbalance if you like between the lap they get the perhaps they can get through on a stint lead is back under a minute to the third placed alpine matteo vasovier is consistently quicker than the two totals ahead of him at the moment 208 last time around from lopez 207 from hartley and then mattia vartaviere the 206 324 but let's go down to the pits where nicola after that stellar stint is going to let us know what that felt like with in the lpn uh how was that for you it's new for everybody so how was it for you yeah it was great i mean we had to push a lot at the beginning because we wanted to get the the lead of the race uh to push them a bit to get them out of their comfort zone so we had to push a bit on my first in took the lead and now we're on different strategy because they go much longer on the stint so obviously they're going to have one pit stop less in the end so we need to try to open a bit the gap but it's difficult because they are very strong over the skin so it's gonna be tight i think they have a little advantage to be honest if the if the race stays green but uh let's see for us it's a learning process as well it's the first race with this car so we need to to push and go to the end and learn as much as we can there's been a lot of talk with your team and your engineer back there so what were you feeding back yeah i mean in the end of the second seat we had quite a lot of trouble with the tires so we lost a bit of time there so we were looking at some solutions in order to have this for mature and also for the last two [Music] about teams package because it's nip and tuck stuff certainly is and you see it but nip and tuckers does uh the united auto sport dies down the inside of uh the racing team netherlands there fritz fernandez at the wheel of that car now and uh shearer is at the wheel of the united auto sports but you're exactly correct it's a learning process for both the teams though in terms of toyota and what are we seeing here oh that's a tag and a bit of a squeeze maybe just got away with it a little bit of damage to the as we're on board now with uh jose maria lopez he loses the momentum goes to side i think probably a little bit of the memory of what how they were able to do things with the lnp one theorem and uh misjudged the breaking capability which is significantly good on the gte pros yeah and uh will that lead to a bit of a moment well i think it'll lead to something they're stewards i'm gonna look at a bit it's also probably led to the left front uh dive plane being knocked off of the front of that car but you don't really seem to be running them anyway so i think he's probably got away with that one from bodywork damage dynamically it should be okay a little bit more soccer to the uh the the efforts of the help alpine elf mapmert squad 56 seconds now by the way the lead that is what's up the light cover it's a light cover of something i'm not sure which card that's a light cover left front yeah well that's not going to help the arrow is it well that's one point it'll keep the light cool that's for sure but on the other side of it it's not helping aero the other thing we have to keep in mind is if that light goes out they will have to change the nose to repair it so you need to have your lights active and illuminated all times and so that's the thing i would think they would be more worried about than necessarily the arrow at this particular moment in time and what's certainly not good news is it's not that deep into this uh this stint is it so if there was a need to pit he's gonna be off sequence yeah he is as you can see there are the various different overtakes and uh that's not necessarily overtaking for position but it is the energy that goes into it from the driver's point of view is trying to predict where these overtakes are going to be trying to make sure they are neat and tidy and invariably with 80 overtakes only halfway through the race for a driver the chances are one of them or two of them is going to be a little bit tighter than you would maybe hope for still more and more entertainment in gta this is four position this is the 77 car handsome jackson evans battling away with andrew watson it's only for sixth position at the moment in glass but uh both are making their way back up as jimmy bruni suits up and gets ready to go into the fray and this is a replay there goes yep there goes the light cover ready one pitch sideways richard leetz is the driver of the porsche ec turns in little tag catches it very fortunately i would say for jose mourinho lopez catches it 77 and triple seven again these two seemingly magnetically attracted through the race started from the rear of the grid 77 after the amazing rebuild overnight big incident for christian reading qualifying yesterday yeah it was topovo rouge in qualifying hadn't actually even done a timed lap and i think that was the the big issue for them was that they had to start at the back of the grid that's one thing but having to repair the complete car the night before a six-hour race is not exactly what you want but at the end of it if they get this car to the end then that will be a little bit of a thank you for the mechanics that did a lot of work yesterday big hit for the 77 some of the body work found just over the boardroom netherlands after that shunt but great to see christian reed walking away from that and able to start the race i think he was fairly surprised to come in this morning and find the car in such great order i think he would be fairly surprised after the impact at the top of our rouge there that he also didn't have too much stiffness about him as well i i suspect he's possibly feeling it his pace was not quite where i'd expect chris to be i think as well confidence after something like that you know once bitten twice shy and everything else but uh you know you have to get back into it and get on with it and sort of prove to the corner that your boss not it but uh you know there's a few scouts been taken by that corner over the years oh that was the 70 guard ducking in to the pits the real team racing car porsche 92 leads by the way in gte pro neil johnny and his first appearance in the gte pro squad for gt team making that transition from world championship level lmp1 to world championship gte and it's keeping him in the in the household and keeping him world endurance you know weight building up i'm sure for when they start testing for the hypercar or lmdh program for porsche well you know any of us of a certain age you know have had this problem through lockdown what do you do to keep them off the playstation very good very good uh pit stop here for real team is it in fact the only car in the pit lane it does definitely come in flurries it always seems like that when you're a pit lane reporter especially at le mans when the pit lane is so darn long and they're they're going go from pitting to pit out but there is only one car now so louise is obviously having a cup of tea somewhere as we see the uh now the car that's actually doing the big chase and this is it machu vacci he got in we've seen he's done the fastest lap so far of the race but at the same time his stint average on this one is over a second faster than brendan hartley and jose maria lopez admittedly the two toyotas are on different strategies but when louise interviewed nicola lapierre he said we have to keep them honest we have to keep the pressure on them that mature vaccine is doing exactly that he wants to try and get past these two lmp2 cars as quickly as possible admittedly those guys are going pretty quickly as well and so it's not as if he's losing too much time but maxivia can keep the pressure on the toyotas and then you never know what happens at the end of this one we talked about star drivers in lmp2 and teams trying to position themselves to maybe take on roles in the hypercar class as it develops that's what vaseviere is doing nika lapierre he's been there he's done that you know he's racing the top tier he would love to be back if alpine came with a full program those two drives would be great you know the old hand the veteran the experienced test driver and lapierre and a young hot shoe like basically who's hugely presentable to a french public as well as everybody else that could be a be a very good part of a combination for a french alpine hyper car team yes it comes into the bus stop the other part of this is they're doing what absolutely as lafayette said they've got to do keep up the pressure force the pressure total used to this pressure in recent years and if they're if what they're seeing on their strategy laptops on uh the of the pit wall is telling this is anything remotely close what other pressures is that gonna bring to bear will that force them into making decisions they otherwise wouldn't make uh effectively it's reasonably simple for alpene they've just got to keep going this fast [Applause] it really is that simple yeah go this fast keep doing it keep uh pushing it through the pits uh as quickly as you possibly can and let's see where that wants us at the end of this race and coming into the remainder of this world endurance championship sounds so easy great so easy believe me i absolutely understand it's not but the just the the body language and the way that that car is being uh being pushed along here just they aren't they're going for pace and nothing more they are but unfortunately with that traffic in the last lap they lost one and a half seconds and so the pace had nothing more they need to be clean as possible through the traffic however that also applies to toyota as we could see now tatiana calderon in the richard meal racing car she's kept ben hanley behind brilliantly well but uh ben hanley is now trying he's going to get quite aggressive he's not going to make it there though it's not a safe place to do it by any stretch of the imagination i don't think it was a realistic thing it was more to try and put calderon a little bit off her guard behind though is the race leader in lmp2 fabio shearer is now catching up on this particular battle yep ben hadley half spun there didn't see the beginning of it but half spun don't think there was contact i think he just looked like he lost the front end of the car yes we'll hopefully see it again he dives down the inside of uh yeah he was on there he's on the curb though he's actually got two wheels well over the curb honestly squeeze maybe a little bit in where he shouldn't have done in that respect i think that's 100 on him um yes and that's uh that's dropped ben hanley back from this particular part of the incident graham contact between cars 91 that is the porsche richard leitz and the number seven turn 18. that is the one we saw which lost the light cover on the number seven the leading car in this race for jose maria lopez that could be another turning point in this race it really could well there's a few turning points to come i think as well grief yes effectively back on pace again we saw the previous lap he had traffic through it and uh this is the incident that now is under investigation watch that light cover there just bounces away richard leetz it was certainly avoidable contact and certainly it has to be placed at jose mourinho lopez's door this is the new nose that is prepared just in case now this is always prepared you always have a new nose and you always have a tail prepared and set up exactly the same as the race one and uh so therefore in that respect they're in preparation generally not specifically because of that remember early in the race we saw one of the lmp2 cars getting turned around as they came down the hill towards rivage by a ferrari no penalty there that's little different other than it's a quicker car behind a slower car rather than a quote slower car behind a quicker car i think the lucky thing probably if it doesn't get a penalty is that elites actually didn't spin uh went off the circuit admittedly but didn't spin it around so you see vaccine this is the fastest lap that he did earlier on and lap 89 we are now on lap 98 and so 10 laps ago in the start of his charge after taking over the car new set of tires and off he went the porsche is going slowly 91 is going slowly not the lead car richards front right i think it could actually be the rear right there's right rear that's why the front is off the ground they had a problem on both of their cars earlier on exactly the same the rear right and it was after 18 and 19 laps respectively for the two porsches i said i didn't believe in coincidences a third one tells me that that instinct is probably correct richard lee's has done 20 laps on this one is it possible because of that he's got tagged in that corner by the nose is that the splitter of the toyota has dug a sidewall hole normally it would happen straight away yes agreed normally it happened straight away it may not be though we've got to look at it but that's the third right rear issue that porsche has had attack oh i tell you what though that's going to make it very much tougher for the toyota to wriggle out of a potential penalty if the car that was hit comes in at the end of the next lap without a tire yep on the corner that was hit agreed it may have been happening anyway uh the body that's from that's damage coming from the actual tyre coming off more than necessarily the impact with the toyota it would have been it looks like it could be if we could get an inside shot from the inside of the circuit of of the uh of the car yeah you can ask me yeah louise well can they tell us was the damage from the or from the toyota i'm just trying to have a look there's obviously a lot of people trying to get to this car at the moment but um oh they're going to bring this car in i can see that there's damage around the wheel where there's been contact and they've got a rear ready to replace all right well we'll come back to you as down pit road comes the race leader jose maria lopez the number seven toyota they are undoubtedly going to change the rear floor and the rear body work because that's really sensitive for the aero balance and here is the toyota with that uh blinking eye at the front that should be nicely covered up by a lovely aerodynamic lens so that'll be a nose change required they can't do that while fuel is going in the 35 second minimum actually i've just had a a quick uh message with a colleague at eurosport france saying does that apply if you have a short stick it doesn't apply if you have a short sip but if your stints aren't going to end on a full stick you need to do a short stint earlier in the race and back time that but you have to be spot on with it interesting there's a driver got a board through goes uh matthias of here up into second place driver gets aboard the totem pointed to the front said have you noticed that he genuinely did i think they have and i think we're going to see a nose change no we're not no we're not that they're sufficiently worried by where they are on pace here martin they don't think they can afford the time to do that yeah but alternatively they also don't see any aerial loss by not doing it and the lights staying on so they must be confident with that maybe you know you don't change things just in case you change things when you predictively feel that you need to yeah that will be uh a damage assessment won't it no we're good it's all it's all still attached but that's the key thing isn't it well it still works yeah so the brake car should be in within the next lap which will again put the alpine back up into the lead of this race we've got debris on track that would be i'm sure from the porsche tyre 17 that's blochimo it is on the left-hand side so it's offline but yeah coming down through the gt battle triple 7 and 77 andrew watson in that black and green aston and in front of him jackson evans the man who was the favorite for last year's porsche mobile one super cup and and won the first race but actually ended up with a fairly disappointing season he's right in front but he is a porsche factory driver so for andrew watson this is a really good run from his anymore i don't think he is a porsche factory driver i think he was a porsche junior so i think he's last year i don't think he's actually officially on the roster this year no i apologize if i've got that wrong jackson but i'm pretty certain i'm right may not be he was a factory junior driver last year and of course uh larry 10 forder who we've seen uh a few times making star appearances in this championship was the porsche mother one super cup champion on twitter gazi racing in the pit lane with brendan hartley the number eight car follows in a lot behind the number seven we wait for matt to make his appearance past pit lane he's coming through the bus stop now just as the number eight comes to a halt and we'll take the lead yep driver change here as well kami kobayashi is in the number seven and that means that kazuki nakajima will get in the number eight unless odd things happen nope there is [Music] kaz and the two of these guys have just become superlative sports car racers haven't they nakitima and kobayashi both really really quick and super reliable as well yeah kobayashi i think is one of the fastest people in the field at this moment in time uh what he's been able to do and you know pull the race back when you think it's maybe gone is pretty sensational and this is the point you would expect that kobayashi would be pushing trying to take track position back from full course yellow oh is that debris at uh blossom for that we will wait and see 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 full course yellow full course yellow three hours what is it 38 minutes into this race because caution was the first time yeah absolutely right in the autumn did we start behind a safety car was it that wet am i i can't i just thought it was dry last year yeah yeah i think the as well the puncture caused by that incident uh with the toyota so as you said wiggle room reduces a little bit uh from the toyota perspective considering the that car had to actually stop richard leetz it was there you go there's there's debris it's the belt and there may be a little bit of other housekeeping going on this is eduardo will compile a list okay right we're going full course yellow you do this you do that you do that you do the dishes you're putting away you're drying up you sweep the floor here we go just to remind okay does that mean they're going to do a short stint next stint because if you leave your short stint to the last hint you don't gain any advantage from the short fueling time the sub 35 second fueling time but if you do it early then you have one shorter pit stop in the race you so you need to back time that from me you need to end at the end of a full stint if you follow me but you've got to be very careful that you don't end at the end of a full stint plus a lap which would be a bit of a disaster i think the thing is we know that's a fresh set of tires because we're just seeing it on the graphic not 100 sure on the previous sets and whether we're going to recycle going forward but at this moment in time it's not ideal for them because those tires just on kobayashi's car but already cooling down quite considerably pressure dropping down on them he's came out the blankets out of the pits and then suddenly boom full of course yellow i was thinking exactly that watching fabio sherry going so cold is so slowly is that the relatively cool track is just gonna hoover the temperature out of these tires everything is going to be a bit squirmy for the first lap and uh seeing what we saw in qualifying i mean everybody's consistently a little bit careful if you go back to green and you're somewhere up the kemmel strait that's the best thing for you if you go back to green and you're approaching la source and then your next corner is going to be a rouge on cooler tires you're going to have to be a little bit more circumspect in the pits here's the alpine it's been in and out uh jota have two cars in and out of the pits into europol are in g driver in with the 25 car we just saw that leaving jan magnusson has taken over the high class racing number 20 entry welcome back to world endurance racing kevin ester has pitted and gone in 92 james collado and uh is in the pit lane ferrari this is a short stint this is a short stint but this puts them basically on the same stint as toyota again and so it brings them back into line so kobayashi i think has gone through to take the lead i think yeah at 80 kilometers per hour well and that's why you you take this opportunity to top up because you're losing so little time comparatively yeah but you've just lost four or five seconds there and traffic as well another couple of seconds and so there's when every time you push the car back because the car ahead of you came into the pits it's just one of those unfortunate situations under a full course yellow like this but you do lose about three four seconds pushing the car back and then if there's traffic again that's another sort of two or three seconds or probably six seven seconds in total time loss than what they normally would have done if it had been a clean stop however it is under safety car full course yellow passive air has come out of the pit lane the seven has not cleared sector one yet okay so this is a mixed set so you on the left quality tires on the right this will be single stint single crosses the line now he is in third still in the number eight toyota so alpine were well well advised to make that stop there they retain second place and as you say graham 25 seconds or so behind kamui kobayashi but they are just about on the same strategy now so kobayashi under full course yellow has just cleared sector one sector one is at the end of the big long straight after rouge and kobayashi has is now coming down to sorry this is uh coming down in towards rouge 30 seconds to remove full course yellow under 30 seconds to remove full course yellow so on the left hand side you can see the safety monitor which relays all the flag signals it's currently showing a lot full course yellow it'll show blue flags it'll show red flags yellow flags green flags so it'll go to green when we go green nine eight seven six five four three two one full course yellow removed full course yellow removed there you go we go green the monitor says we are green and after a few seconds it'll turn off it does flash as well to draw and draw the driver's attachment there are some strobe lights on the top that flash to draw your attention when a new message comes in and it also sends back to race control a signal that says yes i have received that message in the car so the driver it cannot then say well i didn't see the flags and there was nothing in the car because the car says yes there was so waiting for these three cars the seven followed by the 36 and the eight to clear sector 2 we then get to see what the real world caps are not good news though for the 36 stuck behind two gt cars at the moment yeah not able to sort of blast past them later i'm surprised at that i thought actually had been able to at least nip down the inside of one of them clearly struggling a little bit with uh the grip at this point however you can see there on the graphic that uh the lead kobayashi car is just coming into the bus stop chicane and now we've got my two of activity going through blosham and coming into that same corner itself about 13 14 seconds seems to be the gap at the moment yep and their little battle behind between the porsche managed to squeeze in front there and keep his position ahead of the am class ferrari that is the am class leader alessio rivera and that is behind the 92 porsche thing of kevin so there's the wrt car clearly their clutch bleeding has not cured the problem and their debut in the fia world endurance championship is done but i think they serve notice they are going to be a very formidable competitor when we get to our next race import him out i wouldn't say it's done completely still see a driver in the car they're trying to top it up but they're minus five laps here correct in terms of real terms there well four laps off the lead of lmp2 off this car which is being run by fabio shiro i mean sure 68 seconds or 69 seconds the good ahead of the second place car just out of bits and would have benefited from that so that's a pit stop but did they because they left it very late to come in was all their pit stop done under full course yellow i'm not sure whatever they did they're gonna benefit benefited from it but it's uh under a minute and ten seconds now and it's also under investigation as well from a previous pit stop unsafe release yes and so they have probably will need to just to try to make sure they've got that minute lead just in case a penalty does come their way indeed so under 14 seconds 13.9 seconds ahead of matthias wasn't a big lock up there until the source uh with a further 23 seconds back to kazuki nakachimba the top three toyota alpine toyota 36.8 seconds with two hours and 14 minutes remaining in this race this is for position isn't it the orange and black g drive car is franco colopinto he's second and davidson for jota is in third and it was i think he was a gt class porsche ahead oh it wasn't that's a pro that's the high-class car in front jan magnusson father of kevin this is the way he obviously goes dad now it's grandfather of i can't remember what kevin's new baby daughter is called so he's been he's been elevated a step i would still think of him as the most successful british formula 3 driver ever multiple le mans winner multiple american le mans serie winner and all around one of the leading hotshots of the danish resurgence in motorsport he was also good enough to have a chat with jan earlier this week and good enough to say that he would be celebrating the end of oliver gavin's career his long time co-driver caught a corvette racing by waving it to him every time he passed him by using both fingers well at least he can retire that uh voodoo doll that he's used all these years as well five seconds added to the next pit stops of cars number eight toyota kazoo racing kazuki nakajima and 22 the leading united auto sports uh lmp2 of fabio shira for unreal unsafe release and blocking a competitor almost to get out of jail free card that from that that's i think they're lucky it's that not a drive-through to be honest with you yeah we still also have that uh investigation uh coming up i would think over the uh jose maria lopez and richard leads incident coming into this corner which seems to have caused the right rear puncture on that porsche so fastest first sector of the race for the number seven toyota they're getting a hurry up on at the moment that is their sector though remember one and second three of the toyota sectors sector two is actually the lmp2 sector but uh at the same time uh has been pretty blindingly quick down through there as well sort of stabilized a little bit in the performances between them right now but at the end right as we stand uh the top three are covered by 30 to seven seconds i'm watching all sorts of social media when it's behaving whether or not it be twitter whether or not it'd be a couple of the uh the chat rooms and there's a very i'm gonna put this active discord server at the moment on this race and it's fair to say the fan base around the world is very pleasantly surprised by the quality of racing by the 2021 world endurance championship good afternoon everybody tuning in listening in watching in typing in from around the world uh this has been quite the start of the season martin well i would always say don't be surprised to see great races at tracks like spa and monza they're not legendary race circuits just because they've been around a long while the legendary race circuits they because they produce fantastic racing absolutely i'll say out loud here i'm not a massive fan of racing at silverstone but i've never seen a bad uh endurance race there it's it does produce fantastic racing it always has i mean from going in the in the very late 90s 70s rather early 80s to silverstone to watch the six-hour race there's it's always been full of fascination watching here a car on its own this is rahel frey in the iron dame's ferrari this is a gte am class car run by iron links now because of the pit stops they have dropped way back down the order this car was in his third place that was rahel handing it back to the bronze driver to uh yes indeed so rahul is now back out and back into spirited mode are they out of sync with the stops because that's a long way back from where i imagined it to be meanwhile tachana calderon in the other all-female crude car this is her second time in the car i think in the races um 13th place 10th in lmp2 and again as at le mans last year the game plan for this car was very simple keep it on the grey stuff keep going around don't hit anything finish the race that's about that is manuela gosner in the car still by the way okay my scoreboard is correct in which case the i thought i thought the ground is katherine and catherine is about to get aboard and what it's great to see her back that was a horrible accident paul record last year and some very nasty injuries for cats catherine legge's second ever race at spa her first was in a formula renault car in her first year of racing so she did a couple of formula renault winter series races a couple of formula renault races and a couple of formula three races before she went to the states and dominated toyota atlantic winning her first race at long beach and then winning the title and that set her on a pretty stellar u.s racing career she's racing in the imsa sports car championship this year as well as combining it with the gte and drive in the world endurance championship so she's got a very busy portfolio for 2021 of endurance racing and all of it will be in female crude cars driving the ill bamboo racing porsche with christina nielsen in the weathertech sports car series driving for the iron dames here so here's the choker sport carvan davidson still closing in on the g drive car up behind the corvette of olly gavin saying this is a very different beast from the old corvette it's got a whole lot better balance better arrow and kinder on its tyres lives longer and it's a little bit less tinnitus providing as well for drivers and fans alone said it's too late for me but it'll save the next generation of drivers uh big push on the base at the moment from cambodia kobayashi down into the 205s and putting three seconds on martial vasevier last time around that gap goes up to nearly 24 seconds toyota absolutely no they've got a fight on their hands here yeah no question at all absolutely if they win this race they've had to earn it it has not been uh simple nor straightforward for the new toyotas this week and in this race and it's by no means guaranteed that the overall podium will be all hypercar either you know with two brand new cars that have never raced before one which had not turned a wheel before monday and has had mechanical problems significant mechanical problems it's not beyond the bounds of possibility this is 22's release lock stage left there you go and indeed that car did have to slow down that's unacceptable and i think at that moment united water sports would have known something was coming their way yep it's not a disaster it is going to be five seconds added on to their next pit stop and it's a fractional judgment as well by the lollipop man to go yeah you've got room go go go you have to judge what 80 kilometers an hour is going to do as the other cars coming towards you and that's 50 miles an hour that's you know it's not easy to judge the closing distance in that speed and how quickly your driver will get off the apron as well yeah um looking up and down the order here shouting out here for the leading car in gtm a of course is 83 car this is the championship defending car with the new driver before we get to that though we will be going down to lou in the pits she's at joe to sports and with antonio phillips de costa from the number 38 orica antonio i just need to pull your eyes away from the screens because it's getting very close friends out there with the g drive yeah really exciting races to be honest super exciting um we lost a little bit of time in the beginning got stuck behind some some slower cars but we're coming back nicely the crew is doing an amazing job in every pit stop we're chunking some time away from the guys we're now running third super close to the 26th yeah the united car they're they're a step ahead this weekend they've looked super strong all weekend but um yeah it's going to be a long season and we're yeah we're definitely stronger than last year so we we want to take the fight up to them you are looking more competitive out there are you getting more from your tires yeah i think so and you know we ran the good years last year and we learned a lot about the tire it's not exactly the same tyre and to be fair to the other guys they've done they've done a good job understanding it but we i still think we on race base we might have have an edge as a driver to to to know these cars you know all these guys they're they're awesome drivers and they're quick learners so that edge is not going to be there forever i spoke to ferdie hasberg he had a few choice words in the nicest possible way yes that was great to watch i have some for him as well i'm sure you do i mean i mean i love party we're really good friends and uh but i was not expecting him to go around the outside of the roof so you know i'm getting old i don't like that stuff anymore thank you thank you i love a bit of banter it's it's it's great when the racing spirit just gets it's bubbling up and um yeah we're enjoying that the booth as much i'm sure you're enjoying that at home yeah he was saying he was getting old the other day i've heard that line from him before but when he says he's getting old i think it's early 30s she said to me you've got a little bit to go don't worry oh dear my camera could be actually still in the tory 5's by the way still pulling away from matthias of here interestingly though the number eight is not catching the second place down beat the gap there 17 seconds i think that's growing isn't it it's it's ebbing and flowing a little but it's not this gap's growing between vaccine and kobayashi definitely and kobayashi we heard remember it was uh the right-hand side was the cauli set the left-hand side was a new set and that's the race leader in lmp2 just doing a bit of uh rallycross rallycross circuit here that spires down at the bottom of the ocean at the top and going up the kennel straight wait he actually goes up through radeon turns around and comes back so he was partly still on it he was partly still on it but i'm sure i've never seen a rally cross car with that low of right height on it didn't see the tires did see what looked like something falling off that united car as it came through the rough tumble bits sharer from uh dtm last year with oddly enough with wrt yeah he was teammates with further hatzberg that could give us some interesting moments later in the year couldn't it i think that they're both obviously making their way through they united they're still though in a comfortable position one minute in 11 seconds uh they've got a five second hold at the next pit stop so they will have to hold for five seconds and then they can work on the car due to an unsafe release at the previous pit stop and that's also the same for the number eight of toyota racing for kazuki nakajima that's what pogba's gonna make before we had uh the interview down with antonio phillips de costa was to point uh your attention to the form and the speed of alessio rivera leading the race in gtam the 83af corsica who is all over the back end of jimmy bruni uh the gt pro 91 we saw the sub point you made to start the race martin is that uh the gt pro's gt ams could get uh pretty close at certain points here you say he's all over the back of him he's seven tenths of a second behind the all-pro car of jimmy bruni so you're absolutely right unless you're rivera not a driver i've commentated on before not a driver i've seen race in junior categories but he's definitely a driver i'm going to be watching an awful lot more closely he is absolutely want to watch there's one or two of them uh in the gtm class as they often are in these days but uh cracking stuff from alessia rivera a great pick from the 83 crew to bolster their efforts in pushing forward for the uh retain their title was that uh tv crew interviewing a recently retired racing driver well i think olly gavin has just stepped out of a race car possibly for the final time this is hyper motion slow-mo of antonio felix antonio felix de costa antonio garcia running around to open the door to let ollie out we have got two hours to go but i think basically the the plan was for antonio to do two hours at the beginning it was and two hours at the end and ollie to do two hours at the middle so being you know they're being nice to the old guy they're going to getting the youngster in 40 year old antonio felix to cost of the whippersnapper whipper snapper antonio garcia might be getting the bill for parking for this corvette road um can we say it again thank you oli gavin for all the entertainment over the last 20 years we did say this few by the way along when you retired as well [Music] turned up at silverstone on a test day i was in a coca-cola opal dtm race suit must not mention racing ceramic nation and martin haven must not must not was that well you couldn't borrow one from out could you let's face it i could i've been sure i could have borrowed it yeah so now you know he's been around all almost all my commentary career so i've i've talked on ollie gavin in in opel lotus in formula 3000 in f3 in and in countless sports car races and he's been such a mainstay in corvette racing but you know now the guys that that came in at the beginning of the naughties with the programming likes of him jonio ron fellows you know danny binks yeah doug i know that there's been a big change in the guard and i mean so many of those guys came in in the prime of their career but it was two decades ago and you know the young guys uh the future you know the the tommy look when when gav started racing for the team tommy milner was about six you know literally you know trailing around in short in short pants behind his dad in the paddock so you know and he shares cars with him and and the taylor and the taylor brothers as well you know they were kids in primary school important by the way having spent quite a lot of time with ollie over the last few weeks and months uh various reasons he's very happy with his choices moving forward and that's delightful that's great to hear that he's got something he's genuinely enthused by and yes he has 12 corvettes yates on order not just to line up in the driveway this is for the holy gavin driving academy but uh yeah it's uh it will be sad not to see him in a race car but again like allen it means we get to see probably a lot more of him than ever well okay that's a little while there from kamui kobayashi number seven car survives a tiny bit of rally cross but let's get down and hear from the man himself we've picked him up let's see if louise can knock him down a peg ollie gavin stepping out of the corvette for the final time i'm getting emotional just saying it so i cannot even begin to think how you feel yeah it's been uh quite a day really um i mean i i kind of went through all of this when i was at sebring with my final race there with imsa but it has brought a lot of those emotions back today and there's certainly the last few laps there i was driving around i was thinking about everything that's happened and you know all of the 20 years that i've spent with this team the success we've all had together um just so proud of what the team has been able to do what we've done with the four generations of corvettes what the races that we've won um and to be able to finish it here at spa in the work he's very very special such a great race such a great track um and you can really feel the for me anyway the the character of the charisma of the race the character of the track it's all the things that i fell in love with when i first went to levon the very first year that i went there uh it was very uh it just drew me in and uh i've loved competing there all the all the years that i've competed at le mans and i've been fortunate enough to to compete there's 18 times with le mans with corvette and and uh win five times and i feel very very fortunate yeah and we've loved watching you i have to say but your career is motorsports it's not gonna end is it no no and you know i i'm gonna go off and i'm gonna set up my oliver gavin driving academy and uh with that i've got well european spec got that stingrays on order and i'm going to start showing the people that come to that the passion of driving a corvette and what it's like to learn how to drive one of those cars quickly and on the limits and at racetracks or proving grounds and also i want to bring them to races like this and experience that emotion and trying to get those people you know from the road car to what we're doing here with the racing program it's all of that that i'm trying to do it just i think i find it very emotional and i think if i could give some of that to some of the customers then i would have i hopefully succeeded i couldn't be a better person to do that said congratulations thanks thank you alan okay thanks very much well done thank you well we lose a racing driver of a proper height but we will very well like toyota which one eight or seven it's eight one of the two and it's off now where is that well we just saw the g drive that's that's a leader that's a race leader number seven that is la source surely he's gone straight on no it's no it's not it's a cat always waiting way too quick he was on the kerbs yeah yeah has he got a puncture oh no he's not he got on the curb so then what listen yeah he just locked up he was not remember he was on a big big push his last lap was a really quick lap a 205 980 i don't know i don't know look at the banner toyota gazoo racing yikes alpine lead uh just before we saw that by the way uh again can we you can hear the gravel rattling as he spins the wheels in reverse he needs to be pulled out of there the issue he had was he tried to turn the car yeah if he had well that saves eduardo telling us 45 seconds to full course yellow they will need to snatch that out of the gravel and unfortunately for the number seven team that is their hopes of winning this race very likely dashed however if it can happen to them it can happen to anyone it's the eight that's got the five-second penalty isn't it yes at their next stop yes the effective lead at the moment is 21 seconds and of course the gap between eight and the leading lmp2 car number 22 won't change because they too have a five second penalty so that remains the same but as the toyota is going to lose a lap or two that then brings an overall podium within reach of the lmp2 leader whoever that might be fronts are breaking and the rears are still excellent uh still tough a little bit odd actually he's shunting it down the gearbox is he trying to use the gears to stop it as well yeah you definitely go down the gears there's no question and was it and was he losing a little bit of arrow behind that p2 car is in the pits did that top the balance under full course yellow now they're going to go for their short fill yeah but now you backtrack towards the end of the race yes exactly what you needed to do back out so we've got two hours to go of this race and therefore that is roughly for the lead car uh being my tuvax v8 it's two and a half stints and for the toyota of nakajima he's just said to came into the pits there and then he will do 25 two and a two stints and three laps right so that's what they've done they short filled him for those three laps because you don't have to do 35 seconds if it's not the end of a full stand this is like the final hour of the nurburgring 24 hours where you need paul truswell in this slide rule brain to to work it out but that's what they've done they have they have ruled out having to do a short stint he's put a lap on him or a 35 a 35 second stint for short field now the real question is does the united car go by him but imagine we are in one of the race people energy especially when you're coming to this point there's the adrenaline surging through your veins the engineering station on the pit wall they're at pit stops their heartbeat goes up to about 120 130 beats per minute and that's only sitting watching and so therefore in this situation then it increases and there you see the united car which is fourth overall leading in lmp2 about to and that's actually four position believe it or not so when the toyota comes into the pits the seven goes into the pits with kobayashi then he is going to also lose that third place to united or does the united card just get a lap back no because no because they are on the same yes yes yes it's 2.78 seconds is it a difference it must have been an hour ago back onto the lead lap for the united car uh with a pit stop cycle they could not afford an issue like that for overall position on board with fabio shera there is the toyota in front of him that is the battle for the final podium spot with an hour and 50 minutes to go on pace tgr should hold it on pace if they don't lose more than a lap in the pits they should be able to get it back is he going to pit oh he's up he's going to have square tires yeah income 26 franco calapinto at t drive and aunt davidson as well in mighty 38 they are both parked on the pit lane so is miguel molina says marcos gomez in the 98 aston and he's done a stint and then dalai lana did this and he's done another stint giancarlo fisa keller in the 54 a of course a car so 26 and 38 stopping together out has gone like davao for real team out has gone roy andrade in a 25 g drive car out has gone kevin ester alessandro pierre guidi miguel molina they're the top three in gte pro and jimmy bruni the corvette had only just recently stopped i should add by the way the other point just before the incident for the number seven uh there was an instance at the source which saw the 25 turned around well he he nosed it up into the wall trying to spin turn the car he didn't do the full john and lacy spin turn and that was the problem um because didn't want to snap the half shafts but to readjad got it out the barriers and came back and he was fully on the curbs wasn't he he wasn't just touching the kerbs he had two wheels up on the curb there but allen was right he was on an absolute charge to try to gap the uh the alpine now p now back into the lead for what i think is the fourth time in this race coming in 30 seconds to remove full course yellow if you come in you surrender everything now obviously he's not at speed but he can still feel how threatening bit they are well we're going to see aren't we because he's got a he's got a quick car behind him in that p2 leading car yeah but he doesn't want to introduce two pit stops i think that'll be the thing for them kobe ashley's done 13 laps if he does two more then he's clean to the end with consistently five four three two one full course yellow removed full course yellow removed green green back to green flag racing well it took four hours before we had even a hint of a caution graham mentioned that and now suddenly we've had two in short order but for entirely unrelated incidents although in fact they weren't they were both as a legacy of the number so one was for hitting a porsche that caused a puncture that caused debris and the second one was the number seven car going off now toyota have an issue with this hypercar under braking we've seen both cars go off under braking in a straight line while not under pressure and hit cars under braking while not under pressure remember this is four position this is united 22 into it's happier hunting ground here in the uh the middle sector this is where through the whole week we've seen the p2 cars stronger than the hyper cars yeah he needs to kobayashi here needs to stay out for two laps and then he can have two equal stints of 25 laps to the end of the race if he comes in now then he'll have an extra additional stop so this is hanging on and obviously it's not very nice you can see the fact that uh he's he's sort of hanging on there literally to make sure that uh we've got shader staying behind him he doesn't want to make a mistake and be off again does he we've also by the way got a great battle underway for second position lmp2 with franco colopinto out after uh his latest pin stop in the 26 card just four seconds ahead of at davidson 2014 world champion let's not forget in the joker 38. i think that might be a bigger gap than there was before meanwhile let's hear from alpine's matcha vaseville in the lead maybe again losing oil 26 in front of you maybe again losing oil take care with oil and fire pressure take care okay well there is the alpine and they're saying maybe 26 in front of you is losing oil this is obviously complaining maybe about a loose front end why are they catching the 36 well that's because he's complaining about a loose front now this is a real problem for the toyota though isn't it no this is a problem for the albion and the united well it is but the united car has just run very wide there at la source as well the toyota is trying to fight her way back get back on the lead lap you're not going to win if you're not on the lead lap but you look at the front of the alpene it's really had a bit of a head shake there going down into the depression at compression oh rouge now the hybrid drive of the toyota can't get close he's trying to clean off those tyres [Music] we are not fighting with him one last just confirmation but i think you're right there he's struggling after that full course yellow to clean the tire up and get it up to pressure now he's done 13 laps on that particular run but remember before it there was also a full course yellow yeah so he's done 14 laps then a 13 laps and getting quite struggling to sort of generate it but the toyota behind him being kobayashi one lap behind is uh still trying to sort of fight his way back looking at the gap to the second placed car it's not the total as allen says right behind the 36 it's the eight car 22 seconds is the gap the lap gap 207.9 for that last total up let's go down to pit lane where andre de graal earlier out of the 36 car is with louise beckett andre extremely tense times now i mean what is going through yours the team's minds what's being said about pit stops tires everything at this point yeah so we have one more set of new tires to put it to put on actually for the fukushima we gain a little bit for the end of the race between us and toyota now so yeah it should be should be complicated they are quite fast and between the pitch stops so they stop uh two laps in front of us every time so yeah it's kind of we have to try to go fast as soon as possible for the end of the race but should be really tight do you think you can do it it's hard to say now yeah finger cross i i hope so okay thank you you're welcome no word from andre there about why the front end of the car is struggling but it is struggling still isn't it well you saw that big huge bit of pickup just flying off the left-hand side of the car there as the toyota kobe actually goes back through into uh that third place but he still stays in third place but puts himself back onto the lead 22 and a half seconds so the what what's not happening here is the alpine is not being caught by nakajima certainly not that last lap not by not very much not pulling away but he's not being caught by your right united support auto sports fabio shearer 210 last lap but fastest lap of the race for tom blondqvist in fourth in the 28 jota car two minutes 6.8 on the last lap and he set another personal best but he just came out of the pit so i presume that's a brand new set of tyres he's not cleaning the tires up from uh actually the full course yellow it's a new set on and then go so there's uh small gaps all the way down through that uh top four or five yacht van oyster by the way took over the racing team nederland car their last stop so he is now in fifth ahead of rengar van der zander his compatriot in sixth for into europol fourth tom blanche third and davidson for jota still second 26 g drive they never have a straightforward race here whatever they're racing in world endurance or elms there's always a tale but franco cole pinto is second in lmp2 behind united auto sports and i need to save every tire for him we should save everything we should save everything yeah you're 20 seconds ahead alexander perry pd in the af corsa car kevin estra so therefore you've got a little bit of margin because 20 seconds gte pro is like a lifetime in most categories and so therefore a little bit of saving remember they've had three right rear punctures for different reasons one of them was debris one not really sure about and the other one was definitely incident damage from the toyota of jose maria lopez and so they'll be a little bit nervous about not just the left-hand side which takes the abuse but that right rare as well great news by the way that we can expect a further season from both the uh the porsche and the ferrari factory teams in the fi world insurance championship in gte pro it just extends the life of this class uh closer to the point where the cavalry arrive in hypercar multiple teams already declared and as we've said previously this week more to come it's exciting times in sports car racing and you know from what i think most of us believed gentlemen was a firm transitional year this shows well for what we've got to come for this year this has been engaging stuff lead gap coming down a little last time 20.1 seconds now matthias vasuvier against kazuki nakajima and how many prior to this race would have predicted this i'm trying to chase down the alpine united auto sports dominance at the moment in lmp2 ahead of franco colopinto's 26 g drive racing car who's still got uh and davidson pretty close behind but the young argentinian is fending that uh that attack off franco colopinto born in 2003. what was aunt davidson doing in 2003 well he raced at le mans with velox and pro drive in a 5-5 550 marinello he raced in the american le mans series at sebring and patilamon for velox pro drive in a 550 marinello 2002 he was in formula one with menardi 2003 he was a lucky strike bar test driver which year did he do his one touring car race to macau oh okay um [Music] well you don't know how like a kind of imagination his parents have but there might have been some practice laps being put in but uh he definitely happened to rise by that stage so and that's one of the joys you know we talked about this earlier sports car racing cars that sound different that look different that perform in different ways even in the same class a ferrari and a porsche and a corvette make their speed in different ways in different parts of the car and you've got kids and veterans you know when cooper mcneill came to le mans he was 16 he was the youngest driver ever to start the race and in that race the oldest driver was eight memory so i mean that's what we're looking at that is a broad church and yeah and so absolutely and so people are going well hypercar that's just sort of an open invitation to design anything you like yeah that's sports car racing well i mean yeah we we've talked about balance of performance because that's coming and it's here in the top class and there are those that accept there's those that don't like it but a lot of people who don't like it also really love gt pro and that is a balance of performance that's a balance of performance class and has been for a while and when you get it right it's astonishing well there's only two ways of having a level playing field version one everybody has the same car same engine same tyres version two you balance out apples oranges pears bananas and kiwi fruit and that's what sports car racing endurance racing does and balance and performance you know if you don't like it then explain another way you're going to get 26 cars qualifying within a second for the spa 24 hours what it gives you is it gives you variety it gives you you know it gives you a depth of grid that otherwise you would struggle to get yep it keeps teams manufacturers all sorts of enterprises interested in the fact that they've got a chance at competing and competing well and that's why this is going to be about not just the factories that are coming to hypercar but the customer teams as well they're going to be looking to get their hands on one of those cars and then we're in a real golden era well now what we need is a manufacturer like ported into the group series sierra to sell cars to all comers and say okay bring it on we can beat you we're better absolutely you know and that you know the group sierra if they've only been the two rothman's porsche cars the two lancia martinis and the odd straggler the old old outlier would have been a golden era it wouldn't have right we've got the opportunity here for manufacturers to produce a car and for other people to race it with them here's the thing if even half of what i understand to be coming is coming we've got multiple manufacturers to prefer to do exactly that and that's really exciting we're looking there at catherine leg there's rahel freya in the back of the garage the swiss driver of that iron dame's car and it's great to have six female drivers on the grid and and you're part of why women in motorsport is so important to the fia and and to to motor racing particularly uh only around five percent of all motorsport competitors so license holders and competitors are female now lots and lots of girls have probably never seen a woman race a car and probably have no idea that it even happens and that's what this is doing it is if you don't see it you don't believe you can be if you see women racing then you go oh that's the thing that girls can do wow that's fantastic you know and it's like lena gate in the audi team so many young women who want a stem career who want an engineering career look at a woman like that running a car that can win a race like them on and they go that's what i want to do you will barely find a crew down this pit lane nowadays that hasn't got female engineers mechanics on board and they are absolutely as focused and as gripped by the the reality of the task uh as anybody else in that bit then and it is an absolute joy it it's an absolute joy there are no downsides to this whatsoever and this isn't tennis or goal for cricket or soccer where physical strength is a defining factor endurance is a defining factor mental and physical and that's not where the male body works better than the female body the women can do it just as well i just need to break and that's what they're getting with richard meal with this number one car and also with the with the iron dames program in the european le mans series and here in the world championship for the first time they are getting that massive opportunity to shine and to be shown in the spotlight and to inspire and motivate and just prove that it's possible as we're saying that uh i think leading back into it we were watching for quite a long time richard mule racing car tatiana called it on at the wheel of that car at the moment uh she's got a tremendous amount of experience now of very high powered high down force cars to the pit lane stewart's decision number [Music] 37 gives a drive-through penalty on car 7 for the contact with car 91 drive through penalty car 7 for the contact on car 91 because the puncture for the right rear of richard leeds yeah day's bad one for kobayashi now just gets worse as he's got that slow drive through the pit lane now that was jose maria lopez at the wheel at that particular time so the time loss is going to be roughly 30 seconds they still lost a pit stop on that particular car as well and so it's going to take them out of real contention and so then it comes down to matuvak sevier in the alpine against the sister car number eight of kazuki nakajima it's going to do two things what it's going to do is drop them back off the lead lap it's going to lose them third place at this point in the race because united water sports will take third place overall with that drive-through not quite so much of a headline but we now now find out whether why the number 25 g drive car was facing the wrong way because there's been a drive-through penalty for the number 20 high-class car for contact with 25 so that's where that happened we didn't catch it we saw the aftermath but it was at the hairpin at la source and so that's a drive-through for the number seven car and yeah as lou said you know it never rains it pours when your day is bad it just gets worse it just feels like they're piling on more pressure and so number seven they will struggle to make the overall podium potentially although we still have 93 minutes of racing left to go so we've got a full grand prix distance still to get through and that needs to be decided before we can start making those sort of predictions but they're gonna have to push hard to do it now uh united also thought well i'm sure like the opportunity for the potential for what i'm pretty certain would be their first ever overall podium in their fyawc race and what a spectacular return after that amazing 2020 that would be with a win and an overall podium for an lmp2 car catherine legg is drawing attention to herself in race control she's just been warned for abusing track limits so she will need to keep an eye on that meanwhile matcha vaseville our race leader puller de la patri 120 laps in and he leads in spa four laps finished new tires give it everything you've got my boy you're 19 laps into this stint it's been an average of a 208 which is slightly slower than kamui kobayashi but we know he's out of the game and it's slightly slower as well then kazuki nakajima but only a couple of tenths of a second 23 seconds is the gap and that's been more or less where it's been uh throughout that stint and it's great to hear that from from the driver's point of view the team saying leave nothing on it go down to the canvas give it everything andre niger is ready to go you saw philip senior there with the gray hair just in front of him he didn't have great grey hair before this week he might have grown a few but particularly what what started out as a really trying week for the uh alpine elf madmut team is actually becoming quite a decent race even if the car goes no further than this it has certainly shown that they are more than capable on pace of taking the race to a giant of the sport like toyota gazoo racing and for a small team like senior tech to really major feather in their cap yes they've got a good piece of kit but it's as new to them as the toyota is to toyota gazoo racing yeah i'll just maybe remind everybody of signet x capabilities having won the wec and lmp2 having won them all many times in lmp2 having began a consistent runner and a frontrunner in lmp2 in everything they have done so i think it's a step up definitely to the hyper class but i don't think it's a step too far it's just a stepping stone on their way to success and i'm pretty sure they're going to have success here as well when we'll have to wait and see amongst the other things by the way that signitec do and uh further securing their links with the alpine rp brown grand is that they build all of the single make alpine cup cars and the lp gt4 cars uh within their organization so there's a very firm link between what is now the sporting brand for renault and uh sigma tech philippe signos and it's been just a trail of spectacular success and by the way bringing young talent through with them let's have a listen to what's going on with the number eight total uh trying to push hard as the number seven car comes down pit bay would be the drive through that's this yes apologies so this will be punishment taken 22 laps watch for where the united sports car is they go through now and will take third position right there so uh lmp2 car dominant form again here from united auto sports it's been a fantastic run from them stellar stuff by the way from phil hanson at the start of this race fabio sharer what a debut he's had to this point and now they've got 90 minutes to fend off a factory toyota for a yeah the overall podium place but just uh we do know that kobe actually also owes us a pit stop because he's done 22 laps in this pit run so he'll do another maybe one or uh two laps i would say and then he will be able to stop fabios must be human now as well though yeah fabio shadow's done 21 laps so i think he'll be in on this lap or maybe the next one with the full course uh having elongated his stint time a little bit so the gap at the moment between them on track is about seven and a half eight seconds you have to say in terms of the pace that's been available that looks like it's totals position by the time we get to the end of this race of all the things being equal from now to the end okay both cars so therefore they should be equal to be able to run so it is going to be a straight race to the end japanese making his stop with racing team nederland comes in from fifth in lmp2 new tires left-hand side sizeable gap to the joker cars ahead all four so fresh boots we shouldn't forget by the way he currently leads the pro-am challenge with that 29 car yeah fritz fernart we saw who is uh the um driver there he was in early on second stint now it's actually sorry the third stint because the first double stint was done by guido van der garde and uh there we've got the number one richer meal racing car without tatiana calderon full service thank you very much louise in the pit lane that's just been feeding that into my ear excellent he's got to this is the 33 car felipe fraga is the third driver dylan pereira the luxembourg was has finished his double stint and of course ben keating doing the heavy lifting right from the start of the race so felipe fraga he's done quite a lot of am class racing that car currently in second place but at the moment it's alessio rivera how long's he been in the 83 ferrari and how soon do they have to take him out and put somebody in who needs to do some time behind the wheel all right just give me a second i will be able to tell you the answer to that one well now united in the pitch the united stop and they are going to reinsert philippe alberkirk that will be fabio scherrer's work done for the afternoon this car by the way holds the ultimate best middle sector of the race 57.45 seconds to the p2 car as it did in qualifying in fact the three sectors were set by three the three far sectors were set by three different cars sector one i think was toyota number eight sector three toyota number seven and sector two was the 22 united car it's fair to say through this week with the prologue test and money and choosing a huge amount of running and then the race meeting proper from thursday onwards there have been outside of the top glass but for me gentlemen have been two standout performers one on lmp2 and we've been looking at him felipe albuquerque and the other gte pro and that's been kevin ester we've had when we've had chips down oh hang on a minute that's not the way why was he wriggling through the chicane a little more than remember he's the car that's probably losing oil franco colopinto it maybe it's just the way we picked it up it looks like off that is this is a standard stop for uh four laps to go and he's coming to the end of that just quickly to answer your question rivera has done two hours and 31 minutes in the car and so therefore he's in and my two cranky knees close to the wall there he was pushing very very close to the wall you have to be careful because it's easy to sneak that pit entry wall on the right hand side this is a race leader [Applause] [Music] yeah he's got another hour he could spend at the wheel but that then denies somebody their minimum drive time this is matcha vaseville handing over to andre in the ground agrous started the car looks like he will do the final 84 minutes 85 minutes toyota into the lead nakajima has now gone into the lead however nakajimas does owe us a pit stop as well so therefore it will switch itself back around again it's still a handful isn't it down through the compression at our rouge the car just bouncing around we saw that in the hyper motion through qualifying but in the race it is as well full set of fresh boots for the albin and senior tech keeping their favorite number 36 on the car that's a new deal this year you can choose your number i don't think you can you can choose number one of course because that's exactly what richard mille did you don't have to be the champion you can choose a favorite number and that's why ferrari for instance gone from 51 and 71 to 51 52 you can choose any number between zero and triple nine and uh you can use whatever font you want as well the base plate has to be the class plate number the only other factor that comes into place is if someone else wants the number you have to pay for it you have to argue do you have to is it like rock paper scissors to decide who gets it or i think it's i think it's a fight to the death it's a dollar euro sterling excellent so toyota's staying with seven and eight [Music] and just a little bit of information as well we saw that uh the wrt car was in the pits with a clutch issue turns out that it was a release bearing that was actually the cause and they're now refitting the air box in the floor and looking to go back out again good for them so they're going to need the practice but we've already said we've already seen how well hammer and tongs you learn nothing by sitting in the pits you learn a lot more by the car going around even if it's 10 laps off the pace it's still going absolutely flacking through traffic and you know up and down the hills and round down dale racing is the best testing you can get which is why manufacturers do it so often 22 car pushes on now philippe kirk on his first flying lap of this stint and the gap back to colopinto is only 15 seconds at the moment but we have to remember colopino does still owe us a pit stop as well and in fact actually the gap is growing sector by sector so felipe is pushing hard franco colopinto the argentine in second place and he is still just about five seconds ahead of anne davidson in third in the jota sport car let's get down to hear from tatiana calderon at the richard meal racing team tatiana bringing the number one in how was that stint for you well it was pretty tough to be honest first first proper scene with the new configuration of car a few full course yellow it's quite cold so it was tricky on the research but uh i think we are learning every time on track and hopefully you know everything can happen and we can uh reach the top 10. i'd like to say it's lovely to see you and welcome to wec it's great to have you here in this championship thank you i think yeah you know it's an amazing experience for us a big thank you to the rich army racing team for this opportunity and to race against one of the best drivers in the world this championship is very tough how do you feel you're an ambassador for women in motorsport so how do you feel how important it is to have the two crews that we've got here oh it's uh it's incredible uh the the work of the commission uh to have two full female lineups here um it's it's incredible this is uh the highest level of endurance racing and i think we have to show the world as well this is another route um and a lot of girls coming in in the junior category so i hope that we can be or inspire the next generation i'm super happy to have their support here as well with michelle motokus who came to to support us in this first race great well others say it's great to have you thank you thank you very much i was about to say actually michelle mousson was here she's the leading light of the fias women in motorsport commission and uh it's been part of her remit to try and get more and more women racing competing not just racing rallying rally crossing because of course she was very nearly world rally champion in the group b era multiple rally winner in group b audis in the time when physical strength really was a very major part of wrestling those cars around but it's great to have her around as an ambassador for the women in motorsport program unless we forget michelle uh also a class winner at the le mans 24 hours 1975. yes in the the what was it again oh no yeah my name is yeah no it's one that we've never heard of a sim card if you are a fan of uh michelle viol it's the sort of sports cars that michelle violet would probably have run i'm trying to think of a of a british equivalent i can't really it's not it doesn't look like no not really because they were never that rounded at the back you know it's all that there's no cam tail to it or anything um i'll come back to you on that i'll i'll i will i will put a picture up on twitter but a little bit but michelle very focused indeed on the opportunities that's await for women at motorsport you're watching by the way on board the number seven car chasing along with canoe kobayashi but realistically the game is up i think now just before we heard from tatiana calderon we were looking on our screens to say that the number 26 g drive car being shown a black and orange flag for losing oil on track and franco colopinto is in the pits this is it was when he was due to be stopping pretty much but it's that losing oil thing that's the worrying issue and we heard didn't we after the second full course yellow the senior tech team were suggesting that the car was struggling at the front because the 26 in front of them was losing oil this car is in the pit so is kamui kobayashi in the toyota as well but i think toyota's is going to be a normal pit stop however for uh the g drive it looks like it's going to be a little bit more serious they're not going to change that nose section are they though now he doesn't change it stops up till now i wouldn't think we're going to do it now remember when the eighth car stops they will have that five seconds to add they've not had a pit stop have they since that judgment was levied so there will be five seconds i think i'm right for that eight yes yes got a few laps to go they can now start to look at how they run the end of the race on the number eight and they would uh i would assume split the remaining 26 27 laps into two and so they don't necessarily have a full tank and then a light tank but to actually have two half tanks effectively which is a slightly faster way to do it that's apologies that hands by the way second and third place in uh the lmp2 class to the two jota cars uh and davidson as the seven gets away and it's on blankfest now i want to go back a step to the interview again with tatiana calderon as camille kobie actually leaves the pit lane and she said with this new uh iteration i can't remember what the worst is new format of lmp2 cars you know we've been talking about this week but we actually haven't mentioned it on there so what does she mean because she's raced lmp2 before so has the richard mille racing team well she raced in the lms last year she raced at the mall with this same pairing oh that was very let's just watch this before we get into that explanation as to why and a b2 is so different franken thought about sticking his nose in there and then that's not bad that's not frank he's in the other cheese but uh it to allow the introduction of this new breed at the top of sports car racing and that means major cost cuttings it means major uh moves towards more road relevance which has brought weight into the uh into the category that the lmp2s which are blisteringly fast have been since these gibson engine cars were introduced in 2017 uh that they need to be effectively just wheeled in a little so what's happened with those cars is now now from last year now 20 kilos we're going to watch on board the united water sports car of philippi albuquerque as the total comes through and it all gets very busy for a moment so 20 kilos heavier they have something like 65 horsepower less than last year and that's been achieved by a variety of methods it's a new inlet trumpets for the car it's a new exhaust system for the car it's new engine map for the car and they are also now running on the rather more slippery low down force so lower downforce so something like 15 to 20 percent less downforce than previously as richard dean watches on uh and lower drag that has played pretty well for them here they're a bit of an outlier here at spa so what you've got is a car with less downforce it's heavier and that is also less powerful than the lmp2 cars we saw before the critical thing within the class of course is it's the same for all of them so actually what we've seen in the races we've had so far with this newer uh version of lmp2 and they number two races the uh elements racing barcelona two weeks ago and this race and they've both been crackers it's got to be said uh it's it's of course you don't like to run a car at less capability it's actually got but there's a very good reason for it and it's all about what we've got now but more particularly a whole lot of more that is coming and by the way a lot of these p2 teams want to be part of that picture can we all spell stratification i love that word that's it that's that's the deal it's not slowing down or reducing the power of that stratification giving a step between lmp2 which is very well proven super quick super strong driver lineups teams that know the cars inside out i mean they're well proven product against a brand new category full of brand new cars and some of them brand new team so that's the deal well there's the 26 car lou was saying just in my ear that she thinks they may be done but we will try and find out if that is the case as soon as she has something she will know meanwhile to sports and davidson in second in lmp2 fastest first sector of the race for that car and kamui kobayashi in the number seven toyota fastest first sector of the entire race off any car just being set so sector one is a bit quicker it is getting cloudier and cloudier the temperature is not going to rise on track probably won't drop much because it's it's not a particularly cold cold day it's not a very warm day but it should be okay first his first sector of the race last time around from kamui kobayashi um that's this current lap the uh g drive racing uh situation that's gonna depend on what the problem is for the car there's two reasons why that's less dramatic than for more or less any other car in the race the first thing is it is not a full season wec car they are guesting here for preparation for later in the year the second thing is they have another race at the red bull ring in two weeks time in the european lamont series if there is something there that they may damage they're not going to get a podium position here they're not in the points battle they certainly don't want to affect the results in a world championship race and it may very well be they've decided they've learned all they can here this week and that that will be enough well they they will have come to win the class no question about it they always come to win the class but sometimes you have to deal with the hand you've been dealt with that's the hand they've been dealt you're absolutely right they're not a season long championship contender it's not critical to get the car back out it's more critical not to do any damage to the car because if you go off because it suddenly springs a big leak then the red bull ring is in doubt and that is a championship race for them last time around the lead car in atlanta b2 in the hands of philippi alpaca uh 206 978. the overall leader the toaster kazoo racing number eight a 206 934 yeah in fact only kamui kobayashi in hypercar went quicker so let's get down to the g-drive team luiz is down there she said she would find somebody to talk to us so let's hear from argentine teenager franco colopindo franco colopinto you put in an excellent performance uh there's clearly an issue with the 26. it's now in the garage and it seems to have stopped so tell us what's happened uh yeah well the pace was really good so really happy with the team the pit stops were amazing so i think it was a great performance during holiday weekend if you can submit to issue with the car that the joker recorded so now we are out of the race because we cannot repair and and yeah and luckily that's it for us but was also already prepared for for the rest of the element season and for le mans so i think was very useful mostly for me because i had no not much experience in this operation but for me it was really useful i mean unlucky the feelings we deserve a volume or a win but well it is what it is it did an [Music] yeah it was very good you know i i resulted in asian laments with with with g-drago and we did also a great job so obviously i'm still getting used to it it's getting used to the purpose the fuel consumption the entire day and blah blah but obviously it's it's it's a good start for us [Music] he finished as expected but we are happy with the music we had during all the weekend okay thank you very much bye there's your man who's grown up an awful lot in the last 12 weeks through the age of le mans series with uh some fantastic performances there from the team and uh some eye-catching stuff there with the european le mans series uh opener at barcelona and here more or less exactly what i said wasn't it i think it's uh that just makes perfect sense to me absolutely but uh lots more to come from the g drive racing squad from our goal pro racing and for that matter from franco colo pinto and of course they do have a second iron in the fire so the 25 car it will also learn for for its driving crew although it's being run out of a by a by a different team it's being run under the same banner meanwhile back with cars that are still very competitive this is job finance fourth place for racing team netherland ahead of leuch duvall for real team and seaman trummer for pr one that's your four five six but it is also your one two three in the pro-am grouping so this is teams that have at least a bronze driver in the car and uh racing team netherland of course it's fritz van eyed who is their bronze driver you don't have to have a bronze driver but for teams that do the top team will end up with a different trophy and there is the pr one car t uh seaman trummer uh is has handed the car over i think there's been a driver change there that has uh meantime big dramas as we got i think the wrt car about to come back out but we've got multiple drive-through penalties coming for the 98 that is the aston martin racing car the uh northwest amr the 47 the chateau la car the 20 that is high class racing the 52 car the 60 car from iron links and the 22 car which is united auto sports they have currently only a 23 second gap to the second place car in lmp2 that is for full course yellow violation for the first full course yellow uh call that came out that was the debris one wasn't it i think yeah it was i was tired so that's not slowing down enough as you go from uh i don't know whether it's slowing down or speeding up whichever way they've actually got a full course yellow penalty here's the race director eduardo freitas information to the pit lane in the sequence of the first full course yellow procedures we have the following penalties cars 98 98 47 47 20 2 0 52 5 2 6 6 0 and 22 all these cars have a drive-through penalty for a full course yellow violation [Music] i repeat on the first full course yellow cars 98 47 20 52 60 and 22 have drive-through penalties for full course yellow violations the worst of it is i fear they are not the last ones as well so i'm sure we're going to be hearing from eduardo freitas in a few seconds later and it's going to have another twist in the tail as we see the wrt car coming out after a clutch release bearing change and back on its way melissa at the wheel but i think we are definitely going to have another waist thing in the tail there will be a total of 10 full course yellow drive through penalties out of a field remaining of 32 cars one of which was parked in the garage and here is the 22 the leading united auto sports car and that is one of the cars that's already receiving a drive-through penalty for a violation on the first full course yellow he's taking it now where is the 38 that's the next car in the order overall but however that could be coming later on particular one we've been notified that 38 29 52 and 70 will also receive penalties for violations of the second full course yellow so for 38 they may move up to second place they're going to go so it hasn't been announced on the graphics but they are taking their drive through so that moves 28 right into the frame they were third they will take second they've gone ahead and we'll be very much closer to first in lmp2 and we could have a big battle on our hands big turnaround united state in the lead 28 uh is now ahead of 38 and 29 is also out of 28. 29 has just served a drive-through penalty that is a penalty for second full course yellow actually apologies they're a lap off this down so it is now 28 real team are in the pits 70 like duval he's serving a penalty so this is four of the top five cars in lmp2 with a drive-through yeah but it effectively means still status quo if they're all doing the drive-through except for the one that didn't get a drive 28 which is therefore not status quo they've gained effectively 30 seconds in the fight for the lead of the race while we're explaining all of that gentlemen there was also a car that was in their podium position in the challenge we have for the lmp2 pro am that was the guesting pl1 motorsports car into the pits um losing third place in that challenge to the 21 dragon speed car we're gonna listen down to twenty eight jota 38 and 29 are through the for drawing through you are jumping them and box this up oh you're in second but come on in but that was good because yeah yeah everybody else needs to make a fuel stop as well [Music] so united's still lead over 28 jota by 24 odd seconds and davidson third in the 38 jota car or was there but he's actually behind jorvan in the 29 car he's on that down although he's a lap down so he's different on the road so there is the car that is insect this is going to be great in the highlights i'm just going to get so tied up in knots with this 98 paul dalalana's car also with a penalty um i think paul was at the wheel augusto farfus comes down pit road to serve it who else 47 chetila antonio fuoco didn't earn the penalty but he has served that one i might i mean it's almost quicker to say the 20 cars that weren't penalized am i dreaming but wasn't the one car in both lists no no okay um 52 yes both times yeah oh that's the uh miguel molina ferrari that was in second place in gte pro that is going to put the corvette at the podium yeah because he's going to take to and he's he is in fact now on his out lap so is that his first or his second no that's his seventh trip through the pits and and alessandro peregrini has only made two so miguel molina has done two consecutive drive-throughs i believe yeah this maybe it won't put the kill on it's i'm not sure whether it's gonna leave the corvette but it's gonna close in dramatically while all that's happening by the way there's been another move it's one we said might happen has happened it's the 83 af courser cart leading gte am has gone by jimmy bruni yeah now is 19th overall cf sports second place in that uh class by the way it comes the corvette for uh regular pit stop we're in that pit window for the end of the race for gte pro fate has a habit of kicking a man when it's down and 91 is definitely getting the kicking from fate isn't it puncher dropped it down earlier on it's been clattered it's had yeah a couple of problems so there's the corvette hour and two minutes is this the final stop or are they going to be okay they're going to be good to go there's antonio garcia i think he's enjoyed this i've not seen him doing anything other than smiling this week which would be great well when was the last time he raced at sparrow wonder uh i can remember seeing him in the spa 24 hours in a gt1 car okay i saw him here in the european touring car championship or world tour world touring car championship racing for roberto rebellia in the bmw italy spain cars and there is the 92 porsche kevin s at the wheel of the gt pro leader still more than 20 seconds ahead of alessandro pierre guidi and the battle on in fact second third and fourth in gt combined are af corsa ferraris second is the 51 pro car third is the 52 pro car fourth gt car on the road is the 83 am class leading alessio rivera of the corvette and the second factory porsche in fact he's a lap ahead of the corvette in the second factory porsche as we're seeing kazuki nakajima who's probably got about maybe two or three laps to go before his next pit stop which is gonna be right on the limit whether he can make it to the end from there or he's still going to need a splash and so for him it's pretty critical to do it just a little bit of information remember we saw colopine to a fantastic run in uh the g drive in lmp2 came in with a little bit of an oil leak looks like it's a broken oil line duncan vincent's just sent me a little message to say that it's a broken oil line and that should be the end of the day for them so from having a really good run lying in second to a bit of disappointment yeah we heard from franco and telling us basically at this point not a lot more to learn from them they're not in the championship hunt in the wec they've got an els race in a couple of weeks time and with no podium in prospects that's a game over [Music] the final hour of the first race season nine of the fia world endurance championship 2021 this is spa six hours five down and one to go toyota gazoo racing car number eight leads the race and leads the hypercar category as it has been introduced for the very first time here at spa alpine lie in second place andrena growl chasing kazuki nakajima there's a 39 second advantage for the toyota but the number seven toyota is in third place let's hear from our leaders yeah good good one more one more pit stop for us and it will be driver change one more stop it will be driver change we're in they are in a good position they have a 38 nearly 40 second advantage over the alpine in second place but in their pit stop they have an extra five seconds stationary as a penalty for unsafe release in an earlier stop that's the top three all the hyper cars are still going these brand new cars in this brand new class in fourth place is our lmp2 leader united auto sport started on pole and continue to lead into the final hour the gt cars the pro team led by pro class led by the porsche gt team 92 the pulsator there as well with kevin s so the two pole setters in lmp2 and gt are leading and af courser 83 the reigning champions lead in gte am okay two more laps two to go quick so kazna will be heading in in the number eight car the race leader in a couple of laps and that car was started by sebastian buemi brendan hartley did the middle sector and kaz nakajima may well go through the final stint as well [Music] mayday in the ardennes that's not a call for help that's the start of the 2021 season of the fia world endurance championship the dawn of a new era of top tier sports car racing as hyper car makes its debut the three hyper cars qualifying first second and fourth with an lmp2 pole sitting lap from philip albert putting the united auto sports car in the mix on row two and from the start as the toyotas were perhaps cautious in the first corner of the race phil hansen who started for united shot by both to take the lead as eight battled seven the porsche that started on the gte pro class held the lead into the first corner aston martin had started on pole in the am class and they too held the lead ten laps in number eight toyota waved in front of number seven the early leader team felt it was quicker then trouble for ben keating the am class pulsator who was in the top three at that stage he got nerfed off was contact between juan pablo montoya and roman rusinov a little bit less obvious contact there antonio garcia being passed by the 91 porsche and then at the head of the gte am class battle as the 54 ferrari came through into the top order lmp2 has been a knock down drag out fights this is antonio felix to costa in the dark jota car and alongside him a fantastic run in the wrt car that was halted with a clutch bearing problem in the fourth hour contact from the toyota causing a puncture the debris of which was left to be rescued under full course yellow at the first caution after nearly four hours and then wrt with that clutch problem in the garage the home team off with the number seven car lost it under braking and kobayashi ended up in the gravel cue the second full course yellow as a result of the two full course yellows no fewer than ten penalties handed out nine different cars penalized once penalized twice and then alpine leading the race at that stage but struggling to get front tire temperature back up as they stopped toyota back in front but the number seven car a distant hope of victory relying on two retirements ahead of it g drive leaking oil the number 26 car in the garage united auto sport leading in lmp2 number eight car leading into the final hour outright as the pit stops start again one hour to go 55 minutes now of course a leading in the gt yam class alessio rivera finally i think being persuaded to give the car to somebody else after mammoth stint he's in the pits so too is kaz nakajima and you saw brendan hartley there giving the big thumbs up to his teammates which means that he's going to be who takes over he started the race and it looks as though he may well end it too for the number eight toyota team martin haven adam ignition graham goodwin watching the action with you louise beckett in the pit lane graham so far despite their problems in the two-day prologue and in practice toyotas have been relatively reliable considering it is a brand new car and the number seven haven't even turned a wheel on a racetrack before monday morning yeah remember this stop they're going to take a further five second hold in the not recall 36 has gone through to lead uh the other change by the way quite right alessio rivera oh my goodness there the g drop the jota car didn't see that the leading alpine was coming down the inside sorry jumping out there we've just seen the car going into the lead as the toyota is in the pits and uh it was very very fortunate it was side to side i don't think any damage actually is it's turned out but uh that's yeah a heart in the mouth moment for us definitely without question for both of the drivers involved wow look at his mirrors there is he gone is he gone i'm not sure whether that's tom blonkfist or ann davidson but either way let's watch again he's come down the inside and he's just did not he took the normal racing line and suddenly bang there's contact i think it was tom blondquist who's in that joe to car that uh just had the incident there the toyota though he's back out of the pits now 37 seconds give or take is the gap between the leader negrow and the alpine and that toyota however negrow does always a pit stop but it's not going to be a full fuel pit stop because he doesn't will not need a full tank uh however it will drop it back down into second then it'll be a sprint for the line by both the point i was going to make as that absolute drama happened quite right you should jump in with that one uh is nicholas nielsen now aboard the 83 car for the first time he's the goal driver needs to do 55 minutes he will do that i believe yeah i think that's a of course the 83 car felipe fraga in the lead for tf sport aston look at the headlights flashing and still and that's on the driver's side of the jota sport car as well [Music] oh the ice definitely opened there wow he did so well there so there is the 83a of course a ferrari that's been leading for the last hour or so in gtm and was that flash of blue in front of him the race leader is finished in the aston jose stop 2.8 seconds in front that's gonna be an epic battle towards the end dempsey proton in third with alessio piccarello let's hear from francois perotto at af quarter see what he's got to say about the prospects for the 83 car [Music] oh [Music] yeah it's been really good first rest of the season for me so a bit difficult but managed to grab three places in the first lap then had a great fight with my old friend paul dalalana and then uh i tried to keep up with number 33 ben keating but the guy was flying so it's uh yeah it's been hard it's been a really fast uh it's been a tough first first stint and uh the injury asked me if i could do a double stint i was like no way i was completely dead after one hour but uh it turned out okay in terms of strategies so far so we did alessio did the second hour i did the third one and he's just a double stint so yeah the cars the car seems pretty good can nicholas bring it home i hope so that's his job good well let's see thank you thank you talking about the things paid to do sebastian bueny has just done the fastest first sector of the race so far in second place on his chase of andre nagara as we watch his teammate kamui kobayashi back into third place and also in a little bit of a a recovery mission uh to make it to the podium after the incident that dropped them out of contention which you have seen now oh no this is a different one oh wow it's exactly the same corner as well and again running into the problems under-breaking behind a prototype that's that problem i don't think it's the prototype is the sort of common denominator there i think it's the car and it looks like he's struggling and we've seen the toyotas especially in these conditions for whatever reason struggle in the heavy braking areas i'll put lake calm at the top of the hill also down into the brussels hairpin in a couple of occasions so it looks like the recuperation and breaking balance off that car isn't quite as a recuperation of energy from the hybrid system isn't quite at the optimum yet all right so there's confirmation the yellow nose on the jota sport in front is tom blondquist and that is the car that had contact with the race leader that white's nose is 38 okay so that's a mental note the iron dames stop in the inset picture who else is in the pits 77 dempsey proton the chetila ferrari and catherine in the iron links car the iron dames the all-female crew car just leaving the pit lane the fastest lap of the race goes in the chasing number eight card a 203.930 brings the gap down now to 31.50 seconds that lap is that uh about four and a half seconds three and a half seconds sorry quicker than andre degrowl on that last lap that's a big big slice now of course the ground may have been in traffic for some or all of it and seb may well have had clear air however we know how excitable sebastian buehme is and if there's a chance of winning the race and there is a chance of winning the race he's got to make up 30 seconds in 48 minutes then he will give it everything he can okay okay so tc is free pc is free use the tc as you wish now okay traction control is free basically they can release the car so i think they've had the tc wound up the traction draw so the car is quite tight maybe not releasing it looped very slow off some of the initial accelerations earlier on and so now they've gone for a bit more performance i would suggest that that radio is gonna be a lap ago when a look at the lap time that sebastian boehme has just delivered we have to remember two things one that car is on new tires yep and boemi's just came out the pits the second thing is that the alpine that's leading still owes this one pit stop so as much as boem is chasing him down then the growls still will have a pit stop that boy me does not have any longer another lap in the 205's for a beat 206's for the growl last time around cap comes down by further second it's 30.3 seconds now with 47 minutes to go third place car in gte am final stop for the dempsey proton 88 chetila have left the pits in fourth and how close is that battle going to be it's a minute and 20 seconds so maybe not that close nick nielsen leading for a of course at the champions looking to start their defense with a win in gte am 92 leading in gte pro and 22 the champions leading in lmp2 as well alpine leading the 36 alpine elf matt but car leading in hyper car but with a stop to make and toyota just 30 seconds behind it could be quite a grandstand finish i mean you're right the change in gtm with the latest pit stops is the 92 porsche pits from the lead the second place come on the 51a of course occur on its way out from its latest pit stop from second and this third place 52a of course are also on pit road right now in gtam look at the names at the moment nicholas nielsen the youngsters here nicholas nielsen philippe fraga alessia picariello antonio fuoco another young gun from italy giancarlo fizzy keller uh they're in that that makes it this is this is where we've got so many talents coming forward we're going to see endurance racing for many many years to come porsche going to work yeah it's they've saved a full set haven't they that's a full tire change in case it was needed and we've seen them do that so many times and it that bears out exactly what they were saying this morning survive five hours see where you are absolutely see where you are with a gun driver and a set of tires that are brand spanking new that haven't done a lot that's what they're giving kevin est because they want him to win it because at the back of the pro field is the 91 car it was not their day but the problem is if you lose that advantage to your teammates in race one it becomes a much tougher five race chase to the title yeah it's uh just seen that's uh super slo-mo of the number 92 car reminds me i don't think we've referred yet to the fact that these cars are in the revised uh spec this year with the rear exiting exhausts not the side exit resource we had last season again it lowers the decibel count makes it a little easier on the ears if you happen to be trackside and hopefully before the end of the year that will be an uh a factor will hansen fabio sharer philip alberkirk you see their respective driving times of course philip is adding to that as he continues to the end of the race another 45 minutes or so we've got a battle underway for a podium place in gtm we'll come to that in a moment or two with picariello under threat from antonio fuoco the central racing car chasing down the 88 dempsey proton car but it's all about front of this field yeah hyper car jota on jota green on green action so tom blonchist ahead of van davidson blonkis holding him at the moment and uh tom bmw factory days now part of this full season effort in the wec started the lmp2 program in asia in the gulf of the four race program earlier this year in february had the mother and father of all accidents in abu dhabi recovered well from that and the crew for the following two races interesting there you saw it move over to the left out right come if you're coming oh you're not right okay i'm taking oh you are i'm you're not would you would you just make your mind up well i think it's more a case of like if you're gonna do it do it strategies and so it is a full race to the end for that second place now this is the point where from a driver's perspective in the respective cars they just don't care which one well actually they do clearly want their own car to finish ahead from the team perspective they want to make sure that both cars finish second and third however wait round it works at this stage of the season they're not really that bothered too much but they definitely don't want any incidents between the two of the jota cars yeah sam hignit will be doing some definite butt kicking if there's any contact between the two of them as you say jota could still take second and third place on the lmp2 podium quite happily and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that things happen to other cars as well fourth fifth and sixth all stop together racing team netherland real team and into europol are in the pits in a bunch and dragon speed in as well ben hanley at dragon speed alex brandle for into europol who make their debut in the world endurance championship today and at racing team level and there hits his marks potential fantastic recovery by the way after uh truly dreadful starts the race for real team racing looking pretty well set for a podium finish in the lmp2 pro ram challenge yep currently racing team netherland leading that but uh real team with laura duvall at the wheel up to fifth overall second pro am car into europol sixth place having left the pits dragon speed seventh 20 seconds or so between alex brundle for inter europol and ben hanley for dragon speed we should be racing team nap to eighth place in lmp2 sophia florsch back at the wheel of that car for the finish and has fueled back for high classes in ninth head of gabriel aubry for pr1 and roberto mary for the storied 25 g drive car which has had a bit of an entertaining race let's catch up with 92 porsche's new boy neil gianni neil johnny the 92 has put in such a great performance throughout the whole of this race uh and your first gt race how's it been well so far first gt race experience has been great let's hope for the last 40 minutes it stays like that um yeah kevin did a great start you know got us a gap then i got in the car i could actually open up the gap a bit but because he had to come in with a puncture early i had to start saving fuel just to get back into the window luckily the full course yellow then helped us with that at the beginning of the week you were saying that you were struggling you know looking in the mirrors traffic around you because you're used to being an lap one so how was it during the race yeah i keep telling myself look back look into the mirror look in the mirror my engineer adam is doing really a great job telling me okay p1 or p2 uh four seconds back just i keep then looking backwards and worked well we could avoid contact some hairy moments but that's normally those races okay i won't say any more because the race isn't over yet and i know that you don't want me to say any more on that yeah great okay thanks very much thank you never celebrate too early we've seen that so many times haven't we but it is a very different discipline allen you you went the other way starting your sports car racing in in gta's and then going up to the big class and you've tasted both sides of it haven't you so you know how hard it is to be passed honestly not really because the gt was the leading category at the time so that's one skill set that very frankly i think is a real skill set to be able to do two things at once so then we have a puncture we have a boom shield and books that's a puncture for the leading car however that just brings them into the pit window so they can now change tires fuel and go to the end so it's not incurring an additional stop it just incurs a slow inlap and his inlap was a 2 2 minute 20 rather than 2 minutes seven so he might have lost 15 seconds the gap to uh sebastian remy who crosses the line is now negative he is not ahead andre negrow is in second place two minutes back kamui kobayashi [Music] this will be a minute and 10 or 12 second pit stop with full service full tank of fuel or as much as they need and the tyres was that left side zone at right sides only or yeah they only did two tyre change that's right yeah right sides only so he hasn't got freshest rubber yeah they're always a little bit on the back foot because ultimately they're behind toyota when the pit stops would come out anyway um but this certainly doesn't help them and probably put them into a position where it's trying to solidify that second place as opposed to necessarily the attack that i think everybody was uh looking at maybe about one hour ago towards the end of the race and look at the wear on the tires the fronts have done 37 and 19 laps the rears 20 and 19 laps so that unladen right front he's doing a lot of the heavy lifting but it doesn't actually get that much abuse so it's been on the long way this is very tight at the end of this race for is it going to be a couple of laps of fuel i think there's a subwoofer needs no but he's okay to the end you sure yep yeah he's uh they did 26 laps with nakajima they had 26 laps to go when he was right on the limit to be able to do it they needed to fuel save a little bit now they've got the comfort zone to do a lot of fuel saving if they need to so one minute and 49 seconds at the last split andre mcgraw in second ahead of kamui kobayashi number seven toyota the 0-10 hybrid is on the charge but you can see how much real estate there is between them he's just starting to head down from the high point at la source and the senior tech run alpine is just about to head up from the low part of the circuit at the core what used to be stavalo it is 41 and a half seconds is the gap on fuel saving mode so that's to the lead of the number eight car the map is showing you where the seven toyota is it is half a lap away and on a four and a half kilometer grand prix circuit that's not so much as it is on a seven kilometer grand prix circuit so number seven heading off down the hill that's kamui kobayashi and what he doesn't need is another outbreak himself and going off moment they are a lap ahead of our lmp2 leader this is our lmp2 leader it's a minute and 26 seconds to kobayashi so if kobe actually goes off then suddenly we could have a third different team on the podium united auto sports leading with philip albakirk he'll finish the race phil hanson started it so now he gets to chat to louise beckett phil hansen you put in a great performance from the start of the race and the 22 has just continued throughout it's been great yeah it's been a fantastic weekend obviously we've been able to top all the time sheets um put it on pole and lead away from the start um it's not over yet there's 35 minutes left and i don't want to say too much you know endurance racing has its uh has its rituals that you know you don't say you don't catch your chips right to the end um but yeah felipe's doing a good job we've got a very comfortable lead at the moment of plus 40 seconds so um yeah hopefully everything's fine good stuff okay i'm not saying anymore either yeah thank you everybody's keeping their fingers crossed at this stage we've got 35 minutes to go and counting and certainly for united auto sports anything that struck now would be very very cruel like they barely put a foot wrong they did have that penalty with an issue with the first full course yellow speeds under the full course yellow but the new boy in the team fabio sharer has certainly i think done exactly what was expected of him he has they were a little bit fortunate and the fortune favors the brave that uh pretty much all the other elements around them also got a penalty for full course yellow infringement as well so it's kind of status quo as it turns out in the end otherwise it could have been a little bit tighter for them to be in with a battle uh probably about a 10 second lead as opposed to a 46 second lead as they are between this battle between tom blogpost and anthony rivers well when we last looked at this you said they're exactly in the same position on fuel and i thought i wonder if both cars are on the same position on tyres as well and the answer is yes they are they've done exactly the same number of laps on the tyres each and the car that benefited in that there was four of the top five lmp2 cars had penalties for infringements and in the full course yellows the two that we had in our five and the one that didn't is tom blonkis the car that is now in second place in lmp2 the jota sport car with the yellow nose band and davidson in third place he was second uh he ended up paying a penalty and so too did dr knight up for racing team netherlands car in fourth place so blanca's went from fourth to second ahead of davidson oh and uh through past the north west amr aston martin the 98 car he goes that car is seventh in the gte m class being driven by acousto farfas just watching for where the battles are still well alive on them is ben hanley who is reeling in alex brundle lmp2 at the moment it's a dragon speed car third in the moment the lmp2 pro-am challenge uh seventh overall in the allen peter order catching the sixth place car the interior ball competition car i'm debuting wc full season entrance from poland and the not at all polish alex brundle at the wheel anthony davidson needs to get past this porsche before it gets to the bottom of the hill he had a very good run with a previous car i don't think he's going to do it i think he's going to have to sit behind i thought he was having a lunge he's actually getting out so he could see where he was and making sure there's a bit of front arrow front air clean air going across the nose of the car and then that's held him back a little bit it's giving the blonde quest a little bit more breathing space again that was one of the dempsey proton cars 88 lies in third place 77 that crashed and didn't set a qualifying time lies in sixth position so a good recovery for that guy in fact 77 led quite a lot uh of the middle section race having started from the very back in the opening stint it was fired right towards the front by matt campbell here is ann davidson and that is the other uh joe to sport car 28 of tom blondquist it's not natural to say 28 and 38 38 we're used to 228 we'll have to get used to so that was third and second in lmp2 and here is our lmp2 leading car 22 from united auto sports gap going out in the lead at the moment 46.6 seconds now still with more than a minute in hand andre negrow over kamui kobayashi with a podium battle that is still well aligned here is for the final podium spot in gtam talking about this a little while ago alessio picariello is being caught and caught consistently by antonio froko in the settler racing ferrari they would dearly love the podium on their debut in this class [Music] yeah six and a half seconds that battle chest behind dempsey proton that might well be a real dash to the flag it's not varying much on this lap there's another battle as well nick nielsen just nine seconds in the af courser car that leads in behind jimmy bruni's porsche that is tail and charlie in the pro class how much would nick nielsen love to be able to catch and pass jimmy bruni in the closing stages and actually jimmy bruney can't afford to let him because although it's not pro class the am class gt car will still get points for fifth place as opposed to jimmy bruni getting points for fifth place so that would make a big difference because the overall point score in the gte pro class can be interrupted if ams get ahead of you in the top ten just under five minutes from the 25 minute to go mark you should traditionally the point at which something dramatic happens [Music] it's always something that lasts 25 minutes are you the angel of doom no it's just it's just the the benefit of long experience of um half writing race reports oh a little early but here is problems for which of the dempsey proton 77 and he's going to stop that's challenging russell's hairpin whether he gets out of the way he's going to determine whether this becomes a full course yellow or not is there an area for him you can't get out of the circuit there can you i don't think there should be a gap that oh there's a gap behind there's a gap at the end yeah that's only but i think he's got a bit of an issue with electronics there because the lights were going on and off yeah maybe kind of looks like it's a power issue of some sort or another and that's at the top of the hill at tornados oh you can't get it off yeah yeah i thought at the end of the barrier there there was a gap but he's control all deleting like billio isn't he at the moment you can see the gravel marks there where the toyota of kamui kobayashi ended after the big long black tire marks yeah no black tire marks i think the porsche came down the hill dead stick didn't it there was no nobody at home as he was coming down the hill yeah but he's got some energy because the lights are on and off so sasha madison yeah that's so yeah i thought so not many porsche representatives have hair that bouffant sasha looks after of course the porsche juniors yeah so jackson evans was one of his young charges in the uh porsche super cup last year deutschland is here this weekend as well so we'll have plenty of business there i'm sure and carrera cup benny likes in fact last year we had deutschland bernie lux and carrera cup france all together as well so there's still yellow flags there while they determine whether or not that car can move under its own power this is the leader nicholas nielsen uh looking at it with jimmy bruni in the gt jimmy looks like he owes us a stop and he does looks like he doesn't go ahead one position up to be six overall in gte and the gap is coming down and that means points for jimmy bruni and richard leakes won't be for fifth they'll only be no because the corvette won't score so it's fourth and fifth place points but no because the af courser car won't score which one the third one because it's only two cars isn't it [Music] they're in the drivers championship oh see i thought you were talking manufacturing i know in the driver's championship which is the only one the drivers care about obviously oh and [Music] there was there was barely room for an ounce between the tyre and the barrier there was there he's only done that so he can do it on the big white board later and show you why he did it [Music] anthony davidson they're just running it right up to the edge stay on the gray stuff son that's what it's there for stopped him back though he lost uh quite a bit of time there actually not as much as you would think it was two and a half seconds was the the drop back on that particular one but i'm sure it took him a little time for his heart rate to get back to normal by the way with apologies to the fabulous people in the truck uh they've put together these pictures the reason we're being shown that picture of nick nielsen is because he's just passed and put a lap on the third in class that's has been an enormous performance from the 83 crew today [Music] couldn't get him out of the car at one point he was cracking france where parodo as well delivered knee and proto seems to win the first race of quite often of this easter oh yeah of wbc uh then keeps on fighting from there well you know you heard it when lou was talking to francois talking about he's got friends paul delano talking about ben keating and this is their peer group these are the guys they come here every weekend we're racing to come to beat and uh we've got uh slightly different driver crew around francois for the lms as well so we'll be seeing a lot of that chrome ferrari this year one battle you mentioned earlier on that was sort of starting to brew up again was ben hanley in seventh position in lmp2 catching an interpol competition card of alex brundle but brundle seems to have stemmed the tide a little bit of that one and sort of keeping hanley at an eight seconds or a margin and so it's everything flowing a little bit but it's certainly not handily catching in the same speed that he was earlier on before coach yellow is coming in 40 seconds that will be for the recovery of that car kobayashi into the pits before the full course yellow 30 seconds to full course yellow kobayashi done 25 laps so he needed to come in 20 seconds to full course yellow anyway he was right on the limit of his fuel window with 11 laps to go emmy we are under full course yellow i'm intervening at the runoff of t8 i've got marshalls exposed in the runoff of t8 they're very quick full course yellow because the car should be out of the way in the next sort of 30 seconds yeah and so it'll be a an extremely fast one uh the other uh position on track by the way that is coming down reasonably quickly before that full course yellow is a bit further down in on p2 and so fire flourish being caught bandaged racing car that car a little bit of topsy-turvy race but uh coming back now and that gap before we went to full course yellow was under 20 seconds uh but coming down quickly saw pr1 and the remaining g-drive car in the pit lane number seven car has been through and gone out there is kamu kobayashi let's get down to the number eight toyota garage should be nice and quiet actually as louise beckett catches up with brendan hartley who will undoubtedly have everything crossed for the final 20-yard minutes brendan hartley well what a race this has been so far the first hyper car race for uh toyota and and it certainly brought some surprises yeah i mean i guess the first surprise for us we've been in some battles with some lmp2 cars as well uh some lp2 cars which it's changed the whole dynamic um in terms of traffic and how we get through compared to the the tso50 we have before is completely different so there's been a lot a lot of learning on there's been a lot of learning on the go i mean we did a lot of testing on the lead up to this but always by ourselves so yeah it hasn't been without troubles we've had a few little issues here and there but we've kept it on the road and yeah lots of little lessons but so far yeah really happy that we're still in the lead and i don't know if there's 30 minutes 30 minutes or so to go but hopefully we can stay there we shouldn't need to put kaz did 26 laps on the last hit so he managed to save a lot of fuel and i think seb's um got the fuel mileage to get him to get it back sounds good thanks very much yes but there's the number seven stopping at the top of the hill that's kazuki kamui kobayashi who's in third place what on his out laps stopping at the top of the hill it lay calm and so it may be okay for the eight that's leading but it's definitely not for the seven at the moment well this is this is the car that has been the problem child all week isn't it graham with reliability of battery changes and issues it is a brand new car and he is looking down in the cockpit he's trying to recycle the car yeah that's what he's done he's rolled off at the top of the hill he's doing a power cycle now he's got it going again but again suddenly does this start to bring united auto sports and philippe albuquerque into play for an overall podium it only needs to stop once at racing if that had been at racing speed albuquerque would have gone past him while he was busy doing control or delete yeah but in this occasion it wasn't it wasn't it's still the same position and uh even if sebastian boehme in the other car was running to the end and we heard brendan hartley saying he thinks he's got the fuel mileage so this is just giving them a get a jail free card because now you in comparison to a flat out lap you save about 50 on your on the full course yellow laps and so therefore it is uh it's now basically holding position with the gap of as it stands two minutes between the first two cars however when it goes green depending on where it goes green then that will maybe reduce a bit again what you finishing up there bouncing on his heels oh he's not the only one that we're all bouncing on i kind of wonder what the emotions like there i mean it's it's kind of so close but before this race if you were philip senior would have taken second place and splitting the totals yeah of course you would have done absolutely no question about it but at the same time when you're you're fighting for the lead with an hour to go then second place seems a little bit disappointing and no one comes to a race to finish second but ultimately we have to finish second sometimes and you have to accept what you've got especially if you aren't quite up to it on the day but i think from them they'll be maybe hoping for a little bit more but comfortable with what they've done well talking of that right behind the united car is the wrt car and they're in the same position they're not going to finish second but they had hoped for a lot more you know barring that clutch release bearing failure which is not a team issue for sure then you know they might have been in that position right behind united in the final 20 minutes battling for the win of the race but they're not they're not even on page one of the timing screen yeah full course yellow will end in 20 seconds from now and then they'll be back to racing speeds as the two jota cars come in in the correct order oh so they were on a wing and a prayer then no they were they they had to do a stop at some point and they were on equal runs but they both had to do a stop at some point that's a longer stop though for the 38 there was something going on on the right corner wasn't there now the passenger side not under any threat from behind it is no it was the third it was 28 that had a contact with the alpine and that was on the driver's side on the left so whatever's ailing the 38 he's still there by the way you go green before he's not gonna see guys but he's got a long gap back to your voice who's in the racing team netherlands car so in that respect second and third is definitely secure for them if they don't have any other problems he's on his way out of the bits i thought he's been fired up for weeks 100 kilometers today on the bike blimey o'reilly jimmy bruni has also exited the pit lane so they had a final stop in the 91 porsche has that how close has that brought nick nielsen 9.2 seconds possibly less that could be very interesting [Music] and evans yeah that's sad so close to the end of the race that's that's sad but that's done for the day he's gonna get a lift back on the back of the bike happily he's brought his helmet already so that's okay yep on board with the race leader toyota gazoo racing sebastian buemi under 18 minutes of the first race of the hypercar era remain and the first purpose-built hypercar on the planet and literally the first not just the first manufacturer's mark but this is actually the first car that rolled a wheel as a new hyper car that's done all the testing yeah it's done all the rolling of the wheels we have not seen the glickenhaus yet that's the second purpose-built hypercar that has started testing but was not ready to race here we may see it in quarter mile we may not see it until the mall but toyota gazoo racing a little over a quarter of an hour away from the end of this first race of the hypercar era so they are proving the theory in their car at the moment united auto sports well we knew what they had last year and apparently in the inter intervening six months they haven't forgotten any of what they had last year porsche gt stunning lapsing qualifying from kevin ester just left the rest trailing in his wake and open mouth in shock and the 92 car despite uh an unexpected puncture has been the class of the field in the gte pro category but two ferraris will populate the podium the 51 car alessandro pierre greedy in second miguel molina in the 52 car not the 71 car anymore in third position corvette fourth and the 91 porsche in fifth now opening up the gap over nick nielsen in this car the am class leading 83 af courser ferrari tf sports pole sitting 33 car the four horsemen machine driven by felipe fraga is in second place dempsey protons remaining car alessia picariello he is in third in the 88 cars so there are your four class leaders but guys as we said at the beginning of the race nominally four classes they are very much closer in terms of performance at the beginning of the season pros and ams in gt and p2 and hypercar in the prototype categories absolutely i think with 15 minutes to go there's there's a word of congratulations another group of people who are often maligned and have been a lot in the last few months and that's people look after the regulations that try to get these cars competitive we've got two fundamentally different machines in the first two places in this race and there's less than a minute apart now this little story with the number 70 car because esteban garcia brought it into the pits with a puncture and he told us afterwards he was three laps short on his minimum stint so he's now come back into the car they put him in instead of for the final three laps during that full course yellow and he is now at the wheel of the real team car so the battle with ben hanley well hanley has gone by for sixth position in lmp2 and real team in seventh place the gap will grow but sophia flourish in eight for richard meal two minutes behind may not catch in the remaining 14 minutes and for real team racing run and engineered by tds it's been a slightly turbulent first race but it will be a good one because they'll get to the end all their possible laps completed it would seem yeah safar flush is under threat from behind from uh back for that position uh she had a very slow map master and i was caught by about six seconds let's go and have a listen to what's going on with super me okay no more energy target no more energy targets but let's take it easy and bring it home so it's not that they're letting him off the leash to go hell for leather they're just saying you no longer have to save anything just stroke it through to the end alistair moffatt on the left simon strang on the right who we used to see in aston martin colors over the last few years the pr media team at twitter gazoo racing at least the uh outward-facing one uh one uh car that is currently on the move and uh getting a shuffle on and that's davidson he's got he came out the bits from that uh longer pit stop than his teammates with 20 seconds uh behind tom longvist he's just taken four seconds out of that gap on the last lap and he's going quicker again now so i think davidson fancy's having a bit of crack at the end here i wonder if ant has got something in the locker yeah fresher but if but if they had fresh tires you'd think they would both have had fresh tires and they'd have had them on earlier than the last 15 minutes these are two completely different customer efforts for the same team there's not gonna be any any question here of team orders between those two crews no absolutely well you can do your strategy at different points you know in that respect you can throw them in at the beginning in the end depends on the driver depends on the circumstances how the car balances what you need at the time one thing that was pretty clear was that kevin estra and neil yani didn't really need much help they were able to deliver their only sort of blip in the whole weekend from qualifying through to the race was that uh puncture they had on the right rear for whatever reason i think theirs was a debris one and so therefore that was the only one but it was actually very close to the end of the stint anyway it's another three seconds taking out that uh advantage from tom bloncus davidson last time around and the fastest lap of its race stewart's decision number 50 awards a drive-through penalty on car 38 for dangerous driving and the contact with car 36 at the same time two license points will be removed from the driver in question wait wait wait what 38 for dangerous driving towards car 36 that's 38 it does not have the yellow nose it was 28 which has the yellow nose that made contact clearly it was tom blondquist not the 38 car i think it'd be good to have a review of that one but uh yeah the numbers just see the video again [Music] let's see the video again the 38 car has a pale gray nose the 28 car has a bright yellow nose they've penalized the wrong car let's just check it again if it's for that incident down at the bottom of the hill at rouge well he said it was for contact at oh rouge no yes it's that incident about that 200 sure before we accuse anything of um but the which car it actually was we were talking about meantime and david is still taking time out of that car and we'll wait and see what occurs here he's taking lumps out of tom blondqvist because he wants to race for second he may not need to race for second so that was clearly the incident that was being called it was that big ooh moment coming down towards rouge where the jota car moved over onto the 36 car sideways contact and how they stayed out the wall i have absolutely no idea purely because it was side to side yeah it was once it's side to side and exactly square then the energy just bounces between the two cars and uh you certainly saw the energy bounced into the grouse eyes because they opened up quite quickly and it was really interesting that on board for me was fantastic how looking back at him he saw your eyes darting to see where the other car was then focused straight into the apex thought he got the job done and then with the reaction even though he was still going up through a rouge had probably two and a half g of lateral force on his body and doing about 170 miles per hour but uh he was still able to look in the mirror and see what earth well sebastian wemmy no doubt at all he's not under a shadow leading the race into the final 10 minutes but of all endurance racing teams on the planet toyota above all know that until you are past the checkered flag you don't even think about what might happen they lead in hypercar leading in lmp2 into the closing stages phillip albakirk for united auto sports with jota second and third at the moment and a penalty being assessed for contact well let's take a look ooh that's the united car overshooting going by the second place car in the gtm class of philippe fraga he's on the bumps now you have to take a certain line there to avoid the bumps and on the pumps then uh he's just basically locked up the fronts race control have revised that penalty it is now being applied to the 28th car of tom blondquist the jota car that did make contact with the alpine not the 38 car so there has that that cloud over 38 and davidson's car has been removed but 28 from second place a drive-through should still see them on the podium racing team netherlands are over two minutes behind the second currently second place joe to car that's an astonishing moment in world insurance championship history as martin hayford is correct even a stop clock is right twice a day although although somebody who was either a theoretical physicist or very much cleverer than me said not there's the there's the yellow nose here we go this is on board there's the contact kfc on the front was the other clue meanwhile full course yellow here we go again speeds for 88 his third and uh any any penalty is going to be dramatic for that for a poke for a podium 63 the corvette that is not going to be on the podium and 21. that is a podium finisher at the moment but there is may end up post race being a penalty if that is the case however as you say final seven minutes of the day it's been it has been a remarkable spa day spa can do all sorts of things it can bathe you in sunlight all day long we've been lucky we're inside we're in the warm allen is now looking at me with that face because he's going out into the cold well mate that's your job [Music] is he going to bring it back yeah that's his job this was paid for he's going to go out in the in the chill of the evening it's now nearly half past seven central european summertime may the first and there have been a couple of mayday calls on the radio but so far it has been a pretty exciting race in all four categories and there's been everyone's stratification there's been a bit of a confluence of categories i would suggest they're actually intermingling a little bit more than perhaps anybody expected united auto sports car ahead of the wrt machine which had that clutch problem and dropped it way down to the bottom of the top 30. 28 down pit lane dragon speed in and out that will puts esteban garcia up into second place in the pro-am challenge what a remarkable recovery for that car so 21 in and out was that a drive through there's the drive through for 28. i wonder if they've been told there's a ride through because they were one of the three cars where there was a question about yeah it could well be that they're being told or they may possibly have not quite read their teams maybe it's possible properly and thought that it had been assessed as a drive-through not being investigated potentially as a drive-through we'll wait and see what else happens by the way has come back out and will stay in the third position yeah the big lead on the racing team netherland car which by the way um absolutely is dominating the pro-am challenge fourth overall in lmp2 it's a minute and two seconds now the gap between brainy and andre negrow and again another big stint from fritz van aird they put him in at the perfect time weather was great traffic wasn't too much a problem again he really held up his side of the deal the other two guys job for nighter who finishes and uh finishes the race for the team they will finish in fourth place overall they're two minutes behind tom blondquist in the jota sport [Music] have now been announced for those three cars 21 63 and 88 21's already served it that is going to cost 88 a podium finish in gtam only point three seconds to go remember if they don't take that penalty there will be a time penalty assessed yep it'll be 30 seconds i think we'll be assessed for a drive-through penalty here oh and they're only five seconds ahead of chetilla and will be on the podium and af courses number 54 car will go ahead of them as well so that will cost them two places they shouldn't drop back behind the 98 aston martin 63. that is taking its uh it's medicine that's the corvette taking their drive through again not a full season entity it's here and le mans we will see these cars assuming that nothing else changes in the global position the dragon speed cars coming in again yeah they did the penalty had not been assessed but they drove through the pits the penalty had not been announced and they drove through the pit so basically they drove through the pits for fun and no laughs the previous one they stopped oh now there's 37 seconds i think it was a splash of fuel i think they need the splash of flow they haven't stopped no no the second this is the second passage okay the previous pass through was 37 seconds it's 23 seconds for a drive-through penalty so were they like jota where they had a spike yeah yeah but even less of a splash indeed hey car though brand new car six-hour race they've had to push it has not been clean running for them you have to say that's been a great well at one stage it looks as though the best they do is third for about a third of the race it looked like the best they could do is third then seven hit more trouble and more trouble not that the number eight car has been trouble free either um but at least it didn't hit other competitors not many of them anyway and then uh that issue in the end for the alpine let's just drop them back off the ultimate pace alpine were always going to struggle because they can't take a full load of fuel they can't take as much fuel into their car as toyota can but they have to remain stationary for the same time so they were always to the deficit we're always going to have to put in yeah fingers crossed with brendan hartley another pit stop over and above there's phil hansen on the united team nobody much breathing there either wonder what zach brown is doing right now watching the telly with interest i should think final few minutes yeah i mean amongst the teams are going to be delighted with this some of the dead ants here recently that have got a fine result in the problem challenge into europol first wc race i think should be right before the light of the top slightly real team top six absolutely two and i think the 92 car a debut on here as well kevin ester and this new young kid that they found from switzerland neil johnny uh he could be he could be a name for the future maybe who knows what he could do in the future who knows but uh definitely the 92 car has been at the class of field and there are some days when you're invincible and yesterday that was a day for kevin estin qualifying today it's been a day for the two of them in the race they have not put a foot wrong here comes the alpine through on the dominant leader in gtm although it should be mentioned that the second place car on the road the 33 tf sport car very new look squad in every way from the multi race winning in le mans winning squad last year tf sports had we not had that contact with ben keating they would have been right there yep so that uh bodes well the triple seven car uh tomorrow fuji what a great run he had at the start of this race and at the end as well and and you know from the final they were the last row of the grid with the 77 car and by the end of the first hour they were second and third triple seven and 77 they had a really really strong run and that car also run by tom ferries two of sport final lap final few seconds for brendan hartley and kazuki nakajima to wait in the garage and for sebastian buemi as the engineer said to bring it home a brand new era of top-flight sports car racing began here just six hours ago in spa front shot hyper car makes its debut in the world stage and toyota the first team to field a purpose-built hypercar chassis are going to reap those rewards by claiming not just the first hypercar pole with the number seven but the first hypercar victory as they win the 2021 six hours of spa and a new chapter begins sort of raced in endurance in the world championship and at le mans through so many different eras of sports car and they win in yet another one in the gte pro class the 92 porsche gt is going to be our victor crosses the line with kevin esch at the wheel the man who put it on pole and started the race and neil johnny for a young kid just has chosen the right horse to ride in this race hasn't he he has indeed two other teams to come through to take class wins here racing team netherland come home to take the lmp2 pro-am challenge we're waiting for united alter sports and for the af quarter 83 car to come through they are now both in the middle sectors little wait to come before they come home but both dominant wins there particularly for united who i think will come home with a full lap on the field and here is the car that finishes in second place it's a first ever race in the top tier for philip senior and the senior tech team the alpine elf matt mutt started and finished by andre negrow they take second place here here's our am class winner nick nielsen doing what they expected of him bringing the 83 af courser car home victorious as they start their gte am title defense francoise peroto nick nielsen and alessio rivera one of the big new names of this weekend and here philip albakirk brings the 22 united auto sports car home for victory shared with new goal driver phil hanson and new boy in the team fabio shara nice little nice little headshot there of philly balberkirk fast and funny and friendly and that's the united auto sport team isn't it i have to tell you having seen the lineup we had for olympia2 this year i didn't expect anything close to that kind of results the dominance of that result for united water sports they've converted on their astonishing 2020 uh performance with another win here in 2021 excellent stuff home as well to complete the podium overall is the number seven car yep so toyota first and third on my hypercar debut united from jota and jota so that's uh that's rivalry renewed immediately porsche from two ferraris that's going to make it interesting in the uh manufacturers world championship and they of course and from tf sport satellite racing are confirmed on the podium the time was adjusted immediately after the checkered flag the 88 card didn't take the penalty and does drop to fifth well it would have done whether it had taken it or not so makes a little difference there's some wild hair game going on this year isn't it the number eight car completes its slow down lap and into the pit lane comes our race winner hyper cars finished first second and third they complete the overall podium number eight toyota gazoo racing ahead of the number 36 alpine elf madmut and the number seven toyota gazoo racing machine finishing in third place in lmp2 united auto sports 22 and then the 38 and 28 cars from jota complete the podium our pro-am winners the number 29 car fourth place overall for racing team netherland in the gt pro class the 92 porsche was comfortably in front of the two ferraris that complete the podium 51 ahead of 52 and it's ferrari on top in the gte am class the champions defend their points lead in the first race af quarter 83 the 33 the new lineup with tf sport returning to top flight sports car racing with the aston martin in second place their debut in the world endurance championship as a gt squad they finish on the podium in gte am in third place so for chetila after a couple of troubling years in lmp2 it's been a good result for a big move for them into the tightly forward and hugely competitive gte and pack luis beckett is down in the finish lane in victory circle she is with kazuki and nakajima from the winning number eight toyota team kazuki nakajima congratulations that goes down in the history books the first win for toyota with her hypercar yeah very happy with the victory uh yeah as you said the first win for the highbacker era so very happy to achieve this with with our team toyota got racing and yeah a bit sad for what happened to car 7 but we are still on the podium for both cars so very good start of the season it was very tough race really easy to make a mistake and the traffic was very hard to manage but yeah as we had a good start of the season yeah uh we still keep pushing on the head for luma not the championship you've done it thank you well done thank you a 30th world endurance win for toyota and gwemi takes his 18th victory the second winningest driver in world endurance championship history brendan hartley and kazuki jack and nakajima take their 15th wins consecutive spa wins for porsche after waiting eight years after their for their second spa win they came at last year kevin ash's fifth win consecutive victories after bahrain last year here spa book ending the season last year and here can't get the feet away from the feeling that uh the remainder of the teams in gte pro will have been thinking well look esther's on great form but neil yarny has not done that oh dear yeah well that was dominant johnny becomes the first swiss winner in gte pro it's his fifth race win in the world endurance championship his last was lemon in 2016. that's a bit of a drought isn't it but then he has changed horses and raced in formulary and all sorts of others united also sports the 22 car pull level with kcmg on five lmp2 wins a debut for fabio scherrer he wins phil hanson's fifth win seventh for philippe albakirk who's now the fourth most victorious driver in lmv2 history and for af course let's complete the stats thanks to atwek data and of course's fourth consecutive podium for the reigning champions pirodo and nielsen a debut win for alessia rivera the first new italian m winner since ricardo pera won with dempsey proton at spa in 2019 consecutive season wins at round one for the 83 ferrari that won the opener last year and consecutive spa wins for the 83 car who won here last august so all sorts of facts figures and stats there will be lots more to follow in the slipstream of what has been a thoroughly entertaining competitive and fun to watch and talk about season opener for season nine of the fia world endurance championship 2021 one other quick stat and i've been more than happy if i've made it at wc day to confirm this one i think neil yanni is now the second man to win a race overall in the wc and a race in wc and gte pro after bruno cena oh good shout i think that's right because bruno has won in all four classes yes well so neil john he's got a bit of catching up to do because he's never raced in lmp2 or gta this time yet he needs to find an am drive doesn't he maybe when he's in his 50s and he gets downgraded to sort of silver or something i can't say enough good things about this united auto sports squad you know i mean after last year it was always going to be tough to come back and continue on that road with everybody knew what they got fabio scherrer i thought was stella phil hanson uh a star of the race there uh newly uh lifted up to gold status and he was the class of the field at start that race in lmp2 well alan for for fabio shera you're being dropped into the championship winning car the best team best car on the grid great driver line up so there's there's a huge comfort blanket but boy it exposes you if you can't cut it doesn't it so you've got to look at him and go yeah stand up job he's absolutely up to the standard they need in the car well certainly for a professionalism and keeping the car in one piece everything else that's one point but the second point is you have got a very very good reference in two people one hanson on the right side as a young and up and coming and philly p albuquerque is at the top of his game at the moment so the average stats of the thing there and uh as you say he did very well he was quick when he was in dtm a little bit inconsistent but now he's got into this it looks like it maybe fits his style that little bit better as you said though graham to be able to have a run through one season then a six-month break and then come back fighting and to come out with such a dominant strong performance as they have then you know the structure behind united auto sports it isn't there by chance yeah yeah and it's built and it's built and it's built and we've seen them coming and coming and coming particularly graham and i who spend a lot of time watching michelangelo cup races and then european le mans series races they've always been getting better and better and better and better and here they are you know conquering the world stage with impunity lemon winners they'll go in august to defend that lmp2 title whether ladyluck smiles on them again or not is entirely a separate question but they've got the they've got the ability in spades and what they've got as well not only are the points on the board are another great calling card to slap on the desk of any manufacturer coming in this new era going looking for a quality team we can help yeah and of course you know it's not just the guys here richard dean is the man on the ground but zach brown who's the other co-owner of the team is very much a man who moves in in those big circles where you may well find manufacturers looking for teams to run their car and don't forget you know there's lots of history for that you look at one lemon with mazda you know nearly one lemon with toyota and in between with chrysler you know teams like that who can engineer a car really really handy i mean yost have got a bit of history which is what happened so as alan well know so you know all these guys all these teams that are putting themselves in the frame there's a lot of reasons for that there are class winners after the season opener here at spa and what a race it was [Music] the first of may spa franca shaw the sun shining a beautiful race track a challenging field packed full of talent with lots of new cars new teams and a whole new category to contemplate hypercar made its debut toyota gazoo racing locked out the front row with their two zero 10 hyper cars and in third place phil hansen for united auto sports the car that led lmp2 qualifying and hanson was not hanging around waiting for the toyotas to sort out their private battle he went right by them at the start to take the lead briefly for lmp2 in the gte pro class a stunning lap with the 92 porsche on pole and despite early challenges from ferrari it was rarely headed 10 laps the number seven toyota led then the number eight was waved through because it was seeming to be a quicker car at this stage alpine were betting themselves in gently with their number 36 car the third hyper car plenty of action throughout the gt category in pro lots of close racing as we've always come to expect in the lmp2 class including this heart in the mouth moment for the wrt team as their young superstar ferdi habsburg went side to side down through our rouge contact between the number seven toyota and the 91 porsche it already had one puncture that caused another and after four hours of racing the first yellow flags and full course caution alpena this stage looked very much potentially a race winner particularly as toyota's number seven car locked up and steered off into the gravel this car had already had a number of off track excursions and contact with the porsche kazuki kobayashi put it in the gravel and cost them a chance of victory [Music] senior tech leading at this stage struggling to get back up to speed on cold tires g drives 26 car their better place car had an oil leak that put them out of the race senior check recovered to take the battle to toyota into the closing stages the 92 porsche was almost never headed in the gte pro class a starry weekend for them 22 united auto sports in front almost without exception in lmp2 and the overall race win the first of the hypercar era went to toyota number eight ttr 010 claiming the first hypercar win the number seven car claiming the first hyper car pole and there was not a drop of rain a flash of lightning probably the racing would have been a bit washed out because of it so we had a great racing in all four classes the governing bodies have stratified gap between hypercar and lmp2 but still they were very competitive with the hyper cars in the gt classes while the 92 porsche had the upper hand today will they have the upper hand in portimou don't bet on it and 83 the a of course a team that won last year's gte am title have started off their title defense in the perfect manner with vichy 77 dempsey pros on car run out of go g drive 26 ran out of oil arc bratislava didn't start because of a fuel leak and gr they didn't start either because of a crash on the out lap from the pit lane other than that reliability was very strong indeed wrt dropped back with a clutch issue and after contact the iron lynx cars finished in 27th and 28th with the iron dames just ahead of their male rivals well let's get down to our winners united auto sports in lmp2 the victors let's hear from poleman and superstar philip alberkirk win it was just such a dominant ride for all of you yeah it it definitely was the perfect week i mean we started on monday and uh it was a perfect execution from everyone in united we were super happy with the car we dominate the prologue the the pre-practice qualifying the race and it's not just one person i think it's the bond between the team engineer drivers everyone together that made a difference and i must say that phil and fabio as a rookie they did amazing i mean when it's like this obviously uh i'm super lucky to be on the car because it's just a dream to to be working like this well done well thank you very much thanks well what a well-full battle it was they did have a penalty for infraction in the first full course yellow but their gap ahead of the rest of the field was so strong that they survived that without losing the lead graeme yeah absolutely and what we know in all four classes now is to win a world championship you've got to beat the best we now know who the best are in each of those classes and and some that's the level the rest of them have now got to get to that level well we'll try and catch up with our gt pro winners as well and neil jarni in the 92 porsche here's the podium the overall podium there's mike conway from the number a little bit of new car issues they could have been victorious second place for albion but andre negro nico lapierre and majia vasivir that are race winners the number eight toyota sebastian buemi kazuki nakajima and brendan hartley and ttr's team representative on the podium [Music] congratulations everyone you can take your truck representing toyota racing of their presents for as well overall classification of this f-i-a-w-e-c six hours of spa phone control thank you guys so hypercar makes its power the top flight of sports car racing which includes the cars here lemon hyper car and will also in the fullness of time include the interversion the lmdh cars which we expect to see from the likes of audi and porsche ferrari coming as well in 2023 2022 we should see peugeot return to top flight sports car racing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so here's a look at our points in the world endurance drivers championship brendan hartley kaz nakajima and said the victory here gives them 25 points one of three races this year that will give 25 points for victory two will give points and a half that will be the next race the eight hours of port amount of the season finale the eight thousand bahrain and one will give double points and that will be the vanca do more in august our podium here [Music] porsche kevin esch a new boy neil johnny second position going to the 51 ferrari alessandro pierre guidi [Applause] his teammate james collado daniel sarah and miguel molina that is the new lineup in the newly renumbered what was 71 car now 52 car for this season so a of course is ferraris claiming second and third porsche first and fourth antonio garcia and olly gavin in the corvette finishing fourth on the road but they are not points scoring at full season entries so that means that uh jimmy bruni and richard leetz are fourth place fifth in the gte drivers title is the top car in the am class alessia rivera francois parado in the 83 ferrari that they share with nick nielsen so those drivers also as neil johnny pointed out if you get a zero you won't just be behind pros you'll be behind the am class drivers as well i gotta gonna correct a stat two other drivers have done another p1 and gt pro uh we'll go through an interview but uh mark lieb and roman dumaine kevin esther when i said to you at the beginning of this race that you would have that lead still at the end you didn't quite believe it but that was just incredible yeah i think we we had a perfect race to be honest but i i didn't believe it because i i knew ferrari was strong um and they were strong just there was some small part of the race or some small details in the race which maybe we did better because we got a few seconds gap and then the gap was holding so uh in the end in terms of pace we were just a little better but um no i'm really proud of the of the 92 team of neil he did a mega job for his first race in in gt in wec first victory and i think we had a perfect weekend paul maybe fastest lap and and race win so it's uh it's great to finish the championship as we ended it last year congratulations to both of you well done thank you so great end to the season and start to the following season for the 92 car change your driver lineup with michael christensen no longer with kevin esch but with neil jarni in the squad they don't seem to have missed a beat do they but ferrari second and third and as he said it's it's now down to tiny details tiny increments it's all about sweating the small stuff to make a difference in a field that is this competitive always was in gtu pro whether it's two manufacturers as there is this year or five it's still not easy to get your nose in front and if you can do you've got to do everything you can to keep it there and they did i will add to martin that was not a tiny increment in qualifying that was stellar stuff that no that wasn't tiny anything and uh it's not even a downhill sport so having cajones that large didn't help with gravity [Music] lmp2 podium uh racing team netherlands so this is our uh they're there in fourth place there are pro um winners so they joined the podium as well third place the crew of the number 28 jota sport car and that uh race was finished by tom blonker shares with stopper van dawn and sean gale 38 the jota sport car in second place and davidson antonio felix to costa roberto gonzalez but the star spangled banner for our winners united auto sports [Music] so united auto sports flip albuquerque team up again joined by fabio for the first time and they haven't broken step either there's racing team netherlands fourth place overall for the 29 car fritz van impe go to vandergarden yup and they are the pro classification winners take the first win in that challenge in the wec fritz also by the way the first ever bronze driver to have taken an overall win in lmp2 to complete that set yeah they had a great year last year and it looks as though they're going to have a great year this year too for jota last year running a goodyear tire that's very different from this year's goodyear tire didn't have an awful lot of extra experience very happy philip albertkirk with fabio sherry the new boy on the right there of your picture and phil hansen and they lead the standings they also got the extra point for polls so 26 points for them and davidson antonio felix de casa and roberto gonzalez in second sean galileo stoffel vandoorne and tom blondquist in third ahead of fritz van impe uh in the racing team netherlands car with uh kiera van der garde so united lead from jota and racing team netherland into europol and real team racing also top six results for them richard mille racing team did what they needed to do at the beginning of the season get the car through in one piece have a clean race have a confidence inspiring race i think we will see more performance from the number one car as the season progresses driver's title race fritz manette go to vandergaard leading in a pro-am category racing team netherland also on top of the pro-am category as a result of that race win in pro-am well let's hear now from our gte and winners from the glamorous and hardworking luis beckett she caught up with francois perotto guys uh in gtm the the lead was changing but you in the 83 you managed to get it in the end yeah it was a it was a tough start car 33 is really fast they made a good break and then um i struggled to um to do two stints in a row so alice joe jumped in so that changed the strategy a little bit but uh that was a good race that's the beauty of endurance so many things can happen in six hours so he put in an amazing uh triple stint and then nicholas just brought her home great start for the season that's exactly the start you want isn't it exactly exactly can't wait for portugal now great thank you thank you francois might need to do a little bit more training before portugal he said six months off it's his first time back in the car and physically no i cannot do a double luckily alessia rivera could do a triple and what a triple he did he's definitely down as a star name from this race weekend nick nielsen we expect to be as quick as he was ben keating dylan pereira felipe fraga the new lineup in the tf sports bright blue aston martin they took second and poll so they get 19 points and third for the 47 car from chester they had a very competitive start as well to their careers as gtam races roberto lacour giorgio cena giotto gian joined by antonio fuoco so the champions start their title defense in the best possible manner with victory the extra point for pole though means they only have a five point lead over the 33 card [Music] so [Music] italian national anthem often referred to as the national anthem of motor racing and that plays out for a of course a claim picture here tf sport though not only with pole position but a really strong race from both cars from the 33 car and the triple 7 d station entry that could be very well worth watching as the season progresses chetila though and graham you know they had a troubling couple of years in lmp2 they struggled to be competitive what a relief it is to find that in fact they are still very competitive once they get a car that they can get their head around here with the ferrari and they will be proud of that it's a very very italian effort in a multinational series of podiums it's a uni national uh italian step on that podium of course with that 25 points uh for the win tf sport with 19 points for second place and that pole position keeps that gap nice and close to six points four points back to general racing then the 54 way of course a car coming on strong at the end there that you know dominant from the 83 car but there was absolute entertainment behind and the tf sport car as we said earlier in the broadcast had it not been for that incident where um where ben keating was nerfed off would have been right in the mix at the end of that race yep iron links with work to do to bring their speed up but again it's day one in the new big school for them they've graduated from the european le mans series and they will be learning fast we've seen what they can do in european le mans series action when they've got their handle on the car and i don't expect it to be much different here well what a great race in all four classes it was competitive it was close there was more than just a couple of cars to keep your eye on it's been a very very busy race and for the most part very clean indeed just three caution periods no safety cars no major shunts or incidents there are a couple of heart in the mouth moments with a little bit of contact but in the end actually the prologue was far more damaging qualifying was far more damaging than six hours around spa frankishon so hats off to all the teams to all the drivers and to all the officials who have made it happen and again to the fia for being able to somehow get motor racing back underway it was one of the first sports that started again after lockdown at the beginning of this covert 19 pandemic and continues to be able to bring a little bit of light relief around the globe and just from time to time that can be very important and motor racing might seem a little frivolous sometimes but it does bring excitement passion and a bit of enjoyment at a time when we need it most and hopefully when we get to the roller coaster of portugal in portugal next time out we will have even more of the same certainly it's a circuit that can provide some fantastic racing till then from the whole world endurance tv crew here from duncan vincent from louise beckett from graham goodwin from alan mcnish from our crew in the truck and around the circuit from the martin haven thank you for being with us thank you for joining us we'll see you the middle weekend of june not at le mans but at portimao for round two of the fia world endurance championship until then stay safe have fun and keep the endurance spirit alive [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: FIAWEC

Views: 187,784

Rating: 4.9520707 out of 5

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Id: sUCYqjtIAR0

Length: 425min 43sec (25543 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/CHILLI112]

Well that’s a little bit quicker than previous years

[u/BCNBammer]

This is remarkably quick. Maybe it’s to capitalize on the Hypercar hype, maybe this year they just plan on releasing them much earlier. Nevertheless, they always release them before the next race, so with a compressed schedule this year I doubt we’ll have to wait a lot between race and release.

[u/Nomat16]

I wonder why it’s better quality than on the WEC app. Love the smooth 60fps on YouTube but on the app it’s definitely lower unfortunately.

[u/Ardor_Technica]

Take a shot every time they say "hypercar" and "new era".