8 Hours of Portimao: Full race replay

[Applause] [Music] the stunning algarve coast of portugal is the venue for the second race in the 2021 fia world endurance championship the eight hours of portugal it marks the first visit of the world endurance championship to this roller coaster track that was built around a dozen years ago it produces fantastic visuals for the driver an enormous challenge for the car good morning everybody welcome to portomale martin haven allen manish graham goodwin louise beckett and duncan vincent your crew ready to take you through eight hours of very close quarters racing on this demanding circuit and amargar big news stories alan the first new hypercar since the beginning of the season the glickenhaus has arrived fantastic to see it we've seen a lot about it social media all the way through its build-up process and then testing was live there you could follow it online but now to see it in the flesh and actually out on track proving that actually it's got a little bit of speed about it as well as some looks second round of the 2021 season we began in spa franco shot a month ago very similar kind of circuit a real old-fashioned feel to portimao although it's only a dozen years old you really feel that it could have been built in the 1950s or 60s we then head on to monza before le mans in august finishing off our season with fuji and bahrain on the calendar so we've got six hour races eight hour races and 24 hour races in this championship four classes as ever hyper car now is the top category and that includes le mans hypercars which are racing here and the yet to come lemon daytona hybrids which will also compete on a level footing we've got lmp2 prototypes and then in our gt classes gte pro and am and whatever you're driving alan this is just a fantastic circuit the kind that makes an old guy want to pull his race suit back on certainly when i was out there looking at the cars in practice it does give you a smile especially as it rises up from turn five in the middle of the track through seven eight dips through nine and then up again ten eleven then a huge roller coaster through 12 13 up to 14 before that long long dipping downhill adverse camber right hand leading on to this big long starting finish and with air temperatures being quite a consistent 22 degrees the track temperature is the thing that everybody's looking at because that's been going from the 34 as it is now 10 30 local time up to 50 degrees celsius by the middle of the day well there is the scg scg007 let's hear from the man whose dream this is luis beckett's with jim glickenhaus well yes it is the first time we've been here in portugal but another first for the wec is that bickenhouse has finally joined us welcome first of all how are you feeling ahead of this i mean i feel the excitement oh it's so emotional to be here i mean the weck is the pinnacle of sports car racing in the world and to be competing in the top class the le mans hyper car class this is the first time the two le mans hyper cars toyota and us will race each other with of course the grandfathered alpine but it's history it's emotion and its passion and there's just been so much work leading up to this point absolutely i mean this car went from a sketch i made on a piece of paper or a napkin i don't remember and then we did the design the engineering the arrow the testing getting the drivers tweaking the car trying to keep it a little bit like the old days like a 917 a 512 s ferrari a lola t70 in the look and i think we accomplished that and along the way i mean the 21 and a half million social media interactions we've had with fans it's just been an amazing experience well jim you are certainly one to follow on twitter that's for sure it's great um how important was the look to go along with the performance for you oh it was really really important i mean i think to keep this going and to get the fans in the cars cannot just look like a a formula where they all look the same and i think it's important that if you go back to the great days at le mans where you had the ferrari p34s and you had the ford gts and you had the lola t70s and the porsches and the astons these were dream sports cars as prototypes and i think the wek and the aco is bringing that back and i think that's what's going to keep this going for a long long time and i really look forward to convergence when companies like porsche and audi and acura and peugeot will join and i look forward to ferrari joining le mans hyper car and 2023 will be the first um opening teaser in the glickenhaus ferrari wars the movie of course that will come out yeah it's going to be great thank you i'll speak to you during the race thank you jim thank you so much we're going to need eight hours graeme goodwin he summed up the future of hypercar there didn't he named almost everybody except bmw who bmw north america's boss accidentally splurged on social media a couple of days ago that they are coming as well so it is the dawn of what could be an absolutely epic era of sports car racing it's two things that was great to hear it from the horse's mouth and not calling your horse by the way but uh but the two things coming together here the opportunity for the manufacturers and the opportunity to for people of passion and vision and i hope jim's not going to be the only one on that list i don't think he will be as things actually roll out as people see the opportunities to perhaps you know um to perhaps benefit from the investment that people like licking house have made in the chassis to do what they want to do at the back of that car and to wrap it in any way they see fit that's what this could mean it could mean a click and have chassis called something completely different there's no reason why not there's all sorts of opportunities and we are going to see some extraordinary grits and some extraordinary racing here in the wec over in north america in the in the weathertech sports car championship and in particular from 2022 2023 and beyond that at the le mans 24 hours there is a brand new shiny golden era coming and that passion is the the door opening for that looking here all the way through our gte anfield we didn't quite get the kessel racing ferrari castle racing joining the season the series for the first time so roberto lacourte in the chetila racing car lying second and team project wants echidio perfetti will be our gte am a pole sister just ahead of fellow porsche driver christian reed in the gte am qualifying like everywhere else it's a single driver uh shoots out now there's a gdo had some very quick laps couple were disallowed but in the end managed to get one together and put him matteo cairoli and ricardo pereira in second place on the gte m lineup a big on pole position in the gt um lineup just ahead of christian reed manguela gosner setting the lap for iron links that put the iron dame's car in fourth place well let's get down to the front of the grid alpine having their first french pole position here in wac let's hear from nicola another first indeed alpine making it your first poll in hypercar nico you've got to be happy with that performance but we know it's going to be a tough eight hours for you yeah sure but it's always better to start in the front you know it was a great lap from macho yesterday super exciting qualifying and it was really close so we are pleased to be here obviously we know it's eight hours it's gonna be hot traffic is difficult to manage here as well with a lot of blind corners but uh it's it's looking good so we see uh there's a big question mark about the fuel so we see how much longer toyota can go on the stint and how much harder we have to push on track but no i'm super excited about being here and starting from pole position for helping our tire's going to be a factor for you it was not so bad to be honest in the free practice and it looks like toyota the same kind of deck than we had so i don't think tires would be a big issue right here i think it will be more about traffic management and fuel uh long long streams and other points you were saying to me yesterday points where you can take advantage they can take advantage on this track yeah we've seen that the lap time is made completely different like uh we are very fast in the last corner they are much faster in first and second sectors so we're gonna see how does it affect on the on the race if they can overtake us or not at the beginning hopefully not but um yeah let's see i think it's going to be an interesting battle yeah i think it will be thank you very much you're welcome thank you thank you nico thank you louise two very different cars from very different starting points and what you want in endurance racing is cars that look different sound different and have different strengths so there's really only one notifiable straight and you're looking at it here so if the alpine can be quick down that straight and distance itself from toyota before the toyota advantage comes in with their hybrid then maybe alpine have a good chance to stay in front yeah they will have at least one further fuel stop with the fuel mileage we can talk about that as we get into the race 52 car there which got its lap time back by the way after qualifying and to note there's some yellow highlights on that car that will help us to pick out between the two uh ferraris this week yeah some idiot won't be able to spot that though one quick thing to add a couple of quick things to add about that alpine effort it's the first ever overall pole position by a french team in the wec it is of course the first ralph that's astonishing that that could amazing even be a fact given how much of a sort of french-based series this has always been and good to see the the grouping we've got here plus nicolapia amongst our what we uh we call an alumni from portimao in years past nick lapierre winning back here in 2010 in the le mans series in a peugeot operated by orica jimmy bruni a couple of race wins in gte back in the day when he was with ferrari more recently christian reed in that group three wins here in the elms for christian looking to make it four here uh this weekend there's a few drivers for whom this is absolutely brand new and a few for whom they probably have their regular room in the hotel where they normally stay for european le mans series interesting to note in the gte pro class that the ferraris have stuck with their two driver lineup for the first time we've got the what we expect to be lemon lineup of three drivers in both of the factory gte pro porsches so fred mcaviga you saw joining there michael christensen joining the sister car and it hasn't been announced but you would expect that those triumvirates will also race together at monza so that they are ready to go best wishes being sent back home by the porsche team so they're ready to go to le mans let's hear from brendan hartley at toyota you can see it on the car there the 100th anniversary of uh international racing for you brendan can you make it a good one i hope so it's a long way around here eight hours i mean i know it's it's eight hours but this tracks quite small for these cars uh we know the the gap between the hyper car or the you know the xl and p1 is much tighter with the lmp2 so traffic's going to be quite a different element as it was in spa but yeah we feel good about it it's going to be a tight race with the lp and hopefully hopefully glinka now will get through the the rp2 traffic as well i know they had some some small issues in qualifying so yeah it's going to be a tough one and hopefully we can finish on the podium and it was really close for you yesterday in qualifying actually very yeah we we actually decided to try and qualify on an old set of tyres it's a long story but it was definitely the wrong decision so we we just got out of the end to put another new set of tyres i think we only had eight seconds crossing the line before we we managed to put it on the front row which which was nice but we put we put ourselves under a bit of unnecessary stress let's say to get the the the second place uh how are you gonna manage it it's really quite hot here the wind is an issue especially with the undulation of the track yeah it's windy i'd say our car has been quite good in the windy conditions um less effective than the old lmp1 car but the undulation in the track and and the fact that there's a few blind corners makes the traffic quite quite difficult i think that's going to be a big topic and but yeah the opinions on the long run they look like we're quite a similar place maybe they're even faster we're going to have different strategies on fuel so yeah we'll have to see at the end we've got a good eight hours ahead of us then thank you cheers thanks brendan yeah no no doubt about it everybody reckons this is going to be really tough on pasta he said there's a few blind corners what he actually meant is there are two where you can see where you're going ben hanley having a last-minute chat there in the dragon speed car with teammate juan pablo montoya and uh just to bring a little bit of pressure to the danish lineup kevin magnussen his dad yan racing here this weekend kevin took pole in below belle isle detroit for the imsa race and then went on to win it yan one pole position down in the dads versus lads racing stakes already today so those guys are high class they need a class win whether they get it or not remains to be seen but the good news is that kevin andyan will be sharing a car we believe for the le mans 24 hours 100 so difficult family dinner to come for young magnus unless this turn that's been the right way for them here they have a tricky uh session in uh qualifying high class racing this is the real team racing car run by tds uh racing 70 car with esteban garcia matthias besch stepping in here fellow duval who's busy elsewhere this weekend and norman nato it's a great lmp2 field here this this circuit does suit those cars remember there's a different specification for b2 here there's no real comparison to be made with the times we've seen recently from the uh elms cars toyota they're here to race of course today but they'll be back on tuesday for their big pre-lamont 30-hour endurance test with a new test driver riya hirokawa part of the total young drivers uh program here to replace sebastian brami who's off i think a formulary duty this is the 34 car this is into europol competition our polish team they've been right up there all week and particularly that car in the hands of alex brundle they found the speed i think they're still working hard on finding the the rhythm in the pits it is work in progress from that team big investment from them uh in the engineering side in the offseason including uh their chief engineer the ex-tota uh engineer rafa who's now in charge of the 34 car and it looks a completely different setup wrt with two wins from three starts in the european le mans series on their first full-time venture into lmp2 they did race once previously two or three years ago with an lmp2 car but they are on very fine form the alpine guys nico lapierre and the crew uh feeling fairly relaxed with pole position phil hanson there shares with wayne boyd and paul derester so phil hansen is now the only driver in that car who did the spa race wayne boyd in for fabio shera who tested positive unfortunately a couple of days ago wayne boyd has raced for the team in lmp3 he's a reigning michele le mancup lmp3 champion in fact so he knows this track well and it's a great chance for him to step up to lmp2 at the world championship here's the local hero there is no felipe albuquerque in 22 because he's in belle isle uh was in belle isle or probably still is in bellar michigan for the imsa race uh so we could have had two portuguese drivers on the grid but we have antonio felix de costa the reigning formula e champion and of course local knowledge will be key for him although he's never raced here like so many british drivers don't get to race on the silverstone grand prix circuit in junior categories when he was racing in portugal and in all the categories he's raised in he never once came here so although it is quote home it is not a track he knows any better than a lot in the field we're going to hear now the portuguese national anthem and there is our grid lined up for us [Music] live [Music] but so will we hear that at the end of the eight hours of quarterback well we'll wait to see we will have of course podiums for all our class winners hypercar nmp2 pro am gte pro and gte am looking here at racing team netherland third fastest in the lmp2 category fritz van edd job far night at gator van der garde starting loving the sunshield on the front i am speed very good indeed lovely little touch there the teamer so much fun to be around and really enjoying their racing there is a big lmp2 field at the front of which were the two jota sport cars 38 started by afdc antonio phillips de costa shares who repaired gonzalez and davidson both jota sport cars with a very solid lineup indeed the lmp2 pole though went to the number 28 car and that will be started or that hole was earned by tom blongfist he shares with stoffel vandoorne and sean gale and talking of uh former jota run drive who's bumped into jasmine jafar in the paddock last night who is fermenting plans to return he is and uh it was looking to see what that was all about he's bringing some young aspirin engineers uh from malaysia to work with a number of organizations including the center of excellence that is jota of course and that's great to see in these straightened times actually to get investment going into the likelihood that international motorsport will return to southeast asia at some point but he was in good form and yes um i think there are plans a thought aren't there definitely i mean he would love to be racing back here again but at the moment putting back some of what he's got out third on our grid and the third of our hyper cars is the number seven toyota they lost their best lap with track limits and again like the number eight had to have a last-gasp run to try and get themselves ahead of the lmp2 cars for a long while it did look like we might have an lmp2 pole sitter number eight was the better of the two toyotas it will start on the outside of the front row sebastian bremi kazuki nakajima brendan hartley the winners in spa over number seven they are our championship leaders and there are points and a quarter or a half gram for this race i have forgotten that it's 150 so race winner here is 38 points so portland context finishing second here is two more points you get for winning a six hour race and nico lapierre is the starting driver for our pole sitter the alpine elf map run by philipsino's senior tech team and as the toyota driver has been very happy to point out as often as possible it is a grandfathered lmp1 car it's not exactly as it ran as a rebellion what's more the next time we see an alpine elf mount mud on the grid it will be a brand new chassis so they are still working hard to bring their performance up in the glicken glickenhaus richard westbrook will take the start in this absolutely unique looking car it's got no other sort of echoes or chimes of anything on the grid it's a very bold project and jim glickenhaus you know he made movies with money that he made in the stock market and he was used then to having an idea and creating it on celluloid now he's had an idea and has created it from carbon and aluminium and alloys and rubber and oil and gas and it's the same deal have an idea make it happen and of course this daniel serra should after qualifying have been the very last car on the grid but a lap was disallowed because of track limits at turn 14 was reinstated for him and for one other car and so they end up actually in the middle of the gt pack with their gte pro rivals and just ahead of a judo perfetti the white nose car there from project wonder who's our gte am pole sitter but he didn't actually buy at the end of qualifying looked like he hadn't recorded a lap that had been allowed so we have 32 cars on the grid what started out as an overcast cloudy and temperate sort of 18 degree morning has seen the cloud burn off very quickly indeed onshore breeze is helping with that overnight but it is going to mean that the track temperature continues to rise this surface that was relayed in uh preparation for last year's formula one grand prix here is going to absorb the heat very quickly [Music] [Music] talk to kevin ester on the track walk a couple of days ago and said from lap one you're going to be looking after the tires aren't you that's what that was all about that teaches us perhaps that estra is not on brand new tires for the start of the race here's our grid nico lapierre for alpine leads away from sebastian buemi and toyota driver jose maria lopez tom blondquist is our lmp2 pulsator ahead of teammate antonio felix de costa and guido van der garde lining up third in p3 phil hanson and robin freems for united and wrt are row four of the grid and the easiest car on the planet to spot from space alex brundle for into europol ahead of norman nato in the real team p2 car then the glickenhaus that's the hypercar of richard westbrook with ben hanley alongside in the 21 dragon speed entry anders field back in the dane train ahead of our gte pro uh ahead of rather by scavissa who hopefully will take the start for arc bratislava he's alongside our gt pro pulsator kevin est james collado and the ferrari and jimmy bruni on row 9 and row 10 daniel serra and am pole sitter a gdo perfetti right behind him fellow porsche driver christian reed and roberto la courtes the best qualified ferrari in the am class ahead of francesco castellachi manuela gosner francois peroto and castle racing newcomers with takeshi kimura a slew of four ferraris ahead of the best aston marcos gomesh starts the 98 car ahead of tomono fuji in the d station carp mike wainwright for gr in his porsche with ben keating's aston alongside him and the final row of the grid claudio schiavoni in the 60 iron links car and dominic bastian the oldest man in the field in the dempsey proton 88 car so that is your 32 car lineup and we will hear in just a moment from our race director eduardo freitas at home here in portugal where he started his marshalling career some 30 years ago [Music] great view there of the driver super calm but just agitated to get on with it we're ready the door is closed the team have left him on his own and he now wants to start this race and alan mcnish you've been in that position so many times if you're sitting on pole the thing you are going through in your mind now is how am i getting away from the rolling start when are the lights going to change and where on earth are those toyotas going to be you've got a plan you need to execute it well certainly if you're on pole position it's very different if you're on the second or third row in pole position you're controlling the field running to the line you'd control when you accelerate and in theory you're trying to block any attack into that first corner if you're second or in the lmp2s as we see now reeling off the grid for example uh the 22 car there that was very quick but didn't maybe get the qualifying that it thought it was going to have it's how do you then try to make hate how do you attack get one or two cars at the beginning so you've got a strategy but that strategy is affected by what everybody else around you does just a little moment of palpitation at 709 the glickenhaus kind of rolled away a little bit slowly looks like westy is up to speed though in the car weaving to build a little bit of heat because although the tyres came out of the oven they've been sitting and cooling rapidly haven't they look faster than a cup of tea these things cool down yeah they cool down behind the safety car if you don't do that try and get some energy into them and you weave around you also hit the brake pedal very hard accelerate hard and that brake pedal heats up the brake discs and pads which then goes into the rim which then goes into the tire and so therefore there's quite a few things you do with the hybrid system and the toyota they've got other systems that allow them to influence it as well but here we see the clicking house that was a little bit slow she said off the line they had a couple of electronic issues with the gearbox in practice but hopefully that's not uh afflicting them through the course of this race safety car driver pedro cashiero i have a feeling we will see him probably during the course of this race it is a tight twisting it's a relatively short lap monster will be the shortest lap in the world endurance championship at just over four and a quarter kilometers it's 4.6 k's here and look at this you know cars vanish from sight and then pop up over the brow and if that happens for the cameras then alan it's the same for the drivers stuff's over the brow that you can't see you are really reliant on the marshalls here you certainly are you always very reliant on the marshals anyway and they do a superb job but at the same point at this type of corner there's a lot of different lines and traffic is going to be a big factor in this race how do the lmp2 cars sort of get through the gt cars because at some points the gts are as quick and the apex speed as anybody else on the circuit actually right here through here to this tight left-hander i've seen a lot of p2 cars shoot up the inside because they've got the aero grip that will allow them to do it as the gt cars have to wander out wide now everybody's got to line up side by side they should have done in theory before the previous corner but getting ready in preparation for the safety car to pull into the pit lane and that will leave the 36 alpine who is going to be on pole position able to lead let's hear from them now we're going to go i wish you that was that good thank you thank you okay here we go you can see that the gt pulsator kevin ester has been asked to hold the gt field back a little because they don't want to have everybody piling into potentially a big accident eight hours of portimao race two of the fia world endurance championship is about to get underway the blue car is the pole sitter red and white alongside starting their 100th world championship race toyota hypercars first second and third l p two car in fourth place what is the p2 pulsing that tom blonkfish gonna do great start from the alpene of nico lapierre watch the p2 cars racing team led and get a van to guard around the outside the gt cars have closed already on the back of the clicking house that runs out wise and just about everybody makes it through right yellow castle ferrari around goes 28. leading lfc tom blanco has spun it around it not sure if he got a tap there but just in the middle as you can see a lot of cars weaving around running wide off circuit porsche leading gt cars also running wide and i think it's a real struggle at the moment to get the tires up to temperature there mark martin 22 united up to second place behind the 38 car antonio felix de caster that chrome red and white that's high class racing good start for them and for the boy brundle alex brundle in 34 the inter europa car up to fourth position but our p2 pole sitter facing the wrong way in traffic not a great start to their race certainly not for jota they were one two antonio felix de costa as well as dropped down to third place and that's already with his teammates spinning so for the certainly for jota it's not the ideal first half of the lap it was an odd start there guys we saw the uh the lmp cars backing themselves up to take the uh the the light change but the gte cars came past it at a pace that's why they're in amongst the back end of the lmp2s as well as an instance at turn two bit of the head shakes there no front end grip in the high-class racing machine and through goes brandle he's leaning on those not yet up to temperature tires he wants to move up for into europol and that was a good bold pass he moves up to eighth place that's fifth in p2 but here comes the high-class car coming right back at him the outside line is the one to have here alan well that's it that's exactly the breaking problem we saw that this was caused by low tire temperatures in the beginning in the previous corner brundle was he was quite robust he got his elbows already pushed and shoved but ultimately he's managed to keep the place however one person that had a very good first lap very very slow up to the line to make sure the toyotas didn't have too much time to use their hybrid boost uh was the alpine and that was strategically very very good we'll hear from nicola lapierre beautiful i think that's quite clear he's got a nice 2.3 second gap over the toilet he can control the situation now all arms and elbows in gte am the car with the blue highlights is christian reed started second he's leading ahead of ego profession but look at the d station aston aston did not qualify strongly have they got more in race pace tomo fuji in that d station triple seven car in amongst them and he started four cars from the back of the field we saw this in spa the car didn't qualify strongly but as soon as the race started he was right on it and behind him just a couple of cars back is the 98 aston paul dalai lana starting that one he's all over the back of the iron dame's ferrari of manuel augustus so there's been a lot of changes in ttem in the first lap already two and a half seconds the good uh nick lapierre he's got the hammer down knows how to win here one here more than a decade ago the decent power peugeot there's the leader in lmp2 but also in pro-am as well guido vanguard are certainly the pro in that pro-am side of things but racing team netherlands have got themselves to the front and uh right behind them robin friends in wrt now wrt struggled a little bit in qualifying but they seem to sort of get a bit of feel for it however behind is jota and antonio felix de costa still struggling hasn't quite got the pace that uh we may be suffering and qualifying because phil hansen who's fourth in the united also sport flashing the lights and i would say that hans is definitely the quicker of those two but he needs to make the move soon because at the moment van der garden friends are just starting to eke away and he doesn't want to get held behind the costa too long yeah it's clear for the body language that phil hanson believes he's the quickest driver as well in that pair here's the 51 ferrari in second place behind kevin estra is the better of the two ferraris in qualifying james collado starts that he shares with his world champion teammate james collado right behind kevin ester and esther in a world of good form at the moment won the nurburgring 24 hours last weekend came here and blitzed everybody in qualifying and is leading in gte pro as our race leader outright nico lapierre cruises across the line north of 300 kilometers an hour in that uh lp yeah but quickest on that last lap was sebastian where made the toyota that was second only a couple of times quicker but it was in that first and second sector of the lap and the toyotas i think are starting to come into their sort of speed performance area at the moment but certainly robin finz is right on the back of uh guido van der garde at the moment friends is the one that looks to be making most of those sort of attacking moves about 131 midwanted he wants the moment to pace in the three leading hypercars two seconds off that the lmp2s uh with the clicker now still trying to make his way through that traffic after being caught up with the melee in the start yeah the problem with the glickenhaus uh is that it's quick but not in the areas of the circuit that allows it to overtake very easily and so it's got to sort of muscle its way and sometimes be a little bit patient i think their game is very different their game is their first race they want to make sure they execute a clean and tidy race from the drivers and also from the teams and the pits and everything else and so i think it's a little bit more thought of the future as opposed to the here and now it is a brand new team put together for this campaign so yes they'll learn more from eight hours of going round and round in circles than they will from 20 minutes of fighting their way up and then having a major issue gtam battle dempsey proton 77 50 16 project one car that's the mentos porsche and behind triple seven the d station racing aston they've now got company from behind in the form of the 54 a of course a ferrari of francesco the young italian all over the back of this battle the aston though domino bufuji sticking his nose almost down the inside of ajidio perfetti and it does look as though the aston has got more pace right now than the porsches and the ferrari perhaps even more than any of them yeah the astons could be under remember they've got different tyre options and the aston martin as he's gone down the inside beautiful maneuver very very opportunistic there just perfect to give a little bit of a gap and then boom he was straight down the inside looks like profetti could lose two positions as well with the ferrari going through as well door open there anywhere from turn 13 14 and suddenly you're in real trouble because you're offline you're on the dirtier part of the track and here comes chertilas roberto la court in the blue ferrari and paul dalalana meanwhile in lmp2 graham it's still just as busy for the lead while we're watching lmp2 quick laptops still coming sebastian bruami was closing that gap there's been a response from the alpine quick point debate about tonight fuji to remind you guys he was stellar at the start of the race in spa both fuji sam and cassalacci these two silver drivers starting this race would expect them to come through most of the gtm teams have uh have opted to start with their bronze drivers race directors have looked at the incident for antonio for tom blanquist getting turned around or being turned around as fuji goes through to take a lead of gte m there'll be no further action on lap one and fuji sam has the lead for d-station racing which of course is run by tf sports the same as the pale blue aston martin that's started by ben keating and a change for second comes the ferrari castalacci goes by christian reed as well yeah but just out powered them i think reid's got a problem is a big lock up there yeah but he's a big lockup but look at reed he's just dropped from first to third and it's very very slow in acceleration that's not normal that's not sort of traction tire limited at this stage of the race oh what the inside dalai lana on the italian gets by the ferrari so the aston starting very strongly i wonder if the cooler track temperatures are helping them at the moment will that base fade as well if the sun continues to boil this tarmac and raise the tractor wouldn't be surprised if they were on a slightly different tire compound that may be suited exactly as you said martin for this tire is circuit temperature at the moment it's only and i say only 34 degrees we've had 51 as we see the settler car diving down the inside perfetti went from leading down to fifth in a space of less than one lap five now six yeah so busy times there 29 racing team nedlin leading in lmp2 narrowly from team wrt and we know wrt from years of gt racing but clearly they've now run three races in european le mans they won two of them this is their second world endurance race they have really got a handle on that and here comes paul dalana he goes through as well chantala's roberto la court easing christian reed out into the boonies he's struggling isn't it yeah can't hold on oh you know with uh so this right now the broad uh manor we've got the uh the other p2 class and gtm doubling out the entertainment now the gentleman drivers absolutely fantastic stuff yeah edu perfetti the white car coming back underneath christian reed and three wide ben keating decides maybe that's not the greatest idea another big lock up ahead and i don't think that was the chatelaine carve roberto la court this is all busy busy stuff isn't it kessel racing's takeshi from not quite with this group as they start he's behind ben keating in eighth place in the class then keeping that bright blue aston at the back here looking for a way through that might come at the end of this long front straight marcus gomez not paul delano starting the uh brazilian stockyard champion so what entertainment in this class it looks like very much that if you get overtaken once and muscled out then you just can't recover you can't clean up the tire and get the grip back very quickly we know it's not abrasive we saw how difficult it was in the first laps for drivers but we saw it now with perfecti and also with right there they they just get shuttled straight to the back absolutely ben keating there by the way in the third different aston martin he's raised oh he's he's run so far this season right his brand new car written off in testing at spa and then uh the replacement elements are arriving this is another brand new aston martin this weekend and that's gonna be a good not good vibrations in that car after the lock up that was a long long lock up that one you really want to try and get off the pedal and do some cadence braking where you go on and off the breaks just to try to make sure it doesn't end up square that's a dive ball yeah throws it into the chicane runs out wide christian reed comes back at him and ben keating going come on boy settle down a bit i'm coming through not here he's not they're enjoying this aren't they yeah well it's a wide enough circuit with so many options on lines at corners like this that you can have that type of racing and that's one of the things i like about it is that it gives options for drivers it's not a single line circuit and uh it's a tough circuit but not single line circuit almost every shot you see of this trio get into a corner there's a cloud of tire smoke i mean that's that's gonna spell long hard sessions for these tires if drivers are locking up now with four laps on the tire then it's going to be a very tough time going forward seven toyota in third place goes around claudio schiavone in the number 60 iron links ferrari right in front is the gr racing porsche of mike wainwright so he's already on lap seven in traffic [Music] he was probably already in the traffic by that stage but jose maria lopez flying in third place it's 4.9 seconds back from the leader well there's they've overtaken two of the gte cars but now there is a huge gaggle of the gte cars in fact if you look at all of these ones here all the way back to about what 10th 11th in category and that's what uh lopez has now got to overtake but he can use this to try and catch his teammate yeah uh sebastian boweny who's just a couple of seconds up ahead now here is our race leader right behind ben keating and not too far behind is the yellow kessel racing ferrari in the colours of car guys which i thought there it is top of the brown which we've seen so far in the world endurance championship saw them having some pretty ambitious races last year ben keating still trying to get by christian reid and for the race leader this is where free practice actually pays off up the inside here he was just a little behind achido perfetti all pathetic bobbles off the curbs and that was uh an open invitation for the leader to go through first opportunity and there's traffic to see what we've seen all season so far in the wc and the european model series traffic is a much bigger issue this season because of that re-stratification the classes here he goes through on the inside of christian reed now here is the north west amr aston this is third looking for second we could have an aston one two closing in behind is the alpene alpine's actually been able to sort of make a little bit of a break from sebastian boehme in the toyota with that first couple of cars in traffic it's been quite nice by nicola lapierre there he's uh he's probably gained about another half second with the knowledge as well that now he's got a little bit of clear space as you can see before he gets to the next group of cars and then of course he gets to the back of the pro class and then into lmp2 here's our p2 lead battle it is still racing team netherlands gear van der garde leading pro am as well from robin freeze in the wrt car and in the pits is 88 that's dominic bastian now they qualified at last on the grid he's obviously had issues going by the iron dame's ferrari and that car with manuela gosner is in 10th in the am class it's gone backwards since we left the grid refueling first before they do anything else that's just standard it's not that he's down on fuel purely and simply top it up and then do whatever it is you need to do from there door is open on the 88 car so whatever it is battery issue looks like it could be an electronic issue and that is so often the case if it's got all four wheels and it's not a light generally with a modern race car it's electronics through that traffic by the way nicolas has definitely taken a leap forward would have been a lead bubbling around 1.9 2.2 2.3 seconds now almost five seconds so the alpine has managed to get through that traffic quicker than the totals so that's nearly five seconds in ten laps if they can do that all the way through take half a second to lap out of toyota that's unlikely but that was due to traffic though he was able to gain a chunk due to traffic the average has been about two or three tenths of a second maximum and uh so that'll even flow i think at this moment in time if i was nicola lapierre i'd be thinking right okay thank you i've now got a breathing space so i can be a little bit more strategic in traffic robin friends definitely not thinking that at all leo van der garde he's the one that's just like locked up a little bit friends has got to run at him but not quite enough but there's a lot of pressure on guido van der garde have to say we know both of them very well and both of them are absolutely attacking racing drivers yellow at turn three there's been a spin i think that's a real team racing car norman natto's in that car and had a little bit of a pirouette down it turned three back on his weight again look at the inside robin freeze really piling the pressure he's appearing in places that that that gator van der garde doesn't want to see him but that's the thing he's always just trying to move around and that with robin he actually takes a different line if you look into this next corner as well he will normally tuck in a little bit tighter than guido van der garden not in this occasion due to the lap traffic of perfetti in the gt am car but normally just tick and tuck it in that little bit tighter than uh guido van der garde at the moment it's gonna as you said earlier there are a few corners here where it sort of pick a line any line there is the glitter house and there's the rotation for norman nato now was he assisted from behind the 88 car had just come out of the pits i think it was a small small touch and inten unintentionally i'm not sure whether nato closed it down or the porsche ran a little bit wide but a little touch just at that moment in time was enough to send it around we're hearing from louise in the pit lane that the 88 car did have a battery change it's got an electronics issue they're not sure whether that will cure it or whether it's the alternator top three in gte am being passed in one fell swoop at the hairpin and yeah again robin friends didn't have the opportunity to run out wide and carry momentum so in fact that fell nicely as smooth comes the jota sport car of antonio felix de costa he's trying to fight his way through in the corners and you see the minimum speed of the gt cars is is higher than the lmp2 cars in some of these turns and the p2 car loses out well the thing is that actually castellachi who was in the ferrari there he isn't caring about the jota sport car what he's interested in is taking the leap of am at the moment and so he's in his own fight but he's got to be a little bit careful of what's around and about him at the same time so does antonio felix de costa well what what castellatra was hoping to do i think was let felix de costa open the door and push the gtm leader out of the way and he'd follow through there's fritz van impe the boss of jumbo supermarkets he's the man who uh puts the racing team ledlund into racing team netherlands part of that all dutch lineup and a massive supporter of dutch motorsport including i believe the personal sponsor for what max respect oh very much and he has jumbo race days as well as zanford has had for years where entry is free to anybody that wants to come puts on a massive show there he loves motor racing he loves racing here in lmp2 at the world championship free rides amongst other things in a two-seater and p3 car driven by young llamas not sure if that's a a really exciting prospect or quite terrifying because you know that lambers would be out to scare you oh yeah so here's our lead battle in p2 then robin friends still giving chase in the battle of the low countries really isn't it with uh the belgian wrt team behind the dutch racing team netherlands outfit in third place just dropping away a little bit joe to san antonio felix de costa not getting breaks in traffic but and is pulling away a little bit from phil hansel alex brundle and ben hadley see much comments on social media about uh just how spectacular racing is in this track it was a revelation i know to formula one that when they came here no secret to followers of the le mans series the european one series but uh every time you see a race in this place it gathers more and more fans a spectacular piece of tarmac yeah probably is came here in 2010 for world touring cars and if you if you think this is good for these guys imagine a bunch of touring cars well let's take a look at the start and straight away nico lapierre executed his plan big lockup for richard westbrook among uh the rest of the field there got it in neaten tidally [Music] this is going down into the first corner he saw the lockup by the glickenhouse everybody sort of just trying to make their way a little bit looking to the right see what it is and this is what happened to tom blonkus he was not drawn by his teammate my goodness antonio felix the cost of the jota sport team must have been pulling their head out at that one very very lucky for bloncus that he didn't get tagged by anybody else everybody else made it through without hitting that lmp2 that's unbelievable actually given how many cars they were following and lots of cars running out wide alex brundle there this is the view of them coming charging down the hill look at the huge lock up there of course a ferrari you can see there that's the overlap the as we said at the start of the start of the race with the fact that they are b field backing themselves up they were already on the gas with the gte filter when we got into the braking zone gts are already amongst the b2s all right we now have an all-aston battle for second place in gte and francesco has got by for the lead we didn't see that but fuji right ahead of gomez and this is castellacci in the ferrari getting down the outside that's where most of the grip is cuts the nose off the d station aston that was a big bold move certainly was it was quite a few laps in the making because that battle's been swinging since the first corner but uh castellacci's now got himself up there but you know something i honestly did not expect there's two astons on the podium at this moment in time when you looked at the performance that they had in qualifying yesterday we wouldn't have been after 12 laps two astons there stop the count [Music] another thing if you look at that kevin estrella who was the star of qualifying in my opinion yesterday two laps that were good enough for pole position delivered them bang bang without a question he's got so much confidence at the moment but he's also leading by a good uh four seconds however it's not from jimmy bruni's teammate it's actually james collado in the air force and ferrari seemed to struggle a little bit more yesterday but like every race i've seen from the last five six years they always seem to be able to pull something out and especially as the race evolves they seem to get better and better and pull themselves back to the front there's been times when collado has been able to just claw back on kevin astra they've got actually the yeah you see branislava uh legion between the two of them that's a mark of the pace that's coming from the gte brokers at the moment uh but that's estra collado battle has got chapters to write in the next what seven and a half hours no kidding look at the chetila the blue ferrari coming up behind with roberto lacource did qualify third ahead of both of these cars the ferrari probably didn't bring its tyres in at the beginning of the race as quickly as the astons did because they they came forward like they were fired off the deck of an aircraft carrier by a catapult now the ferrari with francesco castellachi leading at roberto la court coming through meanwhile battle between the number one car and that is recovering the man who was on pole on board with bites and blanco is going a long way around the outside now he's going to try and insinuate himself between the astons on the inside and does and back behind him is coming the high class racing entry as well as beggar pardon uh that is the real team racing car of norman nato the blue car that had a spin earlier on as well traffic is going to be a big part of this in every single class yeah and that's the only place where it's not there's paul dalalana watching with interest his north west amr car in third place in the am class gte am gonna look at lap times in the delta and this is something that i always did when i was a driver was a delta between your fastest lap and your average lap then 36 alpine that's leading the x-rays overall nicola lapierre this car is extremely good he's had it 31-1 is his fastest lap his slowest lap is only at 33 6 and the depth of the traffic let's listen to him [Music] so let me go i have just below you i have just the know you problem of radio ah i thought he said originally i've just the lawyer hang on a minute what just that's multitasking so i think that is now a one-way shorter ship radio rather than both ways he's not getting shipped to shore so clearly nico can't talk to the team down the inside comes the real team car and a change for second and i'm not surprised tomorrow fuji can't have much rubber left on those tires he's doing monster lock-ups at least once a lap in the d-station aston so through goes the amr car point he's going slowly very very slowly for the iceland martin coming into the pits i would suggest going down to louise beckett and she said there's a lot of smoke coming from that car earlier with the lockups but i think it's now gone through to the canvas of the tire you would think so wouldn't you and an early pit call for them will put them on the back foot however with seven and a half hours who knows what kind of full course yellow pit stops and strategies are gonna come in triple seven though sinking like a stone he has come into the pits though tomo nobu fuji [Music] here you see him coming up the hill that's i think when it all goes a little bit wrong runs wide right rear or right side anyway now where all those lockups cause or effect was it locking up the tyres that has caused a problem or was there an underlying problem that has caused all those lockouts you see a little bit of rubbing as well yeah and uh they're doing a bit of work refueling before they do anything else apparently louise beckett's down there she said you can smell the sort of the burning sensation as it's been there when you see and they're going to be doing all four tires obviously to try to keep the balance between them when you say cause or effect it's usually an effect you have the first lock up if you don't get off the brake pedal quickly it creates a sort of flat spot and then automatically the next time it just goes to that point and it's it's like a little bit of a an area where it just sits at the bottom and then it multiplies itself on from there and you've got to be very very careful after you hit that first flat spot to try to then be much more careful on the highest brake pressure which is probably about three four tenths of a second into your first attack onto the brake pedal riding on board with joe to sports antonio felix de costa lying in third place chasing the lmp2 battle of racing team ledlund and team wrt those guys are probably a couple of car lengths apart he's about two seconds back from the leader so you can see them just occasionally where there's a bit of a line of sight there you go sweeping down here that's one of the sequences up to the top of the hill where you can actually get a view particularly when you're in gt traffic it's a really good way to pop through well there you go that's shredded the living bejesus out of that hasn't it a lot of damage on that inside edge too much remember there's a lot of camber on the road here and that inside edge gets a heck of a lot of kicking around about the last corner as well without breaking just because of the load on it then it drags it through the long long right hander the aston martin team was telling us before the race alan that they felt they were nowhere on ties and i do wonder whether or not it's just they've taken a chance on something he's not paid off could be he had too many lock-ups to me to be just a debris or something like that i think that's due to there were some absolute monster lock-ups this is a battle now between third place tte roberto la courte in the blue chatelai racing ferrari and the gdo perfetti through comes the race leader and again popping up the hill there on the inside that is a real favorite overtaking place up into uh turn 13 for all of our p2 cars in a gto was getting close but ran out wide down there between two and three great times coming from roberto la corte at the moment matching or just a couple of tens off the times for the silver drivers ahead of him on the road he's loving this uh period of time in this new ferrari for them here's the glickenhaus making its way through richard westbrook and the 709 just outside the top 10 at the moment overall you're absolutely right and this is a conservative run problem isn't it yeah they have to finish they have to learn as much as they can from eight hours there's jim clinton house westy of course has had made plenty of miles in porsche 911s over the years so he knows exactly what's behind him with kevin ester kevin esther there the leader of our gte pro class great few on board with richard westbrook popping up to the top of the hill this is about the highest point on the track let's hear from westie [Music] is ridiculous repeat black battles poor weather black barrel tire pressure's gone too high optimal will probably be about 1.8 bar of pressure somewhere about there if it goes above two on any circuit a powerful mall it's a nightmare for grip you just can't break because you get no lateral stability as you turn into corners like this next one you can't get the power down either and then it also just creates some wheel spin which then amplifies the problem again and the only thing they can do is to try to take some brake temperature which also amplifies it put it to the front of the car that's why they said break balance forward break balance forward the hybrid cars can do a little bit more playing to achieve that brake shift or the shift of temperature but for them it's just about case of getting that great balance forward at the pit stop the next set they'll go on will be compensated you just saw a change in position there francois parado dive bombing ben keating at the hairpin and that moves him through into eighth place or up into seventh rather ahead of ben keaton who's now eighth in gte am yeah i mean francois i think recovering from what was a pretty poor start that's a huge lock up into term one and my guess is that's been troubling him since yes very probably just ahead of them christian reid in the 77 dempsey proton car with takeshi kimura in the kessel racing car guy livery right now kessel racing have done decades of gt racing and they have joined a fairly illustrious club as they make their fia world endurance championship debut great they do indeed this is my apologies uh yeah this is their first wc starts it means they join an exclusive club martin of teams that have competed in every current uh aco run championship the mission under my cup new european and asian lamont series now the wc they have appeared of course at the bar previously both under their own banner and actually uh helping out the skidaria corset team to erase win in gtam but it's a tiny club tf corp tf sport af quarter uh into europol uh the others in there and if you include the lemon 24 hours on top as a wc round then you can add nielsen racing and you're international to that club that's it there's the rest of the kessel racing crew sitting there watching the action here's our overall race leader past the first half hour of eight hours of racing here in portugal and the car looking as quick and relaxed in the hands of nico lapierre as you might expect let's hear from the team see what nico's got to say for himself okay so there they clearly can't hear nico something has happened with the radio plug or with the radio sitting in the car or the helmet but they're saying we can see your hand on camera in the onboard which they've clearly been able to isolate so gesticulate to us no pre-planned hand signals and he obviously can't get on the radio and go this means the tires are screwed or this means that yeah maybe thumbs up if they're giving him a signal box this lap box this lap he can give them the thumbs up that he's heard and understood you always should have a backup in case a radio fails especially you know you can't have them and uh in normal circumstances that is a pit board being waived or some signal to the car and then the car having a some signal back whether come towards the pit wall flashlights double flashlights whatever it may be but that should be pre-prepared in this situation it's been very agile where they said well actually we've got a camera on you all the time so we can have a look at that they're assuming he can hear them though he might not okay joseph try to keep the car straight on the exit as quick as possible to have a better exit turn 14 and turn 15 probably try to as well do a straighter line on the exit if you can a bit more like what was doing seems to work a little bit of information there to lopez which is uh for information they've gained from sebastian boehemi's data 22 laps in coming out of this corner just try and straighten it off don't hang on to it with a wider line with steering lock that scrub will not actually benefit you trying maybe to take a little bit later apex and a straighter exit on that and on the previous corner yeah and also the hairpin i think getting in deeper and really feeding it off making it a very much tighter hairpin so you're straighter earlier and that's obviously their rear traction limited on board with antonio felix de costa not necessarily all the problem takes the load off the front left and it's that front left performance is the thing that they'll be looking at there if you can actually try to get equal load on all of your four tires normally with a two-wheel drive it's trying to get them on the rears but all of your four then you distribute the energy over four instead of two diving down the inside of this gte m battle and hoping the door doesn't close and that they've seen you whoa had to carry a little bit more speed in there than he really wanted to just to make sure he was alongside this car the 77 porsche of christian reed that's a great on-board view of of the issues in traffic and there you can see ben keating and the kessel racing ferrari of takeshi kimura kimura had got by keating has retaken that spot francois perot the 83 car being warned about track limits predominantly that is turn one but there are others the exit of the hairpin turn five is being policed as well because you can gain a lot of ground by running wide and keeping up momentum yeah he's right with uh christian reid now for fifth in class on that recovery drive from francois so maybe trying a little bit too hard right now remember a million miles away from the first fuel stop window for the first of the cars that will come in uh there's gonna be a variety of uh options here the first of the hyper cars that should fit will be the alpine remember it has a smaller fuel tank than the other three cars very very important point because they have to scramble away they're seven and a half seconds they've got to get away because they have got that negative delta that there's a potential at the end of the race they might have to do at least one more stop so not not this first stint because that will be slightly shorter but in a regular stint it'll be something like 31 or 32 laps for the alpine 36 to 37 laps for the lincoln house and the toyotas we believe francois perot with the chrome highlights on the ferrari down the inside of christian reed at the hairpin sails down the inside and that was telegraphed a long way ahead christian reed had the option to try and close him off and did not so pirodo picks up that spot he's got to keep his nose clean from the pit lane lou pointing out of course that albeit when they come in will obviously try and fix the radio but that that'll be door open push a few connectors and hope that it works and then shut the door and get on with it because you don't want to waste time now where there might be an option to survive without the radio i should say by the way the triple seven did emerge ahead of the number 88 car so after that uh puncture for tonight fuji uh now sits 12th in this 13 car entry big boost by the way for that entry next time around just a few weeks time in monza biggest gap i think we've seen so far since uh the first corner between lmp2 leading racing team netherlands guido van der garden second place team wrt with robin friends and it's a little bit on the green stuff on the outside and dropping clearly whatever is good enough for van der garde i can do as well that's that one two three segment which is effectively one really super long right hand corner and this as part of the issue as well when you're in traffic if you're whoever you are is that if you have to compromise one turn it's very rare here that that is just one turn it compromises three or four or five in a row and suddenly you find you've lost a lot more time well now robin friends has got to be thinking a little bit because it's they have to double stint tires and the closer he is for a longer period of time behind van de garter the harder it is on that front left tire which is the weak point for the lmp2 cars especially and so therefore in that long long second turn 14 and then also in the last corner as well it really puts a lot of pressure onto that tire so that gap now that he's got gives himself a little bit of clean air and he actually gives the tire that little bit of breathing space and it gives it a little bit more potential in the second half of the next stint yeah yes i think you're absolutely right as always the time relocation fellow p2 qualified in the race i always like to acknowledge it's six and a half sets so six and a half sets remember it's just over 40 minutes for a tank of fuel for the lmp2 cars they are absolutely gonna have to uh double stint multiple times in this race yeah you have one lockup early in a stick with a full tanks and and suddenly you know this is here in the world of hurt for the next hour hour and a half yeah is same allocation by the way for all the other classes with the exception of gte am they get 34 tires for qualifying in the race that'd be something that would be of a major relief to francois perot i'm sure who's going around on fourth threatening bits at the moment a little sorry apologies i think we're seeing a little bit of uh tire management as well from estra here as uh now uh it's actually sorry jimmy bruni and uh this is the situation where these are always thinking and especially porsche they always think about what the end of the race is going to be especially that last stint so jimmy bruni will hear a little bit of his radio yes any vibrations on the tires or is it just pure balance so all the preparations okay he's having to defend yeah it's vibration wouldn't be surprised of its pickup as well and also potentially a little bit of rear tire pressure we heard westbrook in the glickenhaus talk exactly about that and this is a case of survival right now this pair 11 seconds behind the lead pair in gte bros they'll drop right back from that battle which by the way still the lead battle still has the number 44 ever seen bratislava car between them it's what five six and a half seconds uh it's the gap between kevin estra and james callardo there's 11 seconds back to this battle and it really probably is a battle now yeah it is and if they are balancing their tyres on the 91 car we heard from 92 kevin ester's engineer both ferraris on new sets and it may be the porsche using tires that have maybe only done qualifying you know three or four laps but it takes that edge off in the first couple of laps in the race and oh it's sliding out a little wide jimmy doesn't want to give it away but well to be honest though bruny was on his line it was just an opportunistic dive there and i have to say quite a nice one from daniel sarah who launched it up the inside and didn't really give rooney very much opportunity apart from seed the position just to remind if you're watching the tv stream the 52 car is the one now with the added yellow head highlights on the splitter and on the mirrors and bruny getting pushed out and then he's dropped back very very quickly daniel serra's the man we're riding on board with well done all right so he has spent 40 minutes trying to make that move and eventually sees a tiny opportunity where jimmy booney wasn't expecting the cutback [Music] a little bit of rubbing jimmy bruni running wide and the running wide has meant that he's dropped back quite a lot he's lost a lot of uh grip just because it's a little bit dirty this is quite nice and well set up by daniel cera cracky stuff wasn't it yeah forced bruni to defend that inside attack and then cut back underneath him at the top of the hill that's a good bit of thinking racing isn't it force the other guy to be where you need him to be to make the pass you're actually thinking of yeah but it's also the lovely camera work as well yeah nicely done 29 gator van der garde among the drivers he's just been warned about track limits so too has pachito lopez and the number seven toyota as we watch the battle for the lmp2 lead so too has alex brundle who is [Applause] [Music] come back as robin friends has a proper formula e style lunge there into the pits comes by for the first lmp2 pit stop yeah pitch stops will be now for that that was uh robin friends trying to take a little bit of an advantage as we'll see it again uh this is on board with the jumbo car guido van der garde looking to the right but robin was completely over the curves on the inside he looked to be a little bit quicker at this moment but as you can see it's still guido van de garda that is now leading the race again i'd be interested to see justin the way that the lmp2 teams are approaching this both cars pit right now who on a second stint on the tyres is going to take a disadvantage at the end of that second stint i'm not interested at this moment in time sorry about that is who actually gets out of the pits who can refill and get back out of the pits quick remember jota was able to gain a couple of seconds every single pit stop antonio felix decosta has not pitted he's gone one more lap joe to no lead out at racing team netherland doesn't look like any ties i'll see the goodyear tire engineers checking all the tyres everything looks okay and it will be fuel and go it's brought a heck of a first stint for these two cars absolutely real battle from the very start you'd expect it though from these two men it's it's there you see the jumbo car that's already gone and then the yellow cars gone so actually uh they have gained a little bit this slow to start as well for robin friends yeah wrt coming out further back than they came in just ahead of the united number 22 car i'll plead in from the lead race leader is in the pits so toe to lead and go through with a one two and we said that this was a predicted point at which they would come in yeah about 31 32 laps for alpine on a regular fuel stent it's less for the staff to race of course tyres are ready just in case door goes down fuel is still going in so they're filling up the oil system the driver's drinks bottle and wiggling the radio connections right now it'll be eco radio check radio check remember there's that minimum time for the fuel line attached in hypercar as well we're caught out total in race one so stoppers in two racing team lately wrt united dragon speed high class and richard meal all stopped on that lap and did the alpene and alex brundle is in as well for into europol he was in sixth position in lmp2 here's our new race leader then the number eight gr010 toyota gazoo racing's sebastian buemi leads in portugal after just three quarters of an hour checking inside into europol car looking at the tyres their goodyear technician stays in ah driver change here and this is 28. so longqvist is out and who takes over didn't spot the helmet christian reed with a black and white flag for abusing track limits in the 77 dempsey proton porsche that is your final public warning next time you will be collecting a drive through so try to lead the race for the first time with sebastian boyemi uh 3.9 seconds ahead of jose maria lopez was that left sides only on the 28th yeah there's going to be a lot of that we saw an awful lot of left side only rehearsals okay so if you are now p1 p1 albin has pitted alvin has pitted they should have something like a six or seven lap advantage on fuel that is of course going to mean deeper in this race that the lp will have at least one additional stop and that jose carlos gonzalez gets in there looks as if it's heads well we saw it having a little bit of a nudge left front uh slightly damaged that was with their sister car at the second corner of the race and it's going to be left-hand sides oh no the right front as well they're going on i would think roberto will now go in for a double stint i'd be surprised if they don't give him a full set left sides only all right okay maybe they're single stinting the drivers because of the the heat no it's not hot enough i think it's just more a case of their strategy retire because what you do is you work back from the end of the race already to the beginning yeah also by the way for the first time in the race with this pit stop cycle we've got a one two three four that is all hyper car yes i think it's up into fourth place because they've stayed out as the lmp2 cars pitted comes the glickenhaus in the hands of richard westbrook he's a minute and 26 behind the toe to leading the race he's going to be lapped very soon i think before the pitch stops actually the toyota will put a lap on to richard westbrook and a lock up there by westy as well this could be interesting to see isn't it what uh pace comes out this car when they've adjusted for that uh tire pressure problem that west he was reporting earlier i would think it's going to be the middle of the race towards the end of the race where i'm going to be looking at the averages trying to understand where they are you know with all the traffic right at the beginning where they qualified everything else something flapping i spotted that as well nice pickup in the truck is that a bit of lukewarm debris i don't know what it is but uh [Music] being dive bombed by is it alex bungle in the 34 he stays in miracle all of our yellow cars in one yeah that was by takeshi kimura in the yellow castle racing ferrari and alex brundling yellow and green into europe there's nothing better about that yellow talking to yellow racing team netherlands still leading in lmp2 but it was five seconds the difference in the pit stop between guido van der garde and robin friends we saw wrt dropping back and robin also a little bit slow to get the engine fired up to move forward but five seconds as a gap there and the other change by the way that pit stop is united auto sports up into third position now ahead of the 38 jojo car yeah slow pit stops for both jose cars but they both changed drivers uh one minute 11 for into europol they didn't change driver one minute 10 for dragon speed they didn't change driver either so the uh the red bull racing of that first round of pit stops was racing team nedland one minute and four seconds for that full fill in the pits of the moment yes i'd forgotten we have four yellow cars because racing netherlands of course also predominantly yellow and here we see ben keating in the blue aston behind christian reed this is the battle of the two uh seventh and eighth place uh cars in gte am 77 ahead of 33. trying to get my head around 33 big ben's number this year right behind here comes the alpine i know it's not a bigger bomb that's the real team racing car oh got distracted by the p2 car coming back down the inside of him and ben eating then found himself offline on the dirty stuff and not on the brakes early enough and uh race i think he'll probably have a discussion with the stewards or the stewards will be having a discussion as the 91 leading uh porsche comes into the bit sorry that's jimmy bruni's car comes into the yeah but remember he had problems he did he was struggling he said his vibrations and left rear was struggling as well little error there with the fuel supply they've got a cap on the end of the dry brake nozzle to stop brits getting into it the photographer forgot to take his cap off and it went it didn't go on and then he remembered was that a late call then uh possibly or possibly just one of those checklist jobs that didn't get checklist job blakely calls us right he's gotta be ready set get rid of those ones now can they shave them do something with them and get them back and use them again later in the race because a set that does one stint isn't really helping you much no you can clean them you've got like a heat gun which cleans all the pickup off the tire and then you've got a chance of recycling that title go back into the oven directly so it will never really go cold and then be heated up again well our two jota cars that collided on the first lap are back out and racing with different drivers let's hear from pole man tom blonkfist tomlinkus bringing in the you started on pole unfortunately you couldn't keep that tell us from your point what happened um well first of all since i mean first of all it's obviously a big big shame a big blow to our race thankfully we have eight hours to try and you know make amends uh but yeah it was i mean it was a bit of a messy start you know the hypercars aren't so quick uh in some of the corners so uh vandergarde i think it was managed to get around the outside into here but i was cut in the middle and had pounded it and i think someone hit me on the inside and spun me around so nothing really i could have done because i was basically stuck in the middle there so uh yeah really really ashamed you know it's we're a long way behind but like i said you know it's a long way to go so hopefully we just need to keep our heads down keep focused and you know try and try to yeah make our way towards the front it is a real real shame i saw your teammate and tony in the sister car and tony come over and speak to you so i assume he was just apologizing for that incident yeah yeah i mean i didn't know it was obviously him at the time i thought he was actually on my on my left because it was a car i saw on the left as well but yeah i mean these things happen in racing but you know it's obviously a big shame there's the two cars on the same team so yeah obviously yeah pretty disappointed right now and uh yeah hopefully we can have something to smile about in seven hours time understandable but yeah hopefully you will thanks well probably a very good call from the team not to tell him who had caused the contact oh somebody hit me we saw it we saw it just get your head down charge on and antonio straight over mate really sorry couldn't avoid you da dada so yeah there wasn't a stewing fermenting uh resentful tom blanca is popping out of the car into the garage so that's great team management by jota don't add fuel to the potential fire well fueled potential fire this is being investigated by the stewards as we saw paul dalalana just kind of locking up and i mean he hit me he hit both cars he did just tack the 70 car as well and the 77 car is still in the pitch there you can see a little bit of uh rubber and debris that won't necessarily necessitate a change of bonnet but uh may necessitate a quickly penalty yeah so the uh stewards are confirmed as being that's looking into that incident yeah well as you do with any racing incident whether they decide a penalty is justified or not remains to be seen and they'll hear they'll look at telemetry they'll look at on boards they'll look at footage from the outside they'll hear from the drivers if they can and then decide on whether or not somebody has been a naughty boy christian reed now leaves the pits in the 77 dempsey proton car but this is already a tough first out dempsey protons two cars are the tail end charlies in the entire race giving you a bit of an aesthetic update by the way we're watching what's going on track synthetic update indeed [Music] yeah i'll wait until we've gone through the pit stop cycle here now this is not the leader this is the chasing toyota of jose maria lopez they're in second place and allen now they are already trying to find a way to jump their teammates well they are one thing but also at the same time i'm interested where as we see the what was the leader prior to their pit stop alpine where they're going to come out relative to uh this toyota as you know it just drops into its position it's right at the end of the pit lane they should come out in front it's 28 seconds to go through the pits plus the fuel hose needs to be connected for 43 or was it 34 anyway plus 34 30 seconds so that gives the 36 car a minute they should be back in front but is coming into the last corner through the bump in the middle of the corner and then the pit lane is on the right hand side now quite a long way down is the toyota he goes across the line to move up into second place sebastian puemi was 10 seconds ahead of the number seven car at the end of the lap but the seven car was in the pit lane there so when he probably had a three or four second advantage will that be enough [Music] wrt saying that they lost time with the fuel rig rather than anything else in the pit lane in their battle with racing team netherlands so that's the five seconds difference and it is number eight the race leader on pit road seven hours two minutes or three minutes to go as he comes onto pit road and 37 laps completed yeah and the alpine is exactly in the same position as it was with lopez this is going to be pretty tight the good thing for the alpine is that he's got clear track and no traffic so he will be absolutely flat out and i'm sure they're going to be in the radio as well tell him to get on it on this lap on the clear um the clear circuit so that he can try to maintain the lead yeah the gap back to the number seven car will be about three or four seconds maybe no more question is where does number eight fit in half number seven somehow been able to perform an undercut and get ahead of their teammates shouldn't happen 10 seconds been added to the next 33 car stop that's the ben keating four horsemen aston martin the tf sport run car i don't think there's any chance that uh lopez will be ahead because they didn't change tires so there's no potential of that but as you can see it's a lot lot closer here as uh the alpena's gone through and re-taking the lead yeah battle on so alpine back in front after the first round of stops but graham they stopped how many laps earlier it's about i think six we're just gonna double check that but i think it was six laps uh that they've got in hand here that is going to translate to at least one additional stop at the end of this race yeah even assuming we stay green so the only car that basically at the front that hasn't stopped but this is the same lap isn't it for the totals he's coming around to complete now he was almost a lap behind so if he pits now he's on the same lap count for fuel stints as a total fuel use yeah but if he goes through and completely coming well now what's going to be interesting as well and maybe louise is close enough to to see is how they deal with their first ever world endurance championship racing pit stop it's not the team's first ever race clinton house have raced in the nurburgring 24 hours for a number of years but uh this is their first in world endurance so we're going to see a driver change as well risco i think is getting in the car as westbrook gets out you can see the kangaroo on the aussie's helmet against richard westbrook now the driver intuitively lost ground 77 dempsey proton car christian hairpin a favored overtaking point francois perotto picking up a spot as christian reed dropped down the order in gte pro a very ambitious move by daniel sarah catching jimmy surprise as they swapped for third ferrari running second and third porsche first and fourth at the end of the opening foray in this eight hours of estoril the glickenhaus had a few troubling issues in free practice none have since appeared their job solely to race on for eight hours francois parado with a right front puncture that shredded not just the tyre but the body work dropped the championship leaders in gte am after their win at spa down to the tail of the field and they have so far lost nearly half a dozen laps in the pits alex brundle moving up into fourth place for into europol at the expense of tiotas roberto gonzalez into the second stint and after the first of eight hours the alpine still leading in hypercar in a busy first hour so far a couple of yellow flags for little bits of debris and innocent spins no major problems but there's been a little bit of contact in traffic 38 car and the uh 21 car making uh a little bit of contact jenkins means 21 with ben hanley it was up behind roberto gonzalez and was a bit impatient ala magnesh trying to get through luckily for leader uh nico lapierre it happened just close enough uh far enough away that he didn't get caught up in it yeah nicholas here sort of just in a watching briefing as you said but there's a little bit of frustration came in there i'm sure and uh it is a wide circuit with multiple lines we've seen actually in a couple of occasions where people get dragged into situations that they're maybe not quite expecting but everybody back on their way again yep saw the reaction fuji having a puncher in the d station racing car losing ground and um the first racing scent in the wec how did you find it we've just seen the highlights there and watching that start let's start there well first of all it's just great to be here you know new team new project new concept with hypercar it's just great being here unfortunately we have an issue with our tires the way we're working them so after three four laps they're just blistered so no way to double stin the tires um we could barely make one stint then so we've got to use this like a test session now as i was just telling you before we went on air it's got to find a way to make this be less aggressive on the rear tyre because the pace is there when the tire was good felt like we could get through the lmp2 traffic once they they just went off a cliff and you could feel the blisters and it's just a matter of hanging on and bringing it in for ryan to get in and hopefully we can make some changes just control the pressure control the heat and the tire and just use this as the test session going forward now so they are the solutions that you've got right now yeah exactly it's just a way of because generally the car is good it's nice to drive but we're not getting the best out of the tyres right now and we've never had this issue before but we've never tested it such a high energy circuit and um yeah we completely completely melted the tyres then both rears so it didn't look pretty when they came off because also it looked at the beginning that people were actually struggling to get the tyre pressure up exactly no it wasn't it was tricky after two laps but you know we were in the same boat as everyone else and then the peak of the tire cave and it's like oh here we go let's get through the lmp2 traffic and see where we are in relation to the toyota but then it went downhill very quickly and then it's a case of trying to control the pressure by going forward on the bias and looking after the rear tires but once they've listened to push then the problem escalated but listen we're just happy to be here this is a long journey it's um we have learned so much while we were hearing from richard westbrook about the travails of the rear end of this car there has been a change in the lead battle for gte pro air of course is james collada got by neil gianni so porsche clearly playing at tyre preservation as well and the uh sport car of roberto gonzalez now being chased by norman nato for real team students will look at that attempted pass from the car behind him which is dragon speeds ben hanley hanley did get through in the end but only after tagging the car into a spin yeah it really did uh block the track for the race leader didn't it that well that's a pass came just before we had four wide down the main straight yes uh with both the gt pro leading cars the collado pollock away now and now collado has got mirror canopy between him and the porsche and in the uh fast bubbling melting pot that is gte am by the way tomonobo fuji in the green d station racing aston martin having come from sort of the middle of the back of the field to the front went back and is now back in the front so d station lead aston martin a of course is 54 with gentleman driver thomas four at the wheel in second place paul dalalana in the 98 north west aston is in third head of chetala's giorgio cena giotto so we didn't document that he took over from roberto de la court the starting driver so senator giotto is their bronze rated driver he's in the wheel and the wheel at the moment ahead of andrew scott andrews rather for uh kessel racing they lie in fifth and ben keating is in sixth position i'm not sure that ben keating has served that 10 second penalty so that may yet come in but he's ahead of ricardo pera in the project 156 card rahel frey took over the iron dame's car that we saw from onboarding traffic just a while ago meanwhile going by san antiotto is the chosen sport car of roberto gonzalez and norman nato in the blue machine now cutting past the ferrari has lost a little bit of ground but trying to close in as they go past the northwest amr car that is paul dalalana's third place um machine so you can see third and fourth in the background the uh cenoto driven chetila ferrari is fourth not much between them even less between these two cars and there's the brains trust at jota sport running their two cars which unfortunately came together on lap one and are now down in seventh and ninth place sean galileo taking over the 28 and a lot of flapping body work at the back of the second lmp2 car that you're looking at there which is the real team racing car it looks like norman natto has got uh certainly at the pit stop they'll have to do something about it however in the porsche fit then they're talking about the delicacies of how you get onto the throttle they're trying to conserve but it sounds like those tires you need to be gentle on them that's kevin ester trying to brief michael christensen the new boy in the team this year and of course he was the man who was in that car last year but 51 alessandro pieguini james collado former world champions leading the class at the moment and that was a replay of the the pass for the lead which came as they came out of turn 14 down towards the final turn a couple of three laps ago now paul dalalana with giorgio sanchioto right behind him now again the ferrari seems to bring in its tyres a little slower in the stint than the aston martin but alan you want to be ahead at the end because the last stint will be the end of the race so if you're coming in a little later maybe that's not such a bad issue if you can keep that pace advantage over aston longer on in the race certainly that's where the points are it's when the checkered flag drops and before that then it's just all hot air and uh the hot air actually is too much into the rear tires as we saw we mentioned about the glickenhaus earlier on and we heard westbrook talking about how they were trying to do things looking at uh ryan briscoe and his average at this moment is about a second to lap faster than what westbrook was able to do in the first thing so clearly they have improved with the rear tire pressure adjustment however is it going to still be enough to be able to make it all the way to the instant as it looks like the ferrari's just slid nice and gently down the inside and taking away the position now so it's a settler racing ferrari up to third aston martin down to fourth it's been engaging stuff in gta from the beginning look at this again it's quite a nice easy maneuver in reality it's very gentlemanly yeah you set it up early enough the guy on the inside has two options let you go or have a crash that is last in the world endurance championship in uh lmp2 and before that as a factory bmw driver in the uh eight series makes his reappearance he'll be driving that northwest amr machine as well bmw of course latest make to confirm they're coming with an lmgh initially for the imsa weathertech sports car championship but i am hearing there's potential for at least a semi works effort in the wec as well be good to see that more manufacturers is more fun [Music] alex brundle just putting his fastest lap of the race so far in there in the inter-europa competition car it's in fourth place in lmp2 and uh looking at this this gap has actually dropped out nicola lapierre has pushed the gap out to now 12 seconds the last couple of laps he's been about six seven tenths of a second quicker than guemi now boy he's in a little bit of traffic and lapierre's had a little bit of a cleaner run but lapierre consistently after the pit stop has been able to extend his gap he has to keep doing this because they will have if it runs green all the way through an extra shop in comparison to toyota yeah mark of the seriousness by the way of this uh this albeit boot program is the fact that uh this week team have taken delivery of a brand new chassis uh not an x rebellion car brand new chassis to that same design which is uh supposed to be their le mans race car so they've now got two chassis available it will not be as far as i'm aware and as far as the team will confirm at any point we're going to get a second car entered anywhere so let's have a listen to massive biryani okay how is the general balance general balance comment please i'm still getting much more yesterday oh wow that's a rarity normally it's calm said calm the tires are totally transformed after yesterday so everything uh ticking all the right boxes for sebastian wemmy at the moment and key allen is not necessarily what the gap is to the number 36 to the top of the pile really key i think for boehme and his teammates is where they are in relation to the second place car in the championship which is the other toyota hypercar number seven yeah but let's come back to the points at the end of this race because this is points and a half if they can win and their sister car is third then it's a huge delta in points and it will swing the championship so therefore i think they're very much focused on the 36 car with a little bit of a watching brief over the seven they can understand and control the seven they can't understand and control the 36 yeah or maybe they can understand it they can't necessarily control it now they're catching the battle this is bites gavissa in the red car and uh who was who's behind her that's the high-class car trying to get buys now i think trying to put a lap on the recent meal racing team number one machine high class currently being driven by anders fieldback who started the race he's had an end surprising first couple of stints as well and that he remains in fifth place in lmp2 down the inside comes sebastian buemi and this was uh it looked quite have his regular pace in that first stint oh oh he's going to look sorry apologies there blimey went a little bit wide there got a little bit out of line had to sort of get out the throttle and then sort of wait as he sorted out as the car fishtailed and used to get it sorted out on his way again though very easy as you fire up the left hand steep hill out of that hairpin 88 back out and that is dominic bastian now they have they're they're they're off secret through as was this car with their puncture earlier in the race so a of course is thomas floor now takes the lead of gte ham and here are the two jota sport cars sam hignert hopefully lying down in a dark and room somewhere and not watching this as 28 and 38 our nose to tell roberto gonzalez with sean gale behind him girl with that bright yellow nose on the car let's hear from gonzalez and the 38 crew yes sure i knew he's faster okay the asian le mans series champions [Music] it was ben barker as we guessed it probably would be in that black gr card we'll be coming up to the second uh set of pit stops for the lmp twos very soon uh they've done 20 laps have basically got one more lap before they'll be starting to pop into the pits [Music] and then after that very soon we should also have nicola lapierre who's leading this race on the double stint as well now this is going to trigger our lmp2 next round of pit stops richard mille racing team was the first car in bytes kavissa is out and uh right alfredo that's not easy is that that's not right that's titanic's tatiana calderon gets in so uh yeah by hell fry in the uh iron links i'm james cartani at tatiana calderon sharing with sophia flourish and uh the dutch girl doing the first two stints so we now have both or all of our colombian drivers yes uh well i would imagine montoya might be about or would you put in uh would you put it in henry speed you'd think it would be henrik edmond yeah so wrt into the pits and third united auto sport their wrt second in lmp2 driver change robin friends is going to be jumping out of that car i'm guessing that's ferdinand habsburg i think the size of it yes exactly it's the big f on the helmet i think it's the fact that clearly he had his feet in grow bags every night when he was sleeping uh driver changing ignited as well that means get a vanderguard stays out another lap and that's really good news they're quick in the pits and they appear to be parsimonious with the fuel as well at racing team netherlands remember they though are a pro-am entry dragon speed in racing team midland pro am and so a high class and real team proam cars now one two three and a change sean gillel has breezed by roberto gonzalez we didn't see it but i imagine that might have been uh engineered on the front straight oh very slow roll away they didn't want an unsafe release at united i think here on their way as well the engine seemed to be a lit struggling to start certainly wrt at the first stop and united at that stop but we are going to have toyota coming to the pits in a little while but under fight actually because the seven is quicker mariah he's losing seconds in seconds but that gap to his sister car you look behind was six or seven seconds only three laps ago now it's down to under two seconds as boeing can't get past these lmp2 cars either and that is also creating some problems and that was a much more sebastian bummy race message wasn't it now look again the number one car had just been passed by high class when they were out on track it's now back in front of the high-class car leader is in driver change and andre negrow will take over from nico lapierre radio remember they had the problem with the radio and so they'll also try to look at the radio plug to see if there's something they can do with that at this stop it was hand signals during the second stint as well so leader in and the leader from lmp2 in as well real team racing take the lead yep so racing team medlin we get a van the guard high class are in with anders fjord back and i think he will hand over the car as well having double stinted jose maria lopez now can smell sebastian buemi's panic almost i think closing right in and that's well this happened at spa didn't it number eight had an early problem number seven looked like they were going to win the race for most of it and then the tables were turned out comes the alpene and it is back down to third with andre negrow at the wheel so they stop after 58 laps completed 59 59 laps completed for them it was emery lopez second overall in reality third but with when the pit stops do play out and maybe seven or eight laps time then uh they will be back down into that second and third place however his eyes are fully fixed on the back of the car ahead of him which is sebastian buena who's been released from that traffic now and is a little bit more up to speed i mean in fact on the last lap a little bit quicker than jose daniel lopez meanwhile in lmp2 wholesale driver changes real team yet to stop norman nato still lead sean galel in second ahead of roberto gonzalez they'll be the top two ahead of fritz van aird in 29 as he leaves the pits ferdie habsburg takes over in wrt 31 wayne boyd makes his world championship debut in the 22 united car okay it's okay i have the value i have the radio clear let's go forward okay perfect let's go bingo stingo they have communication philippe cenio there with his uh gray hair looking at the monitors that will be very good news for the team ship to shaw has been re-established but you feeling got to ask right okay why check the helmet straight away of uh nicola lapierre because if there's nothing that's really changed in the car it can only be one thing that's the helmet and so therefore switch to the spare helmet or alternatively switch radio system yeah luis saying they are in fact checking the helmet and they'll plug it into the system in the pits if you can hear them in the pits then he should be able to hear in the car as well yeah or give it to mrtc or the company that do it ask them get the professionals to do it never a bad idea with electrically who else has changed louis delatraz has taken over from alex brundle in the inter-europol competition car so that's his uh first laps today norman nato in the pits for real team which puts us johto 1-2 and fourth and fifth overall and finally lopez squeezes by the high-class car dennis anderson at the wheel of the high-class car not sure who's going to take over from normal nato henry hedman is an is in a dragon speed so we'll make quite decent team managers yet tatiana calderon we saw it at richard meal mira konopka still in the arc breton slava car having done no laps at spa he's obviously going to do all of them here um and uh those are the yeah wholesale changes everybody has changed into the pitno and expensively coming both joe's is that late for them or very very early alan mcnish a little a lot the only car yet to stop is well real team is in and esteban garcia takes over so it's gentleman drivers of gogo now in lmp2 they were wheat at least one lap later in the first so it looks like they can get an extra lap out of the fuel so for them they're thinking strategically end of the race as opposed to performance at the beginning of the race rajel frey who's taken over in the 85 86 iron that links ferrari the iron dame's car has already been warned for abusing track limits and i think it was on track lap apart line of gtm traffic in the way of the the characters here and this is an all ferrari lead battle ferrari didn't quite have the qualifying pace that they'd hoped for so this is thomas floor 54 with the new door after he got clattered after uh in free practice and giorgio sana giotto in the chetila racing car again i said it yesterday i'll say it again i love a blue ferrari i know you know red is everybody's favorite rosso course and all that but i love a ferrari of blue i'm just odd yeah i know uh jessica fundamentally disagrees with you yeah i know but he likes everything in rosso i was gonna mention another ferrari i'm not sure we've noted it but back into the race has come the 83 car rivera is at the window that car but spent 14 minutes in the garage one four minutes in the carriage so they are laps down seven laps behind they're the last of these sort of relatively reliable running cars which is uh christian reed marco seafried taking over the 88 dempsey proton car christian reed's still in 77 after both those cars had issues and as you say alessia rivera the last car on the road the 83 ferrari 13 chiva change a lean change rather as giorgio sierra giotto dives up the inside of thomas floor without any contact please notes there antonio felix de costa these things are possible and here comes the pro ferrari around the outside is that the 51 card james callardo i think it was callado now 18 seconds ahead of the second place car in gt pro that's neil johnny but let's hear now from nico lapierre with louise beckett first of all nico lapierre can you hear me yeah i do and i hear you which is brilliant tell us about that i mean that must have been hard work for you yeah it was i mean we had a good start and we stayed in front of the toyota which was the first target and then we were pushing as much as we could we know we have to open this gap to do the the extra stop because they are much much longer than us on fuel so it will be at least one more stop we know we have to open the gap and i was trying to do that as much as possible as you know we had the radio problem in the middle of my first tint they could not hear me anymore so it was not so comfortable but in the end we made it and we're gonna fix it for the next thing so the team brought you in looked at the helmet and they now know what the issue was do they yeah i think there is a problem with the microphone so try to fix it at the stop but it was not working so i'm gonna change the helmet and have a new one for the next thing i mean for you it didn't seem to be that big a problem because of your drive but how what issue does that cause a driver i mean we had a puncture alarm and i was a bit uh lost and it was it was not comfortable let's say it was not a big issue but it's much more comfortable when you have the radio also in terms of fuel usage and everything but in the end we managed it good with the team we had the on-board camera so they could check everything and it went fine but i will happy to i would be happy to find my radio again next time i'm sure thanks very much thank you i did wonder whether or not there might be a part of this which might have been giving like in a moment leave me alone i know what i'm doing with no radio but uh apparently not he's going to be happy to hear from the cinetec alpine crow it's been a very good race for the team so far just closing in now on the pit stop window for the toyotas that being just 1.6 seconds apart and a minute three seconds ahead uh from the seven car so the seven car is ahead of the lp by a minute and three seconds with that pit stop to balance back out and the toyotas are only a second and a half apart so they're very very close together so the deal is that the carvanji in the crowd the alpine is one minute five seconds behind the leader and the two toyotas spent a minute and seven in the pit lane so it should come out in front by inches yeah it should uh louise pointing out for the bits i don't think we've noted it that bed stops or anthony davidson another driver change there for the 38 so they've single stinted their drivers there is going to be a drive-through penalty for the dragon speed car that is for the contact with the 38 that was where uh roberta gonzalez was turned around by ben hanley so it's about 28 seconds through pit lane and also a report to the stewards on the 21 for not respecting blue flags so not a great couple of minutes for the dragon's been here that's the yeah this was very honestly he was it left front to right rear it wasn't quite far enough alongside i think he was actually trying to get out of it and not quite able to do it not sure it was an intentional sort of dive down the inside it was more of a case of trying to move out but anyway whichever way it's to drive through penalty it's a 28-second loss 30-second loss um to do that and also now being reported to the stewards as you said for not respecting blue flags not being a good five minutes for dragon speed it hasn't and they're not uh they're not in a great position in the race overall at this point either 13th overall ninth in the lmb2 class it's not been their best afternoon yeah they are pretty slowly around the outside actually it's henrik hedman i think just keeping out of the way being lapped by the second and third place cars in lmp2 race led now by federer habsburg in the dwrt car wayne boyd is running second and this is the change there is wayne boyd yeah going through henry henman has just been told off for not observing blue flags yeah that's why he stayed out of the way of the back of the second place quite rightly so wayne boyd up into second position in lmp2 the gap to habsburg ahead under 10 seconds we'll keep an eye on that one with fritz fernard car that led the race convincingly [Music] it is yeah gr racing there with a stop and tf sport also have been heating up pit road as well [Music] so kessel project one with the lmp2 leaders right behind them halfway through a sandwich um so that's why he was in the pits and he's gone again so phony habsburg looking for a way through the traffic finds it neat in a neat and tidy fashion it's a wide moment there for the inter-europa car that is louisiana trans now aboard that car second generation racer fourth place overall last year at the mall with rebellion and guesting here for inter europa with renga vanderzander busy on the other side of the atlantic this weekend that's a change 56 and [Music] it's a bit of a clear track now ahead for the well for the 31 sorry 36 the alpine there's a bit of a defense going on there ferrari porsche battle [Music] you know some days you think yeah maybe i should have stayed in bed 88 dempsey proton ferrara with all their early issues they are eight laps nine laps now behind the field marco siegfried has just been uh well the team have just been told that carl demarco seafood is currently driving will be investigated for his pit stop i'm going to say martin you're not exactly mr motivator for the team suggesting we should have stayed in bed new sporting director uh looms for haven it's going to be an interesting race if they can make up 14 laps before the end of it i don't care how many hours are left you'd be struggling to make up 14 laps in a p1 car in six hours as someone has shown us over the years sean gale ahead of dennis anderson that's chrome red and white high class energy kind of loosely the danish colors i'm sure chrome red is particularly the fight of it's the 21st century version of it i think sending it down the inside of it is still ben barker in a gr racing castle what if they had a slightly out of kilter pit stop there right behind the number one car arc bratislava is this a driver change are they finally going to figure out how to get the super glued hands of miro konopka off the wheel of the car you're not allowed to drive more than four hours in any six and that is a driver change so mira konopka completes his first world endurance championship driving since without major drama good news for him and this team that he has nurtured for so many years in so many different championships you can see from that uh meryl's been working out in the off season they work they race in so many different series this this team does the prophetic 24-hour series it races in asia races in all sorts of european racing v2v and uh the sfv4 cup and sod and here they are in the world championship as well a little outbreaking there for the d station aston satoshi hoshino loses a spot also races by the way domestic mx-5 mazda racing and one of their drivers is their team manager here michaela master master cannot come another offspring of miraculous they're great from the strakion squad they take their racing very seriously they're going to take themselves overly seriously i think kind of you know arch enthusiasts from a from a very different background to somebody like jim glickenhaus but with that same burden absolutely absolutely here's our lead battle still less than two seconds between jose maria lopez chasing and sebastian we're a leading alum looking at it andre negro who's in third place in uh the alpine he's gonna have to get a little bit of a move on because he's slower than these two at the moment since uh the changeover from nicola lapierre pit stop and uh right now he's about seven tenths a lap slower than these two and the toyotas are only going to get quicker as a fuel load drops off at the end of this second stint and it's on exactly the point now whether it would be a toyota came out in the lead or the alpine would actually take the lead absolutely spot on uh he has had a bit of traffic the last couple laps so he's got a heck of a lot of traffic the next few laps as well uh uh uh nicorao so i think he's gonna struggle to up the up the ante here we've got about maybe five laps before the toyota's coming are we going to see toyota driver changes or are they going to stay in should see toyota driver changes because i've done a double both lopez and uh bohemia have been in from the start of this race so i'd expect to see driver changes as well but i don't think the driver change is going to be the limiting time factor so that might mean tire changes as well and that might make it a longer stop than they've previously done so it it's going to be squeaky bum time for alpine though at this point though it is going to be with the the deltas on average laps it's going to be right on the bubble a couple of points if you watch the super slow-mo of the number eight car the gte pro battle they of course has james collado pulling away from neil yani he's 18 and a half seconds up now in comes number 91 jimmy bruni this is remember he pitted early because he had some issues with vibrations and things on his first set of tires well there's a clue here this is about 58 minutes on the stint and it is going to put him unless we get a caution out of his fuel window isn't he at the end of this end of this race it's 34 laps in total on this particular state so it was seven hours and eight minutes to go when he pitted last time it's six hours and ten minutes to go now the second it's a driver change 37 38 laps for gte normally and so therefore i think what they've done is tried to look at this in a strategic option because they were behind and then split it more equally through the course of the rest of the race they weren't going to catch that gap up and they've got extra at the front fighting for the lead of the race anyway on on sort of different performance level and i think porsche have changed their strategy on this jimmy bruny car yeah no driver assistant there as they adjust the steering column to suit yeah used to be in 9 11 that you moved the seat forwards and backwards now the seat is fixed and the rest of the car moves towards him backwards fred macko takes the 91 car out that was changed for safety reasons but the seat in the in the case of an incident is actually a fixed item and ultimately i think a better way to do it absolutely came in that same range of changes that includes the roof hatch on the gte cars which is for extrication and [Music] emergencies cars all diving in for the same a bit of tarmac and this is a battle for position i think number 20 high class dennis anderson with anthony davidson in the jota sport car not able to squeeze through but they come up behind the arc bratislava car of thomas jackson get by the legier and here's and davidson's view [Music] undoubtedly super high pro driver versus dennis anderson the uh less experienced of the two but again gets the break-in traffic going by the iron dame's car rahel frey rahel is sixth in gte am matteo grasson in the 60-iron links card that was the last car on the grid is actually giving chase seventh in that category there will be driver change by the way four tota uh it'll be mike conway brendan hartley taking the wheel of the two leading cars this is a 34 now this is louis that's the change for the lead no exchange for four for a bigger one prince runner the wrt which is leading this race with ferdinand habsburg but in the european le mans series and so making a bit of a switch from formula two as he was one of the leading contenders in that category across the sports car racing very much a young driver with his eyes on the hyper car class though this is a little bit of an apprenticeship just to show what he can do in performance hence the reason jumping into anything that he can get his backside into just to say hey look at me yeah and indeed won the first two races in the european le mans series looking to get a hat trick last time didn't quite come off for wrt penalty at the end of the race dropped even further back down the order but uh that battles a light in the european championship the one here in the wc that's not gonna work henrik hedman with a p2 car in each mirror of his dragon speed car and again anthony davidson on the dirt as the gap around the outside closed uh wrt's car number 31 being reported to the students for speeding in the pit lane that's the leader i don't know whether that was coming in with robin freeze or going out with ferdie habsburg but either way the race leader in lmp2 bit of rubbing on the side right rear wheel as now ryan briscoe is trying to get things moving now this is what happened in fp2 the car down at the hairpin selected false neutrals and would not go any further is that the end of the rose for the glickenhaus could be a full course yellow safety car have to say that was ryan's fault he's just moved in to get position the aston martin wasn't uh he hadn't cleared it completely and let's go to the team radio and ryan briscoe [Music] yeah that radio message messages actually after the incident when he wanted to go down into first gear but the incident itself was caused by something else it was just not quite clearing the aston martin who was also positioning himself to overtake the uh the 77 however he has now got drive and he's on his way back and i looked a little bit slow and i presume for a pit stop because again as we said earlier on this car was actually looking at making it to the end of the race as opposed to necessarily the fastest with a bit of vibration on the right hand side which also hit here's brisker's radio the clutch is slipping um probably damage as well being very cautious bring it back as slowly as you think is reasonable there may be a penalty to surf did you see by the way in that replay how lucky did 22 get driver change here mike conway taking over number seven they've stopped first ahead of number eight again number 22 united auto sports which is possibly going to take the lead in lmp2 nearly got hit by both porsches there okay [Music] a little bit of information as now he comes down the start finish straight he's picked up the pace a little bit uh and the toyota just coming out of the pits getting a new set of tyres for that toyota as well louise beckett just confirming from the pit lane as the uh outfit was in the braking zone you saw the number seven car pull out the the dollars going under the 709 car well it has to if it's got a slipping clutch then they have to take it back in to check to see where that is and the thing is if he's been trying to get away and it's been in first gear and not moving then uh chances are that it's also overheated though yeah so we saw the engine uh gearbox system coming apart and what's 22 here now a big lock up for wayne boyd but [Music] how did that miss him how did that miss him very unfortunate for all of those cars so the wheel is straight um tires need to be changed but the clutch is slipping so there's a problem with the clutch off you can have any amount of people in the garage but there's a limited number to four in the pit lane itself as the toyota is in the lead there you can see the 36 coming two corners from the end of the end of the lap there graham yeah indeed so andre negrow is now trying to make up the ground and where is mcgraw coming down through turn 15 now as they go to work with the tyres driver door not open no driver changes staying in drive through penalty for 21 this is going to be the lead no driver change and he's through he's through there's the number seven car is it behind that that was wrt wrt okay [Music] so the albeit retains the lead yeah but the gap significantly less than it was it's down to five seconds remember it was over 12 seconds when nicola lapierre pitted at the end of his second stop it's now down to six seconds as actually brendan hartley has just popped out the pit lane and that includes by the way five seconds quicker than the pits on the alpine last time so they've lost more than that gap if you see what i mean they gained some back the engine clicking house watching on he's used to this you don't get through a nurburgring 24-hour without having to fix your car at some stage so this is standard stuff for him this is a new team though of engineers they're taking off the rear end they obviously feel there's a little bit more work to be done the car certainly it's not easy access if they have to take off the tail to take off the engine cover just know that inspecting in through the back yeah so look to me that replay he had a bit of a bobble didn't he coming down the hill as he started to get into the braking zone that took his trajectories we've got another yellow flags out at turn three um took his trajectory onto collision course the side of his impact and then all those three cars turning around they're quite right it was they how close the 22 car 77 has been in and out of the pits is that it no that's 88 isn't it jackson evans has taken over the 77 car 88 looping with marco seyfried in the wheel so again those two cars are tail end of the field and here's the battle between more yellow cars paul dalalana head of scott andrews in the kessel racing car guy livery car there really has been drama galore in gta what i'm really thinking now is that if i'm sitting down trying to uh boil this down from eight hours into a one-hour highlights program what do you cut you know we're we're only two hours in now exactly and we've already got enough for a one-hour program there's another six hours of this lunacy still to come two hours in six hours still to go and up the inside scott andrews defending very hard off that line gets by paul dalalana moves up into fourth place right on the two hour marks it's a good move by scott andrews and that kessel racing ferrari he knows his stuff has won races in the european le mans series for united alter sports in an mp3 scott based in the us oh big big lock up as he comes into the pits for the 98 that's going to be speeding in the pit lane he definitely wasn't down to 60 k's as he flew through there here's the 34 into europol car it's currently in third place in mp2 with louis de la tras let's hear from alex brandle with luis beckett alex brundle full of smiles under that mask and so you should be that was a great run from you there were some great battles high class i've written in my notes rg bhaji so where do you start with that yeah a little bit of ajivaji in the early laps we had a little bit of better pace than the high class so i really had someone try and make a move by early on but got it done eventually and uh carried on through what was pretty decent stint to be honest for us and uh now louie's doing a great job on track it's important for you and the team to get that great run but i mean and also what shall i say the color of your car really stands out so you can really see it fighting through all the traffic yeah you can't miss us yeah we're out we're out there and it actually really helps in the traffic you know the gts can really see you coming uh but i actually quite like her i like the color scheme and it's good to be seen on track how much of an issue is traffic it's uh i kind of described it earlier on in the weekend it's almost imsa traffic you know out here this weekend a lot of cars it's the biggest wet grid ever isn't it here so yeah a lot of cars out there and uh obviously apart from 24 hours of le mans but uh yeah a lot of cars out there and having to thread our way through but it helps the old hands like us uh get a little bit of an advantage all right thanks alex did he say old hams very much he probably did i think it's great to see a motorsport commentator making his uh making his living as well as a race driver so that was the incident that put them into the pits and they will i'm sure there will be a penalty to sir for that but again for jim dickenhouse and the team it's all about getting miles on the car and allen not being able to fix things hold on a second yeah it's not watching replays here the car's gone out the pits but it's not gone out of the pits at speed and so therefore it's uh being overtaken by quite a lot of other cars so they're checking something they thought there was possibly a clutch issue that was reported by ryan briscoe they came in uh they changed the nose they also checked in at the back there seems to have been something possibly on the hit however now that uh he's coming back i would suspect probably back to the pits once again triple seven in the pits satoshi hashino he was the car that the clicking house clipped to start and then he of course was fired off into the back of 88 and 77 so the damage on that d station aston will need to be checked there it is yeah that i think was the most damage to the three uh there was some rear damage i think to the to porsche of them i'm sure but uh d-station back into the tf sport aston martin garage running that car and the 33 car which currently has dylan pereira at the wheel very inconsiderate all that styling and but they went into they designed that front car go in front of that car and they bring it home like that and i think we'll have another hit entry for the clicking house as well as it comes towards the entry point 88 the first of the cars that was involved in that has just left the pits again two hours into the eight hours of portimao and alpine back in front in hypercar head of toyota who are second and third fourth overall is our lmp2 leader team wrt with a potential penalty hanging over them ahead of united and into europol racing team netherlands going strongly and leading the pro-am category in the gt pro class the af course of ferrari now 22 seconds clear of its closest porsche rival and in gte um lead a ferrari 1-2 ahead of af course with team project won the best of the porsches in third place ahead of the kessel racing ferrari so ferrari coming on strong in both gt categories and after one out lap following damage 709 the glickenhaus is back in the garage doesn't look to be very fast action there um you know they had to take the tail off briscoe getting out by the looks of things and so that could be either a very long stop or the end of the day for this particular vehicle yeah well i'm sure louise beckett will be down there to find out what's going on little uh team engineering conflab going on there you know we've got six hours here they as duncan vincent in the background also gonna get the scoop uh they have got a long time to fix this car even if it needs a clutch then it just spins up and then you it's already upheated so it doesn't need a clutch change if it's going for anything they're clearly now planning how to do that best but if they can do that and get the car back out they could run for at least for another four hours and learn an awful lot about this car in race trip they've already learned about tire pressures and temperatures here and how to work with those they had to do a clutch change and a gearbox actuator change yesterday after free practice got it done before fp3 got the car back out so it's not like they don't know what to do with the car but it's clearly not going to be panic stations get it fixed properly here at racing team netherlands that is fritz van aird in another one of our yellow cars yellow being the new black clearly 92 is in from what was second place in gt pro neil jarney so it's now a ferrari one two james collado ahead of daniel serra 51 and 52 porsche struggling on tires this had better be the result of a long-term plan to have lots of rubber left at the end of the race allen yeah james collado took the lead he was basically it's a second quicker than neil yani on average over that second stint it was a massive massive difference there i'm sure yanni at the end was just praying that that pit stop was going to come sooner and sooner but certainly swung in ferrari's favor at the moment however and you can see that rear tire as well that came off the porsche blister remember we heard about that from the glickenhaus and saying about that that tire it looks very similar there from the porsche was that a full set or was that just left sides only kind of looked like left side but i would like to see it again maybe uh but there's a lot of action going on in the pit lane with the glickenhaus and the aston martin as well so yeah they're sure we'll get to it at some point are in and they've dropped behind both dempsey proton cars neil chaney in and out still ahead of fred macko in the other factory porsche that had an out of secret stop as well because of a tyre balance or imbalance will be the word uh warning flag for matteo crossover for abusing track limits that's the number 60 iron links ferrari rahel frey now putting in a big effort in the iron dame's ferrari that's up to fourth place chetala ferrari first in am a of course a ferrari second in am kessel racing ferrari third in am iron dames ferrari fourth in am and ferrari want to in gte pro as the second place to those daniel sarah stops and he steps out as he steps out by in pit lane to their store goes the gtm leader jefferson racing also on pit road right now so ferrari looking very strong indeed and there is the view of that motor v8 in front twin turbo v8 motor and the transmission behind on the glitten house this is what a modern race car looks as you start to strip off the beautiful body work utilitarian it's very robustly built a big crash structure in the front there wrt with the two toyotas behind wrt 31 car 30 habsburg still leading in lmp2 but nothing between the toyotas at all barely room for one to leapfrog a gte amcar and the other one not to go straight through as well conway's on a bit of a charge we saw that with lopez against poem at the end of the second stint hartley took up uh the charge at the front but it's called me i think that's the one that's going to be i would say overtake though we still have got alexander uh sorry andre negro he's eaten out a little bit it's now eight seconds is a gap it's not quite out as much as it was uh prior to the pit stops but he's starting to find these feet in that elbow it's got the pace just not enough to offset that disadvantage no and they may need a little bit of help but as we know in racing sometimes helps comes from the oddest quarters the problem is there's only one of them and two toyota gazoo racing gr010 so it you know the odds are stacked in favor of toyota if they can run a clean game maybe they won't be the fastest car out there but being parsimonious on fuel or having a big enough fuel tank actually which is what the issue really is it's not the fuel consumption so much of the alpine it's the fact that it just can't carry enough fuel very indeed indeed from the change about to happen in lmp2 by the way we're watching this as the wrt car that's the uh the lmp2 leader ahead yeah but don't forget they were following him at the beginning of the lap now that's something you would never have seen with an lmp1 car and that shows part of the problem for the hyper car drivers is that on this track the p2 cars speed is pretty much on a pace with an lm with a hyper car well certainly in the middle sector the the hypercar doesn't have the same boost acceleration that they had previously in the lmp1 error so they can't dart between the corners quite as quickly as they could and at the same time we saw in free practice it was three or four laps the toyotas were sitting behind lmp2 cars before they could get overtake which was only at the end of this straight graeme where they've got a 10 or 11 kilometer an hour advantage obviously when we go to monza that's a very different game with big long streaks but here we've got 15 corners and in monster absolutely 54 and 57 which were the two leading cars on that lap at least in gta yeah follow the check mark down pit lane it is now the 83 car yep the iron dame's lead right on the top of the pile so the top three have come in chatella air of course and kessel or did chettalar come in the previous yesterday there's questions yeah so uh gone back to roberto lacour so the court started servant giotto did the second stint la court back in for the third which is an unusual way of skinning the cat there's also driver change there for kessel didn't see who it was had gone aboard scott andrews got out the car was it is it michael jensen now it could be so we heard about the potential of a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane for uh 31 team wrt leader in lmp2 however now habsburg's been reported to the stewards for not respecting blue flags as well now is that when the toyotas are sitting behind is he supposed to slow down to let them get by him i don't it's not in the regulations it's not formula one it's a warning it's it's a warning that there's a quicker car coming up behind well if they're quicker surely they'd have gone by me by now you know yeah i can't can't see that uh that that's entirely fair just coming after these pitch stops martin as we see another pit stop there um rahel frey the uh am class leader in the iron links iron dames ferrari we are in a situation in this race where we've got a limited number of sets of tires for all of the different categories we have a situation where the um they have to protect them they've got to look after them but this is a tough circuit on them and this race is going to be won or lost i'm sure in a couple of the categories gt being one of them gt pro predominantly by who can manage that tire temperature who can make their tire last at the end of the stints and that's going to be the differentiating factor right after a lap of following the number eight car finally gets by 31 and that was probably a dive bomb under brakes into turn one and now the number seven car this is the second real straight of any notifiable length down to the hairpin at turn five manages to get by underneath ferdinand habsburg who continues on his merry way he's been lapped now so it's only the hyper cars that are on the lead lap senior takeout being 36 leading from eight and seven the two toyotas then the 31 wrt car ahead of 22 united auto sports that had to get out of jail card free in that big collision uh with the glickenhaus and two uh dempsey proton cars he's in third place a second place ahead of 34 into europol with louis de la chat at the wheel so ferdi habsburg wayne boyd and louis delacraz is your one two three of drivers in lmp2 and now they're struggling to get by the high-class car you know you can't just expect everybody to roll over and get out of the way for toyota because they happen to be toyota it's precisely what we said at the top of the race it traffic is going to be a much bigger issue in this era it just is the stratification we got means these cars are closer together than they ever have the hypercar drivers do not have the uh the boost that they previously had in the lmp1 days but uh let's go another word down in pit lane now with jim glickenhaus to find out exactly what the prognosis is on the 709 hybrid car jim clicking house we can see the 709 behind you uh it's disappointment all around nobody wanted to see this yeah no it was fine i mean we went out on the first spin we had the tire pressure totally wrong so we had big problems with the tires we were slow we came in we changed them we got the right pressures the car was running much better much faster [Music] and then we had contact and i think the replay shows whose fault that was and uh unfortunately in the contact one of the cars stopped or one of our wheels our rear wheel and it fried the clutch so now we're in the box we'll replace the clutch and go back out oh good so you will be looking to go back out that's good tonight oh yeah we always go back out i mean you know we're here to race and uh we'll absolutely be back out um you know it was just one of those one of those things but uh no problem we'll keep racing how long do you think it will take until you can get back out i think about an hour [Music] great thanks jim thank you as ever upfront and honest about exactly what's going on i think we know who was responsible for that he said well you know that's unfortunately what happens in racing and allen battle for second and third place number eight toyota you said earlier on mike conway on a charge when is he never not on a charge mike colway all over the back in the number eight car team radio i think has been deployed there sebastian mike is quicker than you [Music] i don't think they actually have got the luxury any longer of holding one or other up because the gap to the leader is only 13 seconds and for them to be able to make sure they've got a chance never mind the double chance of being on the podium here they are certainly in terms of the victory then they've got to release mike conway because he is quicker at the moment and then later on it may swing back in the favor of the a car with brendan hartley at the wheel however right now conway definitely has been able to catch up and has got a bit more performance and the other thing on the balance sheet for the eight car okay you've lost a position now but if conway can engage the alpine and make it burn out its tyres or make a mistake then both of you can benefit and then you can set about taking the place back from your teammate and remaining 5 hours and 45 minutes well certainly over the course of this stint so far then conway's been about 3 10 of a second faster per lap so 10 laps three seconds and so if you look at it that way then they can get themselves back into fighting for the position directly and so independent of how it can affect the third place number eight car the seven has definitely got to go for it now what we heard from nico lapierre before the start of the race was that he believed the toyotas would be quicker in sector one on sector two so most of the twisty stuff and it's really only the sydney tech the albion really only has the advantage in the final fast sector if the toyota can get in front and hold the alpine up where it's got a speed advantage then suddenly that brings the other car back into play as well very interesting the alpine just did the fastest final sector of the race so far on the previous lap as the fuel weight is coming off then it's getting much much quicker especially at those points because it's a long long right-hander and uh it's uh it's one that really does put a lot of energy into it but that's where the alpine is very quick 10 second stop and go penalty has been awarded to 709 that's the clicking house driven by ryan briscoe for making contact with first the d station aston and then causing that multiple car pile up not a scratch on the back of the car that's just left the pits number 22 united auto sports car wayne boyd but i don't know what he saw in the mirrors graham what the team saw on replay would have given them nightmares yeah that was bang on schedule by the way for wayne boyd indeed here comes the leader now this is again on schedule for wrt but the potential is for one and possibly two penalties to come for the race leader into europol will take the lead here if they don't stop this time around so louis de la tras as i say it tries to go for 31. so that's the first of the session this is their stop which they can't do now so you're going to have to do it separately so it'll be out back in back out and remember still outstanding is the report of not obeying blue flags yep so this is a warning that could be a warning as opposed to necessarily a penalty however this drive-through is 30-second time delta and something they didn't want at this stage of the game exactly right so louis de la chance is in for into europol that bright yellowing it could almost be an australian team couldn't it you know if you paint a kangaroo on green and gold those are the aussie colors so that car in second place and that cycles jota through to the top because they've been running longer on fuel there you go with the yellow nose sean galileo coming up to put a lap on the richard mill racing team carve tatiana calderon she stopped a couple of laps ago and xiaomi lacy gets in at wrt [Music] but we'll drop in at least third and here davidson will up into second place at 28 from 38 wrt back out but will need to come back in again for a drive-thru now how recently was it we heard from tom blondquist who started on pole in 28 got turned around by his own teammate in the first corner and they were down in 10th or 11th place when tom got out and talked to louise here they are back at the top of the pile what a remarkable race it's been already and we're less than two and a half hours in it's going to be their ability to execute both on pit lane and uh on track sean goodell having a good one here he's six seconds or so ahead of at davidson 2014 world champion remember whenever a uh total factory driver the yes there's a few toyota factory drivers that are coming back to haunt them would be another one yes absolutely there's the jota sport garage and uh stuffel van dorn there just preparing himself nice they're giving these young boys a chance isn't it racing team netherlands are in that was a full stint there by fritz fernandez 30 laps which was equal to what they did on the previous runs with guido van der garde fritz staying in dennis anderson is in at high class as well when i turned to the driver change so yep has jumped into that car so single stinting the gentleman drivers as well and uh that's probably not a bad idea on as physical attract as this a lot of tires coming off gt cars looking very very mullered in is the race leader so andre negrow at the end of his first stint in the alpine brings the car down pit road and the number seven toyota and the number eight toyota go by there will be one two again [Music] so far night dennis anderson stays in at high class louis de la trout stays in at into europol so job federic in racing team netherlands racing team nedland high class and real team the one two three and the pro-am class in lmp2 two hours minimum remember for the bronze drivers that is three stents across this eight hour race oh good point yes good point because they're doing roughly 40 minutes that pretty much makes it two hours great high promotion shot of this alpene and it's alpine french blue came in from the lead drops behind the two toyota gazoo racing gr010 says andre mcgraw look how far ahead of where the car is the eyes are having to look to deal with the speed here out of the turn three hairpin firing it up the hill very steep here over the blind brow seen a big accident or two there in european le mans series races over the years when cars make contact and down to the hairpin uh that would have been fuel only stop i think wasn't it there for they'd now be so a minute and three seconds on pit lane with if you'd only stop against a one minute and twenty for the two totals both identical times and of course went towards so it's stopped when toyota's stopping one minute seven that's fuel only as well so they are actually a little bit quicker in the pit lane refueling less they've got physically less fuel going but do they have to have their hose connected for a lesser time or the same time same time okay there you go so although they're putting less fuel in they still have to have the hose connected for as long jump jump one public jpm i was going for and then changed my mind jpm taking over from henrikh hedman at dragon speed so again gentleman driver in and running through the cycle change change change with the stops they had a penalty we have to remember for the incident in traffic which uh caused them to have a drive through yeah and also they had been warning and it was going to the stewards for not obeying the blue flags which is something that we've seen a few times around here but not actually seen very much in the past well let's hear from our race leader mike [Music] just let you know conway real life tire of the previous toy set was quite worn out so if there are some corners which are too open for the rear left we can tighten those corners for pc the rear left was pretty worn out there and that was after analysis from the previous driver as we see the very slow accident this is the d station car this has had a few problems satoshi is pulling off the track yeah they had a radiator change a front splitter change in a bumper after an incident i wonder if it was spoiled could have done it didn't look like it wanted to start there did it that was his outlap this is the car that got tied up in that uh trouble with the glickenhaus yeah uh did suffer damage yeah the radiator being the biggest one that could have any incident like that but it's stopped out on circuit and it's at a point on the circuit as well where i'm sure the race director is looking at it and thinking oh could this be a full course yellow well it's pulled off where there is a gap in the the armco that the car can be recovered to a place of safety yeah service vehicles can get up there they're looking for tow here comes the tow vehicle maybe the marshall's going to roll it backwards this is the incident yeah yeah sorry looking at it again i don't think there was a bubble i think it was just purely thought he was past him and not and that caused too much of a problem and look behind the real team car on the inside that dark blue lmp2 car making sure he didn't get clattered by the first of the porsches as well look to me just ahead of that the united car was having a bit of a moment that's done that's it the united car ahead of that was having a bit of a moment yep he did had a big lockup race leader in lmp2 followed by and davidson and charlie lacy malaysia in the pit lane to do his drive-through so he won't stop 38 and 28 do 28 in front 38 behind driver change in the mighty 38 as the 31 car crumbles by and uh is that going to be enough for wayne boyd to take the lead i think it might be i think he has boyd is through and indeed he's out the bits ahead of 31 united auto sports lead the race so and then b2 38 that was roberto gonzalez getting back in wasn't it because that wasn't decosta so we went antonio felix de costa roberto gonzalez and then to and davidson and now we've gone back to roberto so roberto clearly going in for his second of a minimum of three stints still double yellows up at the top of the hill at turn nine we approach there now with the aston martin versus kessel racing battle augusto versus scott andrews yeah he doesn't want to give this up but unfortunately he's going to need to [Music] and once it goes behind that barrier i think that might well be the end of their race i think it is the fact that uh the rest of the team are packing up the garage as we speak suggest that it's all over for one of the aston martins tough news for andrew watson didn't get to drive it oh bobbling through goes to 22 united auto sports car that's wayne boyd our race leader in the world endurance championship i'm just going to say that so they can clip it up well there's dominant performance from them in spa and with don't mean it in the way this sounds somewhat makeshift squad sorry richard dean damned with faint to praise that around to this performance pretty amazing it's really speaker parking sean malaysia came through from the drive-through into second place with wrt louis de la transfer into europol lives third in lmp2 ahead of stopover and roberto gonzalez so there was a driver change uh stop stayed in didn't he was in the oh no we saw him getting ready so he's taken over 28. so toyota gazoo racing mike conway and brendan hartley and brendan now doing that thing that every teammate does uh brendan you need to let mike through he's quicker than you then hanging on his back bumper as mike went by he basically lobbed out a two foot bit of elastic and he's now attached to the back of the number seven car and actually allowing mike to open doors in traffic may not be a hindrance for brendan hartley either conway dies by the 54 af courser ferrari that's second in gte am and that is currently driven by giancarlo fisher keller so you want to be careful when you're going by him anybody spotting that the overtake was done there in the incidents over the triple seven double gl's has been withdrawn and come on now behind the barriers in place of safety and that's achieved without a full course yellow well done marshalls last night for mike conway one minute 33-1 behind him brendan hartley one minute 32-7 rubbing in the fact that mike is not quicker and in third place 132-3 for andre negrow in that alpene so honors pretty much even at the moment the toyota with a little bit more fuel on board but i think on the strategy side of things things are looking very good for toyota right now if you were to extrapolate this towards the end of the race with the extra pit stop off the ground the fact that regardless not actually able to pull the same sort of gaps that he needs to they need to pull 12 15 seconds of stint not just maintain the sort of gap after the the actual end of the pit stops somehow they need to go into the final hour with a 90-second advantage and that's going to be pretty tough to engineer there's the united auto sports car number 22 our race leader in lmp2 and he is in fourth place overall because of course although we have four hypercars the clicking house is in the box having work done that clutch change and we have lost a car d station has gone behind the barriers that is unlikely to reappear so the triple seven aston martin is our first casualty after two and a half hours [Music] three different classes battling for the same bit of track they see phil hanson watching his teammate for the weekend wayne boyd and his other teammate for the weekend paul diresta and the wholesale front end changes radiators and other bits and bobs on that d-station car there was obviously a little bit more after the shunt and it may well be an electronic glitch that has stopped the car rather than something sort of like overheating because half a lap back even with no water i'd be a bit surprised if an engine just dies after that but you know that's impossible the car was running prior to the incident after the incident and pit lane then it wasn't running any longer so i think we can be quite clear that it was as a result of uh the shunt with the glickenhaus and even if it's just you know tripped to wire or trimmed a wire or caught it that has now shorted out and fused something electronic either way it's the end of their race so united leading from team wrt and into europol jota down to fourth and fifth after they stopped a little uh different schedule stopping a little later racing team netherlands leading pro-am in sixth the head of high class richard meal in eighth in lmp2 real team with tia special head of juan pablo latoya the 10 dragon speed car 21 dragon speed car and thomas jackson took over from miro konopka in the arc bratislava car and a whole sea of yellow here three quarters of our yellow engine i know four three fifths of our yellow entry racing team nedland and arc bratislava after this particular little group of cars kessel racing's ferrari scott andrews chasing al gusto farfus in that 98 yellow aston there's the 33 car that's had all sorts of issues including a through the uh turquoise aston martin dylan pereira at the helm of that car and being lapped by the chesterla car roberto la court and imminently by this car giancarlo fissy keller so the 33 aston martin went forward very quickly at the start but seems to be struggling for stint long pace never mind race log pace wrt car flashing the headlights as it and the uh high-class entry dive through this gte am battle wrt cars coming back from that uh drive-through penalty remember for speeding in the pit lane so second overall and uh he's now looking to try to to get i would say back on terms with the lead wayne boyd united auto score but to do that he's got to get past this high class yeah pretty quickly yeah wayne's had to deal with all of this already and this don't forget the pale blue car in the middle is being lapped by these two ferraris 47 and 54. 33 is the car in the middle down in ninth place but he comes back underneath the ferrari and that's bad news for roberto la court in the uh chateau la car because giancarlo fissy keller in there like a rat up a drain pipe straight by takes the lead in the gte am class and all thanks to the aston martin diving back past the dark blue ferrari through went the silver car 54 the air of course a ferrari giancarlo fisa keller now leads in gte m this is definitely a swings and roundabouts snakes and ladders race for all categories not sure who hasn't had a chance to lead in gte pro though ferrari now first and third is the 92 porsche neil chaney 21 seconds back still from alessandro guidi and that big change happened when they gave the car to james collado for the second stint it looks like they did something with tyre pressures maybe or management and they have just jumped in front maybe they have used an extra set of fresh tyres to get track position and maybe dispirit the porsches i'll have to wait and see neil johnny being warned [Music] even i said five minutes ago that brendan hartley was clearly trying to show the team that he was quicker than mike conway and brendan's leaving it on the table i don't know what you want to do about it but i think i'm quicker so we may well see that there is a little slight of hand change back to put the number eight ahead of number seven i have to say hard to disagree he's not losing very much to mike considering you know the drivers were reckoning you could lose easily three seconds a lap if you just hit the wrong bit of traffic at the wrong place i think the two toyotas got very little between them at all at the moment [Music] there's quite a few people being reported to the stewards at the moment for not respecting uh track limits but also not respecting blue flags there's a general lack of respect yeah it seems to be well okay so 33 is that pale blue aston we were just watching and the two ferraris were trying to lap him and it is the leader in the class but it's not the race leader do you have to give away some leader in the class if he's not fast enough to actually get by then he makes a mistake and you re-pass him i'm sorry again he wasn't deliberately blocking him he was just driving on the racing line and there's so little difference between the cars in any of these classes it's very hard to get by now this is four position this is team project one and gigio perfetti ahead of michelle gatting who on my interestingly uh on my entry list in comedy manor has got a a great britain flag alongside her now yeah on our spotter's guide as as if she is indeed the daughter of former british english quicker captain mike gatting it is a second playthrough confirmed for team wrt for not respecting flags so that's the second penalty uh run down for them michelle catting um running in ferrari challenge this year and doing very well in that by the way i think that's really helped to improve her general pace we've seen much more depth to her performance in the uh stints [Music] danish lady driver and the more we've seen of the tj patheti the more we've more we've seen at ben keating the more miles they do the more instruction they can absorb the more confidence they get the faster they become the more they and it's not about one fast lap you know it's about holding up gives a drive through on car 31 for disrespect of blue flags car 31 drive through for disrespect of blue flags so that is not going to improve the day that will drop them back uh off the back of wayne boyd and will cost them third position to into europa competition uh louie delatraz as you might said earlier in the show martin who is one of the wrt drivers in the ums will be the first person to profit from their misadventure and will not lose i don't think a further position to the jota car it was always going to be one of those days from wrt where van sam voss accidentally reversed his rental car into somebody else's leaving our hotel this morning i did think i hope his day gets better i i feel the flat cap will have been thrown to the floor well the fact that that wasn't in evidence now it may be uh too warm for flat caps oh that's a change that's the um that's the that's the elms rear end that's how many rear ends the 77 car has been through here that's going into the garage that cooper mcneil white red and blue weathertech delivery was what was on the dempsey proton car last week prototype competition because there's the there was a there was an important difference which relates to the mod entries to the damage on the side of the car if you're not uh understanding why there's a weathertech rear end on that car proton competition a multi-layered collaboration with weathertech this season running the gtlm car in the inter programme with cooper mcneil cooper now part of their european le bon series program which carries the full weather tech livery so it's clearly one the spares normally allocated to the 77 car in elms so we just uh we're just a couple of series short of weathertech being represented in just about every yeah that's sad to see yeah it is isn't it now they've replaced all sorts of bits and pieces and you then think okay they may have a major rear end issue from being rear-ended and they got collided into by triple seven they rejoined triple seven rejoined but eventually both of them have ended up out of the race that is the end of it i'm afraid it was real left impact there was damage to the real left of that card an earlier incident uh with damage to the front and the right hand side so a rather battered 77 car well kiwi jackson evans got to drive it matt campbell didn't even sit in the car today their third driver christian reed you saw the team boss at proton just uh passing the boys on the shoulder okay guys well done sorry for that battle for position here between tachana calderon and matthias besch colombia versus switzerland and in terms of the team uh flags france versus switzerland this is for eighth in lmb2 11th overall with the top three cars in the hypercar class of course it's uh it's number one crew the shopkins racing crew stepping up to the wc this year approaching their third consecutive appearance at the 24 hours i think it might it's two ninth place finishes like uh i think that's correct on board with japan that has all the hallmarks have been jota green in front this is our battle for fifth position in lmp2 united wrt and into europol one two three stoffel vandoorne ahead of roberto gonzalez fourth and fifth for united and jorvan the young dutchman in sixth position all over the back of the mexican driver in the green 38 this yellow and black livery racing team nederland car looking for the move dive to the inside and gonzalez sensing perhaps that that was coming just keeps the steering open allows the car to take a full wide elaborate pro corner and through goes job finally just there you see that it's a second drive-through penalty for uh the wrt cars charles malicia at the wheel and that's been a real frustration for that for that team they were right up there from the beginning and fighting with this car actually for the leader of the race at the start through the first robin friends but whichever way from there and it's been they've just passed a battle for position the tf sport aston the pale blue car coming by gr racing so dylan pereira taking eighth place in am away from ben barker and using those faster cars coming through so those two faster cars were this one yup van oiter racing team netherland and roberto gonzalez in jota and that meant that the aston could follow them through the gap inside the porsche has served a drive through drops to third place high class versus uh real team rather versus richard mill continues real team right behind now and looking on the inside into turn three you probably will need will need a fly-off handbrake if you're trying to get the inside there that's a very tight turn indeed matthias besh looking maybe down into the hairpin tatyana understands that's coming just goes a little bit middle and leg little lock up as she rotates and starts to climb up the hill out of turn five through the sweeping left-hander at six over the brown you can't even see turn seven as you turn in and then very tight right hander at turn eight climb again over the brow and then down this sweeping dip through nine ground into the tarmac by the arrow over the brow turning into 10 shifting down out of corner 11 again sweeping down hill through here little shades of road atlanta i think in that little section as you go down the hill up to corner 13. right-handed at 14. again off-camber dropping away and starting the plunge down the hill sweeping out through the final turn starting to climb back up onto the pit straight dry through for not respecting blue flags for 33 that's that pale blue tf sport aston martin of dylan pereira and that is from when he was being lapped by the leaders in gte yam who couldn't get by him did get by him made a mistake dropped back behind him i think the deal with the blue flags is possibly being very over enthusiastically applied here some of this is pure these cars are being driven by drivers of equal standards at the same speed and there's nothing to choose between the cars if you're quote quicker get past the the whole rule here is that the driver of quote the slower car is supposed to stay on the racing line to make him less unpredictable for the drivers coming up behind him and to then say well you didn't move off the racing line to allow somebody through really under undermines one of the first rules of racing however safely through that little bit of traffic tatiana calderon opens up a fraction more of an advantage over the lmp2 car allen mcnish has been very quiet for the last three or four minutes because he's been scrolling through the rulebook well it's not actually it's the international sporting code it's nothing uh specific to wec but it's to every fia category that they are being focused on and effectively it's saying during the race the flag should normally be shown to a car about to be left if the driver does not seem to be making full use of his rear view mirrors when showing the driver concern must allow the car to pass at the earliest opportunity so there is a point there where they're enforcing the international sporting code as opposed to the fia world endurance championship regulations but uh certainly there is abuse of the blue flag and there is abuse of track limits because now alessandro pierre gidi has just been uh he's got his first warning flag for abusing track limits as well in the ferrari leading now by 14 and a half seconds in gte pro as you see the real team car coming by the kessel racing ferrari still chasing number one and uh also behind sharma lazy both stockholm vandoorne and job producers have got the hammer down they're in the 32s the lazy and the 33s they are 10 and 20 seconds behind respectively so drive through penalty has been served by the tf sport aston gr racing have stopped tom gamble in the black car taking over from ben barker and one car out of the race for good d station and dempsey proton very likely also out of the race the other car that is a long-term resident of the garage is the clicking house we expect that to come back pit stop for the 91 pro class porsche fred makaviki was in fourth place in gte pro uh estimated time to return to the track by the way from the clicking house just heard directly from james clicking house himself about 30 minutes uh they are in fighty mood i want to get back out there amongst it left sides only some of these gt teams are going to have full sets for the couple of uh last couple of stops aren't they and i think that's got to be porsche's strategy seven hours of swallowing this bitter pill of performance pain to have one hour maybe two stints on the car with full fresh rubber to try and win this thing and it's it's all as alan said right at the beginning back time from the checkered flag and i think the world of hurt they're in now they're praying will come back to them well now it's up to fifth sorry 48 degrees celsius track temperature and it's two o'clock local time give or take and uh this is the sort of hotter point of the day and it will continue at this sort of temperature for about another hour and then it drops very very quickly we saw last night that it was dropping like a stone from about five o'clock in the evening through qualifying which was at six o'clock local time and it was very quick to sort of drop 20 30 degrees celsius off the track temperature yes right now this is the painful point certainly then it was almost a degree a minute wasn't it it really plunged and that would be two hours from the end of the race or so an hour from the end of the race so cars uh shedding tyres that have got an awful lot of work done but there's nothing that says when you've got an allocation of six and a half sets they actually have to be a four so two fronts and two rears you can have are you know two thirds of your allocations left sides only and only look at maybe using two sets one for qualifying and one for the end of the race yes correct but you've got to also have them in the correct rotations and it's also the amount that michelin can physically bring as uh there's a potential of a pit stop there sort of coming i'm not quite sure what that particular thing's about but at the same time porsche as you were talking about um you know they've they've just done their second stint uh sorry second tire change in that respect and it still looks like it's really super tough on those tires you know the temperature the blistering and things that we saw and we heard about earlier on look to be continuing oh wrt versus into europol this is first second place charming lazy sweeps around the nose of the car of louis de la chaz and takes second place but uh that was pretty wild but lacy clearly has got a fire lit underneath him was not messing around there at all well here's vincent fosten he's here and i think that's the fire that he needs to but that was a pretty aggressive move i think de la tras though was on the very dirty bumpy inside as well so to some extent there was very limited that he could do see a nice slow-mo look at the way that that number one car rotates just the back just sliding away under power out of the hairpin tachyana condor calderon still holding on to this spot she is in eighth place in lmp2 ahead of matthias a strong run from them they're clean they're consistent they don't get into silly incidents they kept it neat and tidy when they were at le mans last year and uh did a strong strong job here we go here's how it happened with the wrt car [Music] all the grip was with charles milasi in that wrt machine going early on the defensive louis delatraz effectively surrendered the spot because he couldn't stop us late because the track was so dirty tatyana calderon bobbling around under breaking the last element of breaking there just as all the aero has bled off the track gets a little steeper down into the hairpin yeah it's uh toyota ready by the way for the number seven car it looked to me uh and in fact uh i say it so like conway gets a warning for losing track limits and with that gap i said to uh stuff i'm doing to what was then sean lazy was 10 seconds it's down to six so stoffel is closing in now on louis de la chaz for third in lmp2 leader is in the pits brendan hartley now in front in the number eight car as mike conway is as has been the case stopping a lap earlier than the number eight car in number seven certainly have will we see a driver change [Music] double stinting the driver will he have any tyres again i think the answer is no probably on that i'll try and hold them as as much as they can the toyotas there will expect brendan hartley who's assumed the lead of the race being on the next lap and then that in theory at this moment should still pass the lead back to andre negro once that pit stop has actually dissolved itself yeah porsche by the way confirming it's going to be a retirement for the number 77 we saw the body language there that portrait tweeting out is an early bath for the deputy proton car [Music] and it's one again a minute and seven you absolutely spot on martin but it's seven for a fuel only stop against minute with three for andre the crowd ten seconds for the good over the number seven car down in the pit lane duncan vincent and you've been having a look at the tyres on the cars or as they come off the cars there's an awful lot of very badly worn rears coming out of these cars there certainly is martin uh we've seen it in many stops and we've seen it from the words go a quick chat with alex steele i got earlier from the porsche gt team and he says it's the last corner and it's just crucifying the tyres they've got about a 50 degree track temperature which doesn't help it's not a very high degradation of track it doesn't really you know damage the tires all the time it's just the loading that goes through the left-hand side of those tires through that last corner there's nothing they can do about it they're just going to have to manage it and try and almost drive martin a little bit around the problem i was just about to have a word with robloy venezuela out how they're toyota managing to better the performance because we heard earlier on sebastian weymouth said the tires are great and they seem to be getting as we know a long long set of stints from the tires but up and down the pit lane the gt cars are definitely in a tire war with themselves thank you duncan while we saw tatiana calderon uh peggy pog sofia flourish ready for her stint and mike conway did stay in the car brendan hartley then we assume probably will stay in number eight and should pit this lap if he manages to somehow go another one then suddenly there's gonna be all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the heads of the drivers of number seven the engineers may know more of what's going on but the hypercar battle continues to rage the two tgr 0-10s versus the alpine here comes the leader of the new leader for single lap brandon hartley and a great car now this is going to be tight look how far behind on the lap the alpine is just coming out of turn five should convincingly pass uh hartley's patti pass conway [Music] it will be a fuel-only stop a bit of attention in the cockpit but it's happening like a drinks bottle or there's some kind of adjustment drinks drinks it was drinks yeah one in one out duncan vincent is right there yeah that's a drinks bottle change here it's very calm as ever as you hear this just disappear the minute they get the arrow sign to go a lot of fuel goes on the martin we've talked with this in the past and there she goes well audibly there's the big difference between last year's lmp1 and this year's hypercar the crackle of a normally aspirated or of a a normal induction engine firing up whereas last year wow look how close they are seven inches in front of the number eight car last year they whooshed away on electric drive only here it's back to the the sound of the engine firing up which is probably approximate loss of about one one and a half seconds in a pit stop by the time the engine fires up and you get up to 60 it's the initial torque of an electric motor is instantaneous and that fires you to 60 and then fires you out to the pit lane from 60 up even faster well we heard brendan hartley saying i don't know what you want to do about it but it looks to me like i'm quicker well what they did was did they find anything in the pits no 107 and 107. so it's brendan's in lap that has undercut or over cut actually as it is the number seven car that stopped earlier the 100th world championship sports car race for toyota as a racing entity in its various different guises with its various different cars that started well preceding group c even driver change here marco seyfried is out of the 88 and i will guess on that being julian and lauer getting into the car for the first time dominic bastian started it i think he double stented the car and julian and lau one of young superstars taking over number eight got ahead of number seven as far as they're concerned that is honors even they are 14 and a half seconds behind the uh the alpene looking there at 54. giancarlo fischer keller leading in the gte am class from augusto farthest now up to second in the 98 aston martin not sure how many cars oh and tachana calderon has looped it around under pressure was there contact from matthias besh our cameras have caught it no bear had gone by and tatiana running out of rear end i think she dropped the wheel onto the car but she's turned in and just a little bit less adhesion from that here you see it yep yep oh eyes eyes darting around now tell you what that was quite impressive first of all didn't blink second thing is where her eyes were going is where she's going and then immediately to see what was coming in if there was any incoming vehicle and then where she needed to go again yeah i was lucky to get beach there just the rear end dipping into the gravel trap but got the car back underway uh very quickly indeed um going back the 88 dom bastion didn't he sort of did double stint in a very short stint yeah uh had an outer sequence stopped so bitten a bit he's done 48 laps yeah so a full stint and a very short stint so in terms of time probably about the same number of minutes oops comes a shoulder barge yeah that's fine that he did get ahead of louis de la chaz but just after that shot de la trance was the yellow and green car you saw just ahead of hannit and i didn't note actually which car it was that he clattered however i'm sure the stewards have i know it's abortion but i didn't let us which one which one was it proton no no no gta 91 or 922 by the way like the christensen having a bit of a snooze in the afternoon yeah so uh just a bit of a catch up with the overall uh lead position if i could recall correctly after the last round of pit stops it was a 10 second gap from the alpine to the first of the toyotas it's kind of hovered around 12 to 14 a little bit for for quite a lot of the race he's a he's a tiny bit further ahead this time around yeah and that comes again four four seconds um quicker in the pits for the alpine that that seems to be their standard pit stop versus toyota standard which is 103 versus one minute seven so you know in the end seven times four seconds it's only 30 seconds and that's how long it takes to drive through the pit lane so they're a minute adrift they still need well over a minute in hand although of course the final stop won't be a full fuel stop it'll but does it still they're coming out behind at the moment they need to be in front and pulling away and they need to be not maintaining that 12-14 second gap but actually exciting you're right thank you in the truck nicely done everybody neil yanny please if you could move a little bit left i think actually jorvan didn't even notice he really was there he was more looking where he was with the enter europa car he was trying to maybe he just got in a little hot into three and ran out wide so change of driver in the number one machine sofia flourish is getting in tatiana calderon just got out clicking house is back on the pit apron so the clicking house is ready to come back out tatiana calderon handing over to sofia flourish bites kavita doing the early heavy lifting in this car and this will be a double stint i think for sofia flourish yeah another abusing track limits for de la tribes uh teletrans by the way has dropped behind your new turret now and has tumbled after that pass five seconds further back yeah for those who got by in a hurry didn't he just after that little biff we saw it turn three and has cantered away i'm i'm guessing that might be tires for louis delatraz because that does not reflect his real pace 33 in the pit lane this is dylan pereira and possibly a driver change our lmp2 leader lest we forget is wayne boyd wayne boyd leading in lmp2 at the world endurance championship for united auto sports and wayne getting an unexpectedly late call-up raced in european le mans series last week in la castele went back home and was then called because they had a positive test in the team the clicking house is out and rolling with a new clutch that's something they're going to have to look at addressing because that's a gearbox selector issue they've had and possibly two fried clutches on the car now what was accident damage and you don't engineer necessarily against that but it could be an achilles heel allen it certainly could be because yes there was an impact but uh there was nothing blocking the car from moving and uh so from that perspective is just a it's a weakness the car as well looking at it they take the tail off to take the engine cover off to get access to it and all of that suggests that the car is definitely designed for being on the track and not actually being repaired and fits yeah and of course the biggest problem there is this is a long communication for this car there's not a whole lot they can actually change in terms of the basic setup of the package can you not change the clutch i mean uh you can change the clutch but ultimately you've got to find out why you need to try it yeah and things like that the the way the body work is does that amount does that also include you know where which bits the mounting plates come from and into which they go the cars are mologated so therefore there's only limited things you can do for safety for uh you can do you can apply for performance and you can apply for reliability within a certain time schedule and if it's clear that it is for a reliability issue then the fia and aco i'm very sure will allow a change if it's to a specification that they accept certainly it as you say hasn't necessarily been built around serviceability and this was one of the big revolution one of the many revolutions that audi brought in with their sports car program is damage repair and service ability was as high on the list of priorities as outright performance because it doesn't matter how quick you are if you're doing zero miles an hour fixing bits and that was something that became a feature at the international sports car racing once the others realized how audi were taking uh the advantage there there was always a large crowd watching them go through those drills you know coming in no warning of what the drill was going to be it's front corner rear deck into the garage on the jacks not that that well if only we had somebody was involved there could tell us what that was like from the inside but of course all of it was pre-planned as well so it was engineered to be like that and no end of rehearsal and things like sub-assemblies when you went out the back of the garage everything was laid out exactly where it would have been in the workshop back at yoast racing so every single tool and item was in the same place no matter where you were on the planet and all of that makes a huge difference to how fast you are on track because pit lanes are renowned for not being quick [Music] the eight hours of portugal round two of the fia world endurance championship of the circuit tour del algar this roller coaster race track that's been open about a dozen years the first time a world endurance championship field has come here and the biggest in wc history outside of le mans led away by the alpine that claim pole position the first french pole position in wec history toyota running second and third and a big bunched pack of lmp2s and gt cars little lock up from the brand new glickenhaus in turn three and contact poleman in lmp2 tom blonchis being turned around by his teammate antonio felix de costa in the gte am class it had been a struggling qualifying for aston martin they came through early on but ferrari retaliated and in gte pro ferrari also recovered some race pace versus porsche that had been absent in qualifying too to take the lead of the field and move up to first and third with this robust move from daniel serra drama though for francois perodo attire exploded ripping apart the right front corner of the 83 af quarter that's the points leader and the ferrari porsche battles continued in gte pro and um through the early first part of the race little tag in traffic the high-class car earning a penalty for turning around one of the jota cars racing team netherlands united auto sports battle trying to chase down wrt the early race leaders drive-through penalty for that contact for the dragon speed car wrt still in front in lmp2 but paying not one but two penalties penalty two coming up for glickenhaus after this unfortunate uh miscalculation by ryan briscoe clatted out the d station racing car and the 77 dempsey proton car both of which have subsequently retired with accident related post-traumatic stress number eight number seven the toyota battle number seven behind anthony davidson said i'm quicker the team agreed let him by sebastian vuemi and then brendan hartley in turn have regained that second place for the toyota in lmp2 it's the number 22 united auto sports car that has led for hour three of the race as the shetland ferrari lost the lead the blue car dropping behind the silver a of course the carp giancarlo fiscally in gte am it is alpine that leads after three hours of the portimao eight hour race [Music] well not even halfway and way before we get to halfway and lots going on the alpine leads now by 17 seconds again in this stint pulling away from the two totals the eight from the seven is the crowd from hartley and conway stoth of undergone uh and roberto gonzalez have cycled round slightly off the uh the regular pit stop strategy the jota cars the third 28 from the 38 with united auto sports pulled arrested out the wheel in third party and the deal there with joe to sport is that they're not off schedule because of incidents they're actually running longer on fuel than their rivals one lap per stint which will give them eight extra laps before the end of the race which is half a stint so their final stop should be much quicker because they won't need as much fuel as their rivals so not only do they keep popping up to the top in lmp2 28 and 38 there right now first and second in lmp2 but they're building an advantage in their back pocket and it's hard to see how their rivals are suddenly going to find an extra lap on fuel 22 united in third place in lmp2 31 that's team wrt in fourth headed 29 racing team netherlands racing team netherland with fritz van aird at the wheel again as they just cycle through the pits again so he's gonna have to do three separate stints through this eight hours uh remember the uh teamwrt car a great stint by the way has been underway from george lazy and in comes that's the lp yeah that's the alpine behind the other car that looks like the alpine which is the real team racing car and giancarlo fisa keller the af quarter that leads in gte am so our race leader is in in gte m and in hyper car it's gonna be a driver change here just uh seeing andre negrow uh removing the jack plug from the radio yep in preparation for the change car was started by nico lapierre he did a double stint and andre negrow has done a double stint uh vasivir as it says on the helmet mvx he's the man who set the stunning pole lap to grab that pole position for alpine and as you said graham almost unbelievably this is the first time a french team has taken the outright pole in the fia world endurance championship indeed so certainly plenty of pole positions for sydney tower two days but uh the very first in the top class in the hypercar class this uh additional stop is beginning to wind its way out isn't it here yeah longer and longer but uh just to see what kind of pace matteo vancouver got this one little lock up ahead of the number eight toyota who was the car in front it was a red car was that the clicking house or the is the clicking house isn't it not the uh richard mill racing team car didn't spot that one or just in my class it's just a flashlight yeah so the 92 car by the way has been in pit lane for michael christensen to take over from neil gianni yeah with a driver in that car i think porsche have got very significant tire troubles here it's going to be very very interesting to see how they manage those ties because they've only got six and a half sets but they're only using half a set at a time there's not been a full set change now that may also be the case at ferrari in which case porsche are just basically gonna have to plug on for third and fourth but you have to hope that they know that they have got something up their sleeves in terms of full sets there's 52 that's our race second place car miguel molina now taking over that car alessandro pierguidi leading in 51 and we also saw uh who else just came down the pit lane thomas floor and yeah of course uh as well came in from second place roberto lacourte well wayne boyd has just stepped out of the number 22 united auto sports car he handed that over to teammate paul deresta how did it feel to lead in world endurance queen boy joins us after a very hot sweaty sniff there we've got to ask first of all what was it like getting the very late call to join the team for this weekend um yeah it was it was firstly i'd like to say you know get well soon to fabio obviously it's horrible situation for the mr world championship race but for me it was an amazing opportunity to uh have a go at it and uh definitely under the deep end a little bit there's a lot of pressure i'm putting on my own shoulders the team are pretty cool with it but um you know i'm glad just to get that first double stint out of the road and get the nerves away your first ever wake face and you led the weight grace obviously emotions must be very high i know they thought they told me on the radio we're now leading and i was like i thought he prepared he didn't tell me um but i uh i was just kept the chemical head and just like sort of like did my my lab times i was careful in traffic i don't want to take too many risks and try and do any any heroics i was quite happy what we did and then we must ask about the car how were the tires holding up on the lmp2 they were pretty good it was obviously a double stint on those tires so at the end they were um they're starting to go off a little bit but not not too bad to be honest they obviously are our car united i've got so much experience the car is very good it shows that united also have a great stable of drivers they can just call upon the likes of you to to step in and help well see you soon anyway no i was very very grateful for i was again ready to go to work and uh got the phone call so it was it was a bit of a busy day and thursday but i'm very very grateful for it it's great to see you here thank you very much thank you yeah a faithful servant indeed united alter sports who said earlier in the show has raced and been on the podium here in years past in a leisure lmp2 and two wins and a podium in lmp3 including uh in 2020 will be back here again later this year in the lms with the championship defense in lmp3 both jota and p2s on pit road one of them already rolling and underway the battle though martin under a second now uh with brendan hartley ahead of mike conway yeah stoffel vandoorne out which should put tom blonkis back in in our rotation and roberto gonzalez the door was open there as well i think there was a driver change in 38 and that should put antonio felix to costa it does there's ants familiar helmet so driver changes back to their starting drivers so paul de resta leads and then sean gale and uh is out in favor of antonio felix de costa so there is the number 22 united auto sports car and paul the rest are not a bad super sub to have on the bench either is he uh no he's not it's almost like an englishman a northern irish from the scotsman walked into a race yeah what's the punchline we're about to see well let's find out because united auto sport last year's european le mans series champion lmp2 champions in world endurance championship and le mans winners have not had quite that vein of form so far this season either in elms or in the world endurance championship racing spa so you know if you peek it's very hard to plateau at that peak it's very very easy for the others to come back at you we'll see what they've got here gte am oh little fighter those are big kerbs on the inside and if that's not a broken rim it may well be a couple of loosened fillings for the 33 car felipe fraga at the wheel of that [Music] you're quite correct in uh wec that's par they need the championship coming but it's and that was a very very solid performance yeah but the lms they've not been quite uh on form to this point much better run in the red bull ring for them but uh pushing pushing hard trying to make it it's always difficult after such a dominant season yeah but to add the role of honor you have there they also the second cast second in the lms and taking the lmp3 championship yes uh yet again absolutely so aboard the car at the moment they've got two lemon winners and uh two lmp2 champions both of them phil hanson yeah an lmp3 champion and and only one of them has raced in formula one absolutely so it's you know it's been away it's a starry lineup isn't it and yeah really good there's stoffel vandoorne just checking in on the data i think probably before he goes online and uh and tweets about the first hint in the car interesting to know as well wayne's saying that the tyres on the united car only starting to really feel it right at the end of that second step the head of communications for the world endurance championship rachel cavers has just popped into the booth with drinky poos and that's either a biscuit or a choc ice in which case let's do your own commentary for the next chart allen's gone off to get the ice cream it's biscuits just just to make this an important point we should make clear for our international audience it's not a joke guys okay so lots and lots going on four hours 40 we're nearly well we're not quite halfway through but we're into the fourth hour three hours and 18 minutes already completed a lot going on in the pits both iron links cars michelle gatting and andrea piccini in the 60 iron links ferrari that was started by claudio schiavoni i can hear the battle between brendan hartley the race leader and mike conway his teammate and on this track whichever toyota is in front the other one always appears to be quicker pretty much tells you there is nothing to choose between either of these gr010 hypercars all their driver lineups also tells you everything you need to know about professional racing yes gimme gimme gimme put me in coach put me in uh the change by the way since that last round of pit stops is that the jota cars for the first time i think in living memory are now split by another car with the twt car between the two and wrt recovering from not one but two count them two penalties that involves a drive-through rather than even like a 10-second hold in the pitch or anything so wrt were leading quite comfortably after two hours and into the third hour and then uh a double miscue has cost them deer but wrt are we know from the european la monsieur is capable of running a very very strong race so it'll be interesting to see how that one sorts itself out it does look as though it's united versus wrt versus the two jota cars and racing team netherlands close or close about friends van aired in fifth place in the 29 car it's his second step don't forget all the gentlemen drivers in these cars have to do with uh three steps to get their minimum drive time through so for racing team netherlands they've had more time at the moment with the gentleman driver in than two of their rivals so there's still that to be played out the interesting one as well is gte am because for a bronze driver in gtm in an eight hour race you've got to do two hours and 20 minutes that's a bit more a tiny bit more than two stints you're mentioning about drivers and their arm drivers roberto gonzalez in the 30th johto sport car he's already done two stints and fritz feder is just on his second stint right now so therefore i think they're in the pound seat as it stands at the moment yes they're fourth overall but in terms of that particular in fight then they're in a pretty reasonable position and uh when you look at the kind of the non-professionally ranked driver uh to have wayne board as that uh non-professionally prank driver for the united auto sports car that too adds something else to the mix those top three four five cars in lmp2 it could be a real dog fight for the whole of this race we are 38 minutes away from halfway it's all died down in gte am obviously apart from this battle giancarlo fischer keller being blown by racing oh it's thomas floor back in that car yep someone took over from giancarlo at the last stop and giorgio santiago doing his second step now roberto lacourte has done two senator has done two son of giotto is the silver am i yeah but fuoco hasn't been in the car at all as as long as i can recall is that right hasn't driven yet he's the gold driver he's their best rated driver that's correct so they keeping him for a final two hour mega blast to the line because they've got roberto lacourte he's done two stints giorgio senagioto is in uh his second stint they'll need to do one each more roberto will need to do a third and giorgio who's a silver not a bronze driver might need to do another interesting times and this is all part of you know the the hidden game of chess that goes on with driver stints with race stints with fuel with drive times let's get down to d station racing duncan vincent is with the team their car retired out on track after that crash caused by the clicking house david brewer is the race engineer for the 777 tf sport d station car now first of all bad luck can you give us an update of what actually caused the failure and how the car is uh well yeah we had an unfortunate bit of contact with the glickenhaus going down into the hairpin uh yeah damage wasn't horrendous but it just pushed the radiator and so uh we the guys did a great job did the whole front end in 20 minutes and then we've gone out and the engine temperature just gone sky high so we just decided we better pull the car because it would end up destroying an engine if we haven't already so just have to see where we are now really you must have some great feeling though after the car runs so very well earlier on until the until the flat spot and puncture but it was at the sharp end yeah it was good i mean we sort of flipped the strategy a bit on the other guys um and yeah got a march on them and i think everyone in now is really struggling with uh tie blistering as well so it's a real shame because we're at the sharp end we could have maybe had a bit of a result but it wasn't meant to be today and you've shut the car off early enough to hopefully not have any long-lasting engine damage i don't know we'll we'll have to see the guys looking at the data now um yeah it's touch and go we'll see david thank you very much i'm sorry no problem thank you well let's have let's go not touch and they can bring the same engine back for a couple weeks time it's a fine effort from d station racing sports and obviously aston martin racing in support of that effort and and the cars look really super competitive as well you know that you've got to remember that the driver line up they don't have experience of this track and a number of the other teams do well it's not so many but a few do you know a of course quite a number of their crews have raced here in european le mans series and so on so well since we're unlikely to mention them again other than the highlights i'll mention again tomorrow fuji a real standout from this season so far both races so far we've seen the japanese driver regular driving part of shino sam uh be really pretty spectacular [Music] looking here at a change in position between the two toyotas there you go the car behind is always the quicker one now i don't know where toyota's corner number nomenclature comes from but everybody else including the uh timing officials call the hairpin turn five i think that's turn five yeah but uh it's always uh make the move in turn four maybe it's just you know waft off the throttle in turn four and lay him whistle by down into turn five which makes sense the clicking house now with roman dumas at the wheel he's got a very different challenge i think it's next weekend is the pikes peak international hill climb where he's driving for the famous champion racing back into motorsport after some time away the passing of long-time team owner dave mirage yeah it'd be great to see the champion racing name back a name that allen has been associated with in the past as friendly rivals and uh drove for them as well i drove for dave mirage back in 1999 in the 911 porsche gt1 they went out there and in fact fought out a lot of races and then latterly they were the factory team in the usa for our american le mans series programs and so we won a lot of races and championships and dave and the whole family actually were great friends to to me personally and also to the the rest of the audi side and it's really good that one of his sons is taking the champion name back to pikes peak it's going to be a heck of a campaign there's no question about it very very different to what they've done before but i'm really pleased that uh to see that champion name back there yeah great to see historic names you know champion made us a big name for themselves in the way that brumos did a a decade or more earlier and they're still yeah great to see them coming back as part of american motorsport and hopefully i return to sports car racing as well they're a very big sports car racing family i think they are it's uh you know let's start with going up pikes peak which is a bit of a challenge there's no question about it look towards the future i'll just remind everybody that is a sports car racing fan after ford juan lamont outright they were the next american team to win the 24 hours on the wall outright which was a hell of a challenge considering they are a privateer team run effectively initially when i was racing for them in 99 out of a car dealership yep his salesman was a chief strategist wow and that was just an incredible transformation for a team that i don't think many people believed in and there was a few times i questioned but mr mirage definitely delivered great hot works hope their adventure next weekend encourages them back to do more because of a name we've missed with our shadow of doubt great to see they've kept the heritage delivery yeah and yeah that's all part of it isn't it like brew moss white with the red and blue stripes if they go in any other color you'll be going is that actually a blue moss car the final on on day mirage the great story about how he started his road to becoming a major car dealer is that at the time when he started with the porsche car dealership when the family started you basically got a tiny incremental increase in the allowance from porsche per year over the number of cars you sold so you could only grow little by little inch by inch then the 924 came along and porsche dealers in north america frankly didn't want it they'd sort of suffered a bit with the 914 and went oh here we go again i'm not doing that dave mirage said give me as many as you can give me i'll take them all sold them all at a cost plus a tiny margin profit but you know triple quadrupled his volume in a year and suddenly the next year he could order that many 911s or whatever because that was his volume of sales for the previous year and it's that entrepreneurial kind of excitement that he brought with him everywhere he went so yeah very much missed but uh good to see the family name back again he definitely i sold him in scotland if he could there was no question about it no border was too far away for for dave but like you say it's fantastic to see the name back and also mike peters and everybody else from champion now we're going to take roman do my own throw them up the hill at pikes peak as quickly as they can now their battle here for fifth position as we get back to the plot with ego perfetti for team project wong that's the white and blue car and manuela gosner right behind in the iron dame's right there's rahul frey watching her teammate doing the driving she will eventually turn around to the camera she said but enough of the back of my head thank you very much let's just see the car on track and again this is a busy team they race in the european le mans series with the same car and the same lineup they race here at world endurance championship so same as switching meal racing team you know it's it's miles and hours behind the wheel that's going to make everybody better and better and better as we've seen with our drivers you know they just get better with every outing because they're absorbing more data picking up more speed learning more about the car and themselves finding more confidence it's like anything you know it's that famous it takes ten thousand hours to be fantastic at something well takes a long a lot of racing to get ten thousand thousand dollars under your belt but these guys you know if you can do more championships you've got more chance yeah sorry just a little bit of a jump back uh wrt we're mentioning earlier on with their second uh penalty their first penalty was speeding in the pit lane it was actually robin friend so i think it was on the way into the pit lane 67.5 kilometers per hour in a 60 limit and so that was a kind of slam dunk unfortunately for them watching the lead gap totals are pulling away and i think that's for the first time in a while from the uh the rp i think my guess is i'm looking just over your shoulder to lap times they are quicker material is not matching the lap times of might come when brendan hartley it's not really been the theme so far or you could put it a slightly different way nicola lapierre was because really they've kind of been more equal intending to flick onto the other side with the toyota or slightly quicker um ever since it came through to andre negro and then and i think lapierre was pretty exceptional at the beginning especially when they got into traffic it was a traffic management if we remember where he was able to gain a significant part of his gap and advantage at the beginning but it looks as if the performance momentum as well as the strategic advantage is definitely moving towards our toyota cousins is this red on red contact or red on yellow and black that's the 60 iron links ferrari needed that line otherwise he just shot off into the undergrowth at the top of the hill there but the factory porsche trying to squeeze through was it this is 52. it's 52. what's that there only above 60. we got molina threading the eye of a very tight needle there indeed got through but not without a little bit of a possibly fluent spanish swear words going i would imagine there was some uh leading in gt pro in the 51 ferrari that means james collado his teammate is in the garage and of course that means duncan vincent has gone down to bother him poor old james currently leading the gte pro class uh james collado and my good friend alessandro pierguidi what i have to ask you are you guys managing the tires the same as posture porsche appear to be in big trouble with the back tires or the left-hand side tires i didn't know that so um it's good to know uh we we are struggling a bit with tyres with these temperatures we have blistering uh on the left-hand side it's very demanding on the left-hand side so yeah we're trying to manage the blistering but it seems to be unavoidable uh the thai temps are 150 degrees and we just can't call them down so let's see uh i think on safety terms it's okay uh it's just performance we lose performance when we when we have the blisters and the track temperatures due to cooldown later in the race and then it should come back to you yes i hope so because it's flipping while [Applause] yesterday we didn't have any problems so we're a bit confused but let's see uh it's a long race it's still still two hours to go so i can sympathize with this wedding i should also ask you you're staying with the two driver line up here of course you have brought the three driver lineup will we see ferrari introduce that monza maybe ahead of le mans uh i don't know i mean it's uh it's quite on the limit with two drivers here because it is very physical like i said but uh no i think for monza we'll keep the two and then um yeah for lemon we'll introduce our third driver we we seem to manage better if we're to give us more time in practice to uh get the car how we want it james the best of luck thank you very much cheers buddy thank you so back to racing excellent stuff will be found there finally confirmed by james collado both the ferrari gt pro and uh porsche really struggling on the rear left tyre [Music] dramas as well of course we heard a little earlier the same kind of issue with the glickenhaus interested to catch up maybe with some of the lmp2 teams to find out what they're saying about entire life it's uh very warm indeed i wonder alan james they're talking about being a bit on the limit for two driver teams is that going to hit them further on here in terms of pure performance for the drivers they should be fitting enough to be able to do it at the end of the day um i've done 12 hour races with two drivers or 10 hour races sorry with two drivers so i think an eight hour round portal is possible uh it is definitely not quite as comfortable for the drivers but you know i i don't see a negative i think there was an element of strategy for porsche to integrate a third driver into the lineup prior to le mans as duncan alluded to there as opposed to necessarily just specifically looking at this race however it's always a compromise it's a compromise for the drivers running if you do go to three and it's also a compromise in the race um if you stay at two and so it's just whichever works for you at the same time depends what the driver that would be slotting in for your the mall program is doing if they're doing the imsa championship for example they would be in detroit yesterday so physically unable to actually join everybody here in the world of jurors championship in portugal it's michael christensen and fred macco uh are the two additional wheels here this weekend both highly experienced highly successful michael of course next world champion in the wec we watch her side by side that's the alpine going through it does that was just a tiny tag wasn't it from the i don't think he touched i think it was just more okay so it was a bit slow sorry it was a bit close as uh the high-class sort of dive to the inside but the alpine had already done the move and as you saw my tube activity just saw at the corner of his eye i'm sure something coming at him but and then had a quick look yes um but uh you know fought off to fight another day dennis anderson it was aboard the high-class car he's actually just put in one of the fastest laps um certainly the fastest laps of his stint to 32-0 in the last lap for uh mature victoria and so you know in terms of stint times we were talking about the swing going towards toyota if he can deliver that sort of performance then it should bring him back into the game with toyota as well 32-0 for him 32-8 just saw a pop-up for a wrt car so lmp2 and hyper car lap times are not that far apart as we expected all the way from free practice uh so i think it was a 33 8 was net possibly but either way it's only a second uh what we were seeing through free practice was the quickest of the lmp2 cars were ahead of the hybrid cars yes we've seen that pick up for qualifying and again in race pace as we did in spa we did indeed we saw exactly the same situation there between the two categories and i think at the end there's more to dial in for a hyper car in terms of circuit circuit evaluation evolution and especially with toyota making sure the systems are correct now and from that perspective they've got simulation simulator that it delivers however if it's a circuit you haven't been to before or certainly not done a lot of running and not many have done round here never mind with the latest resurfacing and there is still a little bit of on-track adaption under pressure here for second in lmp2 sean galileo with ferdinand hamsburg looking pretty racing right now he's the quickest man in the class so it was previous lap just pipped last time around by antonio felix costa costa who's 30 seconds back from this battle and fourth but when i watch it there the wrt card we saw it from the first stint when uh robin friends was there it it turns into the corner it's very sharp going to the apex of the corner and he can keep a tighter line in general as if it's a little bit more agile on the front axle than necessarily the legion that he's following the sean gale but also that we saw with racing team netherlands with guido van der garde at the beginning the race so they're gaining their speed in slightly different ways both have come up through the junior single-seater ladder sean gillel probably two or three years ahead in the curve ahead of ferdie habsburg but habsburg already a gold rated driver so started in uh f3 f2 raced in dtm and now in world endurance will make his lemon debut in a couple of months that has triggered a change in our le mans team we lose jamie campbell walter at least temporarily his manager but we gain olly gavin so yeah i'll do it down a scott and we're up a uh properly heightened person indeed busy busy pit lane action for every team time lost here you never game back on track four hours 20 minutes remaining of the eight hours of portugal round two of the fia world endurance championship our leaders toyota gazu racing 1-2 by conway head of brendan hartley with the third hyper car machiavelli in the alpene in third in lmp2 united auto sports lead with paul de resta from 28 chota sean gale under pressure from 30 habsburg you're looking at here in the 31 car that's a battle for second antonio felix costa fourth for chota ahead of inter-europol's jakob schmikowski cooper doing his first stint in the interior pole 34 car ahead of fritz van ed who's doing his second in gte pro ferrari 51 and 52 first and third forces second and fourth hanging on to tyres that are blistering more than me in the sunshine and that is a very high rate of blistering you see the 92 car here of michael christensen just ahead of fred makaviki so in fact ferrari up to 1-2 ahead of the forces three and four and there is a battle for not being lost between the porsches in traffic in the gte am class amr 98 augusto farfus leads the field from chettala's ferrari giorgio santiato and the a of course are ferrari 54 of thomas floor but if porsche have a long-term plan that's going to bring them back into it there's an awful world of hurts between here and the chequered flag still to come and louise has been down speaking to michelin talking about the hurt and in reality pretty much all the gt teams she said has been running on the medium michelin tire which is right on the limit here now that was predicted and it was something that they decided on the teams can decide on what their accommodations are going to be um but right now someone has switched onto a slightly different tyre and uh that is a sort of a little bit of a tester case and uh that is augusto farfus and farfa has just been looking at his average lap times is actually kind of a little bit up there he's on the same lap time as christensen and machiavelli and so the gt am is on the same speed as gte pros and he's now taking the lead in the gte m class as well in that 98 aston martin that he shares with felipe uh with uh paul dalalana and ironically that tyre for hot weather was developed for a race that he should have been having at home in brazil for sao paulo so the brazilian is benefiting from the brazilian tyre to take the lead in gtaem and if anybody else is looking at that then they will be going right we're having them well depends on allocation but yes yeah that's the the idea in theory if it's if it's available the thing is if you've plumped for everything in your allocation on one particular it's like betting on black at uh you know the tables in that respect and so therefore there is areas that uh you know it's not just quite as easy as oh well i would like some of that please thank you very much luis is scribbling there's enough so that should be hopefully they should deal with that of course then we go to monza in july i'm not thinking medium is necessarily what you're going to be wanting in the heat of a of an italian summer either oh but yeah you've got a very it's a very different style of circuit you've got high speed at monza so you need to take the camber off a little bit so you've got good braking you don't get the inner shoulders hot but at the same time you only have six corners and a lot of them are slow you've only really got a scary and parabolica and parabolic is the only long loaded corner and we heard earlier on one of the drivers talking about high energy circuit that's the energy over the whole lap over the 4.6 kilometers that go into tyre here is completely on the other end of the spectrum to monza and so therefore it is a very very different a car requirement and also tire requirements change here as throwing it up the inside ferdi habsburg takes second place in lmp2 away from sean galileo gale a silver rated driver habsburg gold rated so you'd expect that was the way that battle should have played out and for sean galileo the longer he made habsburg wait the better it is for him in the long run that's the job when you are the top-rated drivers the platinums the golds your job is to set blistering pace when you're the silver or the bronze in the lineup your job is not to lose time that you don't need to lose so you focus on doing your job let the others get up with them not too far behind you can see a yellow car popping over the brow that's the racing team netherlands car fritz van edd but that is a lap behind these guys what is leading pro it is still leading pro am not in fact about a minute ahead of high class for dennis anderson and they've been the pro-am leaders right from the start bear in mind this is deep now into france whenever it's second of three stints so this is looking good for them in that class even though it's dropping them back away from that leading group roberto gonzalez having his head reattached tom blonkfist suiting up and ready to go so i would sense that there might be some joker stops not too far away this isn't quite like le mans where you expect to have the driver in for the entire step before he gets in but there's roberto just being manipulated so really important part of the team management of all the elements is managing the driver's body because if your neck is giving you grief it distracts your brain from what it should be doing which is not crashing which is basically whoa which is basically what racing drivers doing when the car is up on its toes at its absolute limit it's avoiding a crash by a fraction all the way around the lap i think it's a given to win a race you don't crash in that respect but uh right now it is quite tough out there it is hot and there's only one place on the circuit martin where you can actually really take a breath and that is on the start finish straight which is one heck of a place to take a breath for sure but it comes on the end of a very long demanding section in the final sector mike wayne wright's helmet you just saw there ready to go richard mill racing team also standing by um so out of the pits is ben keating in the four horsemen that pale it's not really turquoise is it pale blue pale blue is not really the right way we're going to have to go it's not duck egg anyway that blue aston martin so he's made his stop into the pit sophia flourish so she is on pit road and the russian wheel racing team number one car has been the first of the lmps to stop every uh lmp2s to stop any but everybody else should probably follow in next lap and i think i don't know maybe sofia will stay in if not we will cycle back to bites govissa who started the race for the team and in elapsed time we will have probably united wrt into europol racing team netherland high class and the rest and the lap after them should come choker 16 seconds is the gap first to second in lmp2 with funny habsburg taking nibble out of paul de resta's advantage last time around 22 from 31 to keep an eye on that gap because that's going to be significant as we get deeper in pressurized oil canister being ready there to pump oil back into the system car is clearly using a bit and we are waiting for mike conway the race leader duncan is waiting for mike conway the race leader to come in is chew just yet two more laps we're here chewbacca has actually been pretty much stabilizing everything for the game even on the last lap a lot a second slower than the number eight toyota brandon hartley and the number seven toyota of mike conway so this may be for the first time toyota will stop and then at the end of the stint the alpine may will stop this maybe for the first time that alpine does not come back out in front of the toyotas so very quick laps being put in here by mike conway and brendan hartley in those two toyotas and there again you see that just ring of missing rubber when it overheats it blisters the rubber comes away from the metal banding underneath and just peels off him great big lumps and normally the pickup is a relatively even wear across but the rubbish on the side of the track that's where all that's gone yeah but that's the blisters have popped there and it's pulled around so if you just think of pure contact patch that's against the tarmac it's a percentage significantly less it's overheated and that tire is completely out of its window it's windows in a different country nevermind right there and so there's nothing you can really do about that you can baby it and you would have to very much baby it in the final corner by effectively not driving flat out through the corner especially at the beginning of the stint when it's got a lot of rubber on it at that moment in time then you've got to be very gentle for the first when the weight comes off of the fuel when you're into that first phase of the corner trying to make sure that you just help it as much as you can to try to live at the end of the stint just all high classes dennis anderson being passed by the inter-europol car of kubus makovsky and that was putting a lap on anderson anderson being reported to the stewards for not obeying or respecting blue flags in this case not pulling over quickly enough to let probably the leaders get by him which is effectively within one lap is the sort of guideline that's in the international sporting code and that's the thing that they've been very strict on today they've basically pointed at it and they do that at times to time focus on a particular regulation that's maybe over two or three races got a little bit out of hand but in this occasion definitely track limits and blue flags in comes the total i suspect ellen on that front it's because they've now learned how tough it is to pass with these new regulations and you know if you've got someone who's not got their kind of race head on uh and keeping an eye on what's going on with the wider race with the help of the crew it is going to affect this race very dramatically because as we've seen it is really tough to pass down a toyota duncan vincent in comes the race leader mike conway and bang on his marks as a professional racing driver will be expected to do the door opens and out pops mike and in goes commute kobayashi into that car and he slides himself over the side pod mike comey walks right in front of me with his seat especially molded for his back tires and fuel are expected on the number seven car and the number eight car will be expected to come in three laps after this so a slightly longer stint for the eight car and as ever very calm of you the fuel always goes in first of all now this is where the choreographed stuff happens the pit stops the art of a pit stop here we go they do it's opposite side so back right and front left then they will swap round in fact they do complete interesting to see how to work that completely different from what we've been seeing during the week from the gt teams and then as martin said this is a big difference the car moves with the engine the internal combustion engine rather than delivering the hybrid straight away so pretty neat stop for toyota just a little stumble from that left rear gun man as he uh released well that three laps that duncan was talking about there that will mean that the the number eight of brendan hartley comes in later if you extrapolate all the way to the end of the race that's three laps less fuel it'll need at the end of the race minimum and three laps less fuels probably about four and a half five seconds that's five seconds on the pits final pit stop he will make less than this car and so from that perspective then it's uh it's quite a difference so strategically they're looking very much at the long game in basically four hours and 10 minutes time yeah interesting that the number seven car up until now has been at the lap prior to number eight and yet it missed him somehow number eight to save not one but two further laps 22 is in our lmp2 leader paul deresta stays in so we'll be fuel only and a cleaner the windscreen [Music] so number eight will be coming down pit road as well brandon hartley is the race leader so the alpine is up to second there are scrubbed tires not brand new shiny tires so it might be the set that did qualifying heard from brendan saying that they went out again qualifying on an old set they were trying to keep new ties for the race that turned out to be an error and they had to change that so it may be that that is the set that has done qualifying otherwise everything else should be relatively brand new the fastest lap of the race goes as we speak to matthias avira it's a 131 0 8 006 nine that is a significant jump forward well that is quicker than andy sutchek's super league formula record one thirty one nine it's quicker than an a1 gp car ever went round here in the hands of adam carroll for team ireland 131-4 but not as quick as last year's lmp2 lap record set by mikkel jensen in the g drive hours 0-1 that's a 29 9.67 i think two things just as uh the erstwhile race leader brendan hartley comes in first of all the fuel load is coming off very quickly of that alpene so the car will be quite light physically the other thing is the track temperature is starting to drop down a touch exactly right it's funny because quite a lot of the elements guys have said it's not like this in october when we come here no it really isn't the temperatures are very different and probably a lot kinder on the rubber what was the point that lou was making about this tyre that uh our friend mr farfus is at the moment it's a slightly harder tire but basically it's for a higher energy circuit and sao paulo has got long hard corners in high temperature and also on a tarmac surface that is very similar to here because it's an f1 grade tarmac surface remember the circuit was actually resurfaced because of formula one coming and therefore it's a different sort of rubber two tarmac uh combination previously did his fastest lap of the race he's within a couple of tenths of that this time around he's a lot quicker than most of the drivers around him other than as i speak uh that from julian landlower the delayed 88 car into the 39s but far foose pretty typically in the mid to low 40s at the moment deep into his stint so this is not new rubber anymore either she's consistently around that mark and getting quicker towards the end of this stint it's a thing comes the clicking house for full service stop yep so ryan briscoe staying in this is car seven oh roman dumas rather staying in car 709 and they are topping that up as well with the pressurized oil system see on the side it said 0.5 so half a liter of oil goes in the twin turbo v8 produced by people motor in the south of france it's a company that has predominantly made its name with four cylinder turbo rallycross engines which produced north of 600 horsepower they've essentially assembled two on a common crankshaft possibly a little bit more engineering involved than i might have made that sound like but that's where the knowledge has come from so it's a twin turbo v8 capable of comfortably north of a thousand brake horsepower which is running at around 650 here racing uh big apart into europol competition in the pit lane so to a high class kuber schmitkowski stays in so to our wrt looks like ferdi habsburg stays in the car there as well the austrian fires up and leaves the pit stand so joe to cycle back to the top 38 chasing antonio felix to costa 28 leading sean at galileo and the gap between them is nearly half a minute [Music] so pull the rest of third for united auto sports in 22 29 racing team netherland fritz manayard continues to move back up the order as those around him make stops he's leading a pro-am category second in pro-am jan magnusson now taking over what i think we can call the dane train the real team uh the high-class racing entry car number 20. and it's devon garcia third in pro am in 70 for real team and we talked about it yesterday and again i'll mention it today in dads and lads racing damski style uh kevin magnussen not only grabbed pole position for the imsa race in belle isle michigan yesterday but he also snatched victory in his cadillac dpi so it's one pole and one win so far for the magnuson family this weekend neither of them going to dad we're halfway through the race drive-through penalty for the third-placed car a second place car in uh the pro-am category so jan magnusson will leave the pit lane and head straight back in to serve somebody else's drive-through that was dennis anderson not respecting blue flags so first job for jan magnusson will be to serve somebody else's penalty here's our race leader machiavelli four hours in and four hours to go [Music] me [Music] [Music] i thought we just ride with that for a moment a little opportunity to see just how hard the driver is working around this quarter-mile circuit that was half a lap and that was busy enough on his in-lap so we're almost at the stage how many laps ago did toyota stop two or three laps for the number eight car we're almost at the stage where the next time the uh out people drop a full fuel stop behind yeah it is it was five laps for camille kobayashi in the seven and three laps now for brendan hartley in the eighth i don't think uh any of them of the two toyotas can get rid of that little splash at the end they'll equal it out going through the course of the rest of the race but for vactivia that was a 31 laps then 32 lap stint as he came in and that's five six laps five six laps less than toyota every single time [Music] so we've got toyota now that is leading second nakajima and third machu vacci but the leader is kamui kobayashi let's listen to his teammate mike conway the current leader of the race mike conway you've just swapped over communicable away in your car first of all i saw you having an in-depth talk with the engineer in the pit wall what was that what was that about well i mean it's just uh as the slits are evolving we're changing quite a few things in the car and uh we're just trying to relay all the messages to the next driver getting in and uh it's yeah it's tricky to manage the the double stint with the tires so just uh just some advice and what happened throughout the stint because it's a bit limited the data they can see at the pit wall so uh just trying to download as much as i can to feed the information to the engineer what tools do you have at your disposal in the car to manage it through the stint we have you know brake brake controls traction control and some other settings so quite a lot to play with so if you could manage things quite well you just kind of have to do it early and chase it all the time tires seem to be a bit of a talking point in the pit lane just now how were you guys coping with it yeah for us this did was okay um i think we stayed quite consistent throughout the run there's definitely a drop we just did wanted to but i think we still managed some decent times towards the end there so um it was okay for us and finally are you on the same strategy as a sister card just now what are you kind of looking at doing something different you took brand new tires they went out on a set of scrub tires just now yeah i certainly saw that um yeah not sure why i guess they want to try something different which um yeah we're able to do that so um yeah it's up to each car to do what they want really so they were able to go a lot longer in the first in which will help them towards the end as well make as ever thank you it's a pleasure thank you thank you thank you dunk and uh just want to say hello to jamie campbell walter watching from the terrace in majorca on his laptop with a beer we don't hate you yeah we don't know we do we do we do absolutely uh trouble brewing at iron links for not one but both of their cars their number 60 car which claudio scavoni is currently driving at 85 that manuela gosner is at the helm of both under investigation for their last pit stops yeah manuela gosner is uh running fifth at the moment claudius gave only a couple of places further back with matteo caroli between them in the 56 uh project one car so here's how they lay after four hours toyota one two ahead of alpine joe to one two in lmp2 ahead of long-term leaders united and wrt into europol racing team nedland and high class round out the top ten racing team netherlands high class and real team are the top three in the pro-am category a of course a one-two ferraris ahead of the porsches in gte pro gte yam aston martin a go go that new tire working for our gusto farfus head of the ferraris of chettala af courser kessel and iron links the team project one may benefit if there's a penalty for the iron mixed cars as could gr click announce after clutch change still racing dempsey proton and d station after both being hit into an accident by glickenhaus the car in from the lead don't forget blancast was the pole man got turned around in turn three on lap one by teammate antonio felix de costa and acosta will likely uh he's in the pits as well lightly hand his car over to phil hanson and uh beggar pardon there's phil hansen get myself all there there's paul the rest rather united also sports decosta will hand the 38 car back over to well i would put roberto gonzalez back in but again i may not be a team manager as antonio stayed in the car i think he might have i think was open driver's side yeah i know it is a driver change it is roberto gonzalez so this will be his final stint he's done two already yeah and this will be his final stint then it will go to the other two drivers to run to the end i'm three for three on predicting putting a gentleman driver in now i'm now going to stop that's three years ago it's going to be busy for us over the next [Music] mistakes i just make predictions that are immediately proved to be not correct i was the genius and uh long be remembered yes it did out to the pits then let's build up to speed on board with the jojo and allen this is pretty much a driver's eye view only just about level with the top of the wings yeah you basically uh i've got a an eye view line that's very low because the height of the top of the car is about a meter so you're lower than that and at the same time the wheels and the tires the wheel arches are are pretty high so your view is quite a tunnel view in reality out the front it's better than they used to be the previous regulations were a little bit more closed again um but in these regulations it's still not open i would say like it is for example in a gt car i think that's one of the particular points if we think back to the glickenhaus incident is getting used to that vision and also getting used to the size of the car around and about you and i certainly know very honestly when we went from the open top car to the closed car then it did take a little bit of time just in every circumstance to know where other cars were around you okay i remember that eye-opening chat with dindo at monza i think but he was trying to describe to us his view in the car and it was eye-widening the the limit the limits to uh to what the vision was in the car but ticking in traffic well the the actual regulations changed directly after that and then they mandated certain sizes and increased sizes because it was deemed to be too restrictive and they've just increased those again and so from that perspective i think it's all in a very positive line but it's part of the ongoing focus on how to ensure that we've got good racing but also we've got safe racing dude on board now with the number eight this is kazakuchima he's about 10 seconds back here from kamui kobayashi the two japanese drivers from the team at the wheel there'll be a third testing later in the week with a 30-hour test due for toyota or from starting on tuesday the power uh subbing for uh me in that test will point me off on performing re-duty i believe [Music] so it's 10 seconds is the gap there then it's a further 48 49 seconds now back to matt laser yeah there's the click and house two of the delayed cars here the clicking house just behind the toter with the they of course a ferrari that's a puncture early on ruining their day still outside the top ten everything class uh in gtm the 83 cop in fact uh the clicking house is the next one the order behind albeit there's laps between the two significant number of laps between the two rom and to matt though doing some decent times he's in their 34s at the moment but well so decent at the moment he's been doing there's been laps around the time of the leading p2 cars right now which i think in fairness is more or less exactly what jim blakenhauer said we should expect here well they've done a full stint since they came back out after the clutch change from that incident and uh seven laps into the second stint right now and this is all a building process as we've discussed before but right now they're running about a 35 to average on this then 35 0 if we take it just the course of the two stints so far and that's relative to a sort of 33 so a couple of seconds down on toyota or alpine in terms of pure performance trouble here and it's trouble for the 86 car that was both going for the same apex but from rather different lines the 86 car in the hands of mike wainwright runs off the track in avoidance just as the alpine arrives i think the big issue that we heard westbrook saying right at the beginning was tire tire temperatures everything else on this car and that's something that and it was one of the good questions from duncan to mike conley what tools do you have in the cockpit to be able to do it and with a toyota they definitely have more things more systems to be able to allow them to manage these than necessarily clicking house would have they've also done significantly more testing so they can understand that car more i would also add in that pascal vaseline the technical director at toyota used to be the technical director at michelin when i was racing in formula one so from that perspective he's got a he's got an understanding what attire does kessel racing uh made it stop and then uh now on track with the 98 aston martin of augusta farthest pulling away at the lead of this race in the 40s still against 42-9 for giorgio senegiato in the second place settlement racing car and now comes the brazilian though [Music] this long standing campaign paul de la lana at the center of it the gentleman driver keeps aston martin racing in the frwc with the end at the end of the last season of the gte pro program great to see amr back here [Music] different looking delivery this year the north west amr brand on the car i'm struggling very honestly with the different color schemes on the aston martins because i i just got used to the red of tf sport last year and then it's changed again and i'm fully expecting green green green and then a little bit of red coming in now we're blue yellows we're light blues where it's uh it takes a little bit of getting used to i'm sure by the end of le mans i'll be i'll be ready we're right there just by the end of the season yeah it's always the way with me it's the changes in numbers that sometimes can we see with seasons and uh it could be tricky just to pick them up as you're trying to read the timing screen quickly um sorry i was going to say to you we had a picture of farfus in there remember if we were talking earlier on that he had gone on to an alternative tire and that tire actually looks to be in a very good window and so from that perspective he's able to match very easily the porsches uh in fact a little bit quicker than the porsche so in there i think that is definitely on that aston martin then this alternative tire is working really really well it's in the window and they can control it and work with it but he's matching the gte pro porsches yes exactly but he's got a less favorable bop on that uh aston martin they are bop differently so he's their bob to a different standard so that that's pretty spectacular well it comes down to the tire working absolutely in its window once the tires in its window the driver can feel where the edge of the grip is if the tire's not in his window whatever he does it feels like it's just out of control it's moving underneath him he can't get any sort of performance out of it as we can see it is certainly a little bit hot out there and that's cold water going in here from car guy he's uh clearly suffered at the end of that stint aboard the kessel car scott andrews by the way he's got back in no sign yet michael jensen in that car i don't think martin significant there that the 52 ferrari passed the 92 porsche 52 ferrari was already in second and the 92 horse was in third so that means porsche are now a lap behind [Music] well they can't actually know the safety car if they're a lot behind there it's been one thing we've done over four hours and there hasn't actually been a hint of a full course yes i know everybody's telling me to be quiet but it shows you that there is even although it's tough out there and there's been some incidents they've been able to clear them quickly and they've been able to get the whole system moving and uh they've done a very good job well one of the other things is a similar kind of train of thought is this we've got used to in recent years at this level of all sorts of racing but with here for the wc let's talk about the wec that the attrition rate has just gone down and down and down and that's one of the other things that a team like glickenhaus are going to be struggling with it's matching that level of reliability that these heavily tested homologated cars from major manufacturers are able to kind of grind out these laps time and time and time again and with so much customer data as well coming in find out where the the weak points are and engineer them out of the party lead change in the gtem class thomas floor has just sailed up the inside of paul dalalana dalalana fresh out of the pits i'm not sure how many laps thomas floor has done but he managed to go by paul paul on full tanks and brand new tires not going to defend that too hard so early in the stitch now he's in the car that means our gusto farfas is out time to catch up with louise beckett in the pits you did a great drive there and first of all let's talk about tires because i understand you've gone on to the medium hot sao paulo variation of tyre yeah well it is it is a difficult call because even if the outside conditions are pretty hot this track it is not so high energy so it allows you to be right in between let's say the medium cold and the medium hot so we need the choice i mean i look out for the tire at the beginning and i could literally keep the base when the team gave me the call that i was about to then understand i did push a little bit more so i'm very careful in the car the casings work very well let's just try to operate at its best and who knows maybe have a chance can you explain what you mean by medium hot and medium cold well actually to put in a simple word that is to put it in a simple word that is medium and hard you know we call the medium cold and medium hot but actually we might say we have soft mediums and hard and the medium hot it is a way of calling the hot the heart so literally was the heart on the car but i i do think also the mediums will be possible if you look out for them of course the hard ones allow you to push a little bit more and have a little bit more flexibility but in the same way they're a lot more fragile so if you go offline or you slow down you might lose energy on them and you might lose also grip so i'm kind of in between on what to do but so far i think we did the right call and we did a good job from me seeing it those tires that just came off your 98 were in great condition compared to others that i have seen down this pit lane yeah well uh luckily enough i've done so many endurance race so you end up with the learning on how much you can push and how much you have to save and still be in the window so uh i think this track is literally about how much can you save on the tires without compromising the performance uh allowing it to get to the end of this thing and being fast that's really informative thank you thank you great debrief there from our gusto farfus telling us exactly what the tire really means and and and the potential pitfall of it maybe with a gentleman driver if you're not keeping the heat in it keeping it up in the right window you're going to start actually destroying it as much as if it's getting too hot it's actually as well a little bit track temperature related and so therefore you've got a crossover between medium cold and it's not necessarily called 10 degrees it's called activation like 35 degrees and above and so therefore you look very much at the track temperature you also then look at the energy in the tire i don't think they'll have a problem of getting enough energy in the tire i think they could have a problem of not cleaning pickup off the tire and once that gets in if then you lose the confidence and then you don't actually aggressively turn and load the tire it's a bit of a downward spiral from that perspective but uh right ground right now round here it is a massive struggle if you're not on that tower in a gt car everybody is eating their tyres even toyota we've heard them talk to their drivers about ways of managing it in the slower corners but by making sure that there's less steering on by really turning hard at the very lowest speed so that you open the steering up much earlier in the corner than you might want to not keep momentum just to try and keep the fronts alive so it's not just the rears it's everything it certainly is and one person that's keeping everything alive at the moment kumu kubiashi is delivered a blind instinct since he got in a 32-5 average kazuki nakajima a 33 to seven tenths of a second difference which is funnily enough absolutely identical to mature vaccine in the alpine but it's actually kobayashi that is delivering the performance right now and the there's clearly a different game going between the seven and the eight they're looking at things slightly differently but kobe ashley's going for speed i would have said and then sort out the pit stop at the end absolutely now back in lmp2 as we're on board then on uh ferdinand habsburg just nibbling away at poldi restaurant what's very significant uh closing at that gap but nibbling away at it it's those two jota cars who are what 15 seconds behind habsburg and 22nd seconds behind blonde chris for roberta gonzalez that are looming there and they're going to play a part here the significant change though over the last hour or so martin another p2 isn't that what was a five and six car battle for the overall it's become a four-car battle and here's one of the ones that's dropped off that because it's a pro-am car uh and there's the smoke from the back of this car oh yeah now is that him with a tire issue or is that something less manageable it does look like it it's very early but the very rear it's uh this is only 13 laps on this stint now they're getting ready with the trolleys i think that's tyra has he got a collapsed left rear suspension a lot of smoke louise says what is it it's the wheel it's the wheel it's the height it's the suspension it's not the hub it's the suspension has collapsed that's exactly what i thought that smoke looked like so well we know that the left rear does all the hard work around here in that final corner that's really bad news for them and also potentially shock waves for the rest of the field because if he's not had contact there then that is the stress of the track we've still got three and a half hours to go watch on board there's a lock off [Music] and that's what broke it so it's not a construction issue it's a recluse a reducing gap issue he made contact with which of the two ferraris i didn't read the number i didn't see it this uh tyre off they're looking at the rear corner here remember that's the program leader so high class racing will in about a minute's time in about a minute's time take the lead of the pro am class cam magnussen at the wheel could be a win for dad as well a winford lad as last night in the well friends vanessa was getting ready to take the car over he's getting ready to take the car over job vanita they're going for a gap that's just evaporated in the sunshine and well from the two ferraris alessandro pierre guidi in 51 the gte pro leader did a 141-0 and daniel sarah did a 141.9 so one of them got hit by somebody there's only nine tenths of a second between the two of them if that was sarah then the car seems to have brushed it off remarkably well ferrari haven't had an awful lot of fortune with getting biffed by other cars and surviving there's a new corner all ready to go on and that will be pre will have been preset ready to match the settings the suspension settings of the corner that is on the car for the race but the odd thing was martian when we saw the impact it looked as if the impact was the front corner not the rear corner so quite exactly um how the damage was done whether or not there was a double impact we couldn't see from the driver's eye view whether or not he clattered the curb i don't know but um on the inside on his right so is there a sausage cap there not sure exactly where it happens i missed that uh it was two and three i thought it was turn three let's take a short game no this is up at the top of the hill so this is out of five reasons that's a double hit yeah that was a hit on the front and also on the rear no no no and he knows great interview with him in the european le mans series uh last week and he's saying you know sometimes your form is up and down a bit but he said i know it will come maybe he's feeling the pressure to just push a little too hard see the real team race suits are in there as well because tds that runs real team also runs the racing team netherland car so you can throw as many hands at it drive shaft there being held in that mechanic's hand there's the uh well if it's a high-class team it's on the wheel and it looks like it's at a minimal angle it's a hit on the wheel then the shock has to go somewhere and then it goes in and things are designed to break at certain points so you prefer a drive shaft to break than the internal correct correct so to complete the points we see the new program leader this is jan magdeson aboard the number 20 car uh we initially had a battle at the lead of lmp2 involved six cars two of those have fallen back one because it's a pro-am car the other one just has lost a bit of its mojo they had a poor stint a while ago into europe all competition and oddly it was louis de la tras wheel of the car at that point so whether or not that was tire related we don't really know at the moment he was on a second stint everybody else so he was on it he was actually on a second stint and there's a big drop off was you know everyone around them was on a singles i think that cost them dearly it dropped them away from that battle they've not recovered that ground so we're now with a effectively a four-car battle at the head of the field and uh there is the better part of a lap between fourth and fifth now uh between the 38 car with better gonzales remember joseph burning rapidly the required bronze driver time yep you saw gear vandergaard helping friends vanet into the car he will do his last required stint united auto sport paul de oresta leading from 30 habsburg in the 31 wrt and then the jota sport car stopped blockquest ahead of roberto gonzalez uh just the cue from the timing screen instant between cars 29 and 51 it wasn't sarah it was yeah greedy wow so he lost notes on it so he got biffed and we're still nine tenths quicker than the downhill sarah maybe it fired him out of the corner quicker than he might otherwise have gone i don't think he would have dropped him really very much time at all with the side to side gentle impact manuela goss they're in the pits for iron links in the number 85 ferrari still no news or penalty for them or the 60 car they now will be running gross and knows to tell car number one i was just about to point out that sofia flourish at the richard mille racing team remember how long they've been chased by matthias besh in the real team car but real team have still not got by so first it was tatiana calderon and now uh sapphire flourish and in fact sapphire has opened up a 20-second advantage over matthias besh now she will be on a fresh set and matthias on an elderly set of tyres but ferdi habsburg trying to get by and i think drivers now need to be warned by the team if you see blue flags don't hold somebody up for a lap because otherwise you're going to get a penalty and that is much more than the penalty of doing what sophia did there which is pull offline stand on the brakes and go again yeah exactly and that's something that uh after about the second investigation of it if i was a team manager i'd have been on to my drivers and advising the drivers before they got in and reminding them when you know a blue flag is coming but uh when you look at this von habsburg has been absolutely dynamite these last two students he's been a tenth quicker than paul deresta on both of them and so is a 30 lap stint before one tenth per lap quicker so pulled in three seconds and on these 19 laps so far again one tenth of a second right while you've got the laptop out flick the screen what's the track temperature doing because we're starting to see faster times coming in from a number of cars in certain sectors not overall lap times but quicker sector times i don't think tom blonkis has suddenly discovered how to drive not much it's a little bit yeah it's the rubber that's going down onto the circuit more than anything else it's clean it's tidy there's not been there's no gravel to get dragged on and things like that and i think uh as well the fuel weight is now becoming the determining factor everybody's understood what the tire situation is track temp is just hovering around the 50 degrees mark so you wouldn't walk a dog in that nice 24 degrees outside no exactly right if you can't survive in bare feet then your dog doesn't need to be going for a walk now either hey of course one two and a lap ahead of the factory forces and gt pro that's a pretty significant advantage they've got they're gonna have to have burned a lot of tires recklessly if that's not a realistic advantage and gte am the aston martin 98 car still out front chetala still second team project one third so we've got aston ferrari porsche a much more even-handed battle allen because they've got access to more sets of tyres in am do you think i mean the deal is i'm actually not sure the deal is in pro they've all got the same number of tires they've all got the same number of tires we should see the same pattern if the ferrari is fundamentally better on its tyres then they asked that then the porsche should be a lap behind here in am as well but they're not you've got a less of a compromise in um because you've got more new tires you can put on person to the end of the race you don't have that double stint requirements to the same extent as you do in gte pro and so then your pro driver in the pro am section can be the one to take the double stint pain and uh in that respect though sir was that a drive-through [Music] yes because james collado is now the driver not alessandro pierre guidi so you're absolutely right now we didn't see the beginning of it just the exit i was just checking to see whether or not that was a shorter stint maybe you had that damage was a false did yeah but they're at the entrance to the pit lane just as you come in they're one of the first pizza of course with about 10 garages as they come through and the work in fact tds who run this particular operation for racing team netherlands are are pretty close by this has taken a bit of time of course you know he's in there with bare hands that gearbox isn't exactly going to be cool either everything is going to be hot hot you just got oh as he as he touched something that that he probably didn't want to with bare fingers yeah i think it was all the heat from that gibson is it isn't exactly dissipated very far potentially significant one to give it on there warning to kasakujima for abusing track limits in the second place number eight toyota eduardo pointing out yesterday that in free practice one there was a 30 a 30 kilometer an hour headwind coming from turn one up the hill down along the main straight since it's been a 30 kilometer in our tailwind pushing them further down into turn one which certainly in free practice too led to an awful lot of cars sailing daily past any any hope of being in the same postcode as the turning point but uh sorry to yeah well they're going to have to just rebuild it i mean you know the problem is if they rebuild it around a new caliper then you need to change the caliper on the other side as well ideally i certainly would have yeah i think this is effectively taking them completely out of any picture of anything because right now they are uh six seven laps nine laps down already on united auto sports this particular car so for that team right now it's making it to the end and at least trying to get past the 75 percent to get to the point indeed and uh yeah they've fallen right off one other quick uh point to note for all the time i've been watching these charming screens uh after we settled down into that first stint the uh bishop racing car the number one car has been 11th position because of the 29 coming back the all female crew up into the top ten seventh in uh lmp2 with consistent pretty good times for the midfield not able though to challenge jan magnusson ahead at the moment survive flourish yeah uh i'm just looking where jan is he's got a bit of a gap uh to catch gibber schmosky in the into europa competition car a bit of a disastrous moment for racing team netherlands louise beckett is down there and job van oiter will be facing the press for the 29 racing team netherlands i can see your disappointment we can see the work going on behind you what happened on track yeah i think we all saw the images i went for a gap [Music] basically in the penultimate corner which looking back on the video just wasn't there and i can only say a massive story to everyone from the team i'm the one who made the mistake here and yeah it shouldn't happen for sure but we'll try to fight as hard as we can and sometimes with that we take risks and this was definitely unnecessary from my side and uh yeah we were leading in class which was would have been a very good result um let's see we had a broken suspension i was not expecting like i thought that if i go in there could have been contact possibly but nope with any damages as um yeah like this just if you hit the wheels in the wrong angle at some time they just break immediately and that's what happens yeah because you couldn't really see damage on the outside of the car actually when it came in no no it was a it was just like a light contact on the rear wheel and that basically made it jump but that's no reason why it's allowed yeah i don't know probably one of my worst outings in the car i'm sure the team appreciate that but it is a team effort from all of you uh do you how long do you think it's gonna take for the guys to get the car back out on track uh i think we should be out in at least five minutes like i know it will be last but anyway for the points we need to go out and we need to finish so that we still got points for fifth [Music] we also have to remember that this is points and a half for this championship event as well because it's eight hours so therefore any drop down in the order alternatively in the case of the richard mille racing car here being moved up the order then the actual bonus or the penalty is doubled absolutely right it's actually one and a half it's not it's a significance it's i think as we as we said at the spa race last time around if you're gonna have a problem a six-hour race is the one to have it for if you're looking for a championship run that was that was pretty substantial yeah we've seen that a few times that's down at turn three and uh the lmp2 cars are able to cut back but the gt cars need to cut back to be able to get the line through turn four and up the hill you know listening to watching the pictures and listening to john venus who's correctly i think horrified with himself to be honest with you that could have been the same that could have been the same incident yeah a different lap in a different place i think the unfortunate thing for him is not the incident to spin him around it's the fact that uh just the damage for such what effectively is a very slight impact now you'll see significantly harder impacts and nothing happens the body works still fine and they just continue on but uh it was just that they're exactly the wrong angle now these cars are designed to do things and seriously high force going through the suspension through the driveshaft gearbox everything else however if it's at a slightly different angle um against the angle of drive effectively then they're not designed for that and they could they can be like fragile like very thin glass phil hanson watching his teammate paul de rest are leading in lmp2 with three hours 20 minutes still on the clocks and the fastest race lap machiavelli 31.0 some 30 odd laps ago just to put that into perspective still at 29.6 is the fastest sports car lap around this track lmp2 michael jensen in the g drive hours last year in the european level series finale in very different much cooler tracking temperatures attract temperatures fastest ever lap around this circuit from lewis hamilton in the mercedes in last year's portuguese grand prix one minute 18.75 talking to our driver pedro cochiera the safety car driver a couple of days ago and he said you know even when you know motor racing and you're used to speed he said seeing what a formula one car can do here just knocks you back but as a punter seeing the speed that the gt cars and these prototypes are carrying into some of these corners is just you know verging on the on the insane they are so quick on this circuit hold the rest of their having a bit of an airborne moment across the kerbs uh eight but stellar lap from top longquest at 132 184 i suspect that's the quickest we've seen in lmp2 to put that into context that is one point one seconds off the fastest lap of the race overall by the toyota uh and also seven tents quicker than kamui kobayashi went in the lead toyota on the same lap and this is what we saw in free practice that lmp2 cars topped every free practice until qualifying a hypercar did not top the timesheets so we are starting to get potentially to a slightly cooler set of track conditions now that won't necessarily be detrimental to the hyper cars but it might be maybe more beneficial to our p2 cars who are a bit tire limited anyway well some of them by the look of it because blonde quest is hurrying up to the rear of the team wrt car that gap now under six seconds would you do that half a second a lap faster as well tom blonde than ferdinand habsburg admittedly habsburgs done a little bit more on the tire and so there is a tyre factor into that that we must consider but uh there's no question that he's on the march now we have to remember that car as well though was in pole position that car spun around at the third corner by its sister car and so it's been pretty quick over the course of this weekend i think the most consistent car over the course of the weekend but not in qualifying funnily enough was this car the 22 united which was able to i'd say over the course of its three drivers deliver a very consistent high level performance do you know it's almost as if they focus more on the race i'm not being facilities it's almost like everything is focused on the race and then if you know if one of them can get in and ring its neck and produce a qualifying lap then okay fine i don't think they actually hit the sweet spot in qualifying i don't think they didn't focus on it i just don't think they hit the sweet spot we saw some changes at the end of fp3 and movement around they were trying to remember they were trying to get buoyed in the car because he didn't drive on the first day and because of the fact that he would arrive very late the kova testing everything else so there was a compromise there from the beginning and uh so quality sims and things like that weren't ideal i'm just i think they maybe missed it a little bit or i'm not saying they would have got paul but uh i think they would have been a bit closer than that mind you in bel-air philippe's going yeah see when i'm here we get pole yeah it's just let's give you another chance across the stent so uh it's a 134.7 average across the stent for wayne boyd it's been two stints for paul de rest in the first and 133.74 they almost exactly a second quicker and then this stints at 133.8 i mean amazing consistency and yeah and the other side of that coin of course is this is first time in the world endurance championship for wayne boyd how many races he's done in an lmp2 car three now in elms and and he's only averaging a second less than export driver paul deresta so that's a big feather in his camera i think his lmp2 career is one full season in the lms six races plus sebring this year okay and he'll race again by the way watkins glen as we saw paul deresta popping into the pits the leader popping in so that means wrt ferdinand habsburg has overtaken however in a couple of laps he's going to be coming in for a stop as well so we'll keep a close eye on the actual pit stop times here because as we know joe to sporter pretty quick as uh now racing team netherlands is back out the five minutes prediction from job van euterta is pretty much spot on worth pointing out by the way for those who may not have been here so far for the first four hours and 40 minutes on earth we're thinking that wrt had not one but two drive-through penalties so far in the race otherwise they probably would have been out front through all the pit stop cycles right from the beginning so they haven't helped themselves but they are still really in the hunt they are and that's come certainly in the uh recent uh running from a couple of stellar stints from ferdinand habsburg you're right they'd be a minute up the road here [Music] and uh they'll be kicking themselves on shore for that joe to though remember off sequence here this race stays green and they are looking very good they haven't got a full stop in hand over anybody but their last stop will be later in the race and will require less fuel and as the others stop in front of them at each round of stops so far joe to have popped to the top that will happen again and it remains to be seen then how much advantage either one or both of them can eke out before they need to make that final shorter stop so it it's not about the final stint or the final in lap or the final outlap or the lack of fuel it's every single lap now if you can find a tenth on any one of these laps in the next three hours and 16 minutes it might be a vital tenth at the end of the race there's paul diresta just checking the data with the engineers dave greenwood they're just on uh with his back to us as a technical director at united and looking into the detail fans of formula one will have heard his voice he's uh one of the ex ferrari engineers and also i think he was at uh [Music] i yeah he's got very good experience very very good experience he's got an understanding of performance and where performance lies and that's not necessarily just in a millimeter of front right heights in the whole structure of the team it's the unseen unheard part of it isn't it this is when we go on about strategy and rule sets that perhaps take away the the influence of strategy and that technical knowledge that's what we're talking about it's the genius that sits in the pit lane or on the pit wall martin i was just about to say that there's been a change in the power play between real team racing with matthias special the number 70 car the dark and blue car and bites cavissa who took over the number one richard mille racing team they were in 10th real team were in 11th but that has now changed around since that pit stop but vice versa was right behind matias bash there wrt in the pits they surrender the lead to jota tom blanquist and roberto gonzalez will go through gonzalo is only 40 seconds behind wrt who aren't going to get a pit stop done in that short period of time so good laptops by the way coming at the moment from roberto gonzalez he's the less well-ranked driver in this team and laps in the 33s towards the end of his stint so 30 habsburg is out of the car uh alex brundler's back in into europol did kubish makovsky do a double stint there or was that a single step it was a double stint it was a double i had a feeling it was okay and alex did the double so they've all doubled gonzalez has got five laps to go okay tom blonkist fastest first sector of the race for the number 28 joe to sport car fastest first section of the race for matthias besh as well for real team the number 70 car and middle sector as well for tom blondquist he's just followed that up with a quickest middle sector he's flying the mobile podcast he's finding the pace in the car yeah and kobayashi on this lap fastest final sector of the race for his tour that was close yeah that was the other thing wyatt just caught it as the car left he just caught it to take the thing off the the galaxy panel pull it at the back of the car drivers getting ready at joe to sport the car may be green but all dark green race suits are not obviously what they've gone for and there you can see the 60 ferrari ahead of the danish high-class entry that's car number 20 in the pits jan magnusson brought it in and that is antonio felix to costa rica davidson rather getting ready to go who's getting ready for the other car i don't at the moment they could double stint as well i think because galil has done three stints now so effectively he could be out of it and it would leave it down to stoffel van dorn and tom blondquist so my sort of basic team manager thought i would double stint blondquist now then uh also take vandoorne possibly to the end yeah keep him in and just tell him he's doing it pesh in the pit lane for real team racing and this will drop them back behind we should be a racing team high class jan magnusson still in the pits or the car is still in pitch charm lacy took over at wrt it'll be his second stint and 54a of course a ferrari in the pits thomas floor bringing it in number seven toyota kamui kobayashi our race leader in traffic chasing one of the pro-class porsches michael christensen and richard leetz are at the helm of the two porsches this will be an interesting stint for malaysia in the wrt lmp2 car because he's done one stint before but that was interrupted if we remember by the two drive-through penalties they had to serve yeah and so he did a four laps 10 laps and then 16 laps and so it wasn't getting into the rhythm at all norman naruto has taken over the number 70 real team racing car vice cavissa moves up to 10th for richard mill ahead of high class and dragon speed henrik hedman has brought the number 21 car into the pits as well so dragon speed down in 12th here is the alpene machiavet a minute 15 behind and the gap have we seen as bigger gap between the two toyotas kamui ko kobayashi is nearly 18 seconds ahead of kaz nakajima in the number eight card that is a big advantage the two camps that are growing there yet you're right it's first to second and it's also the alphene is falling off the back of this they are about to release the lapierre and is this the in lap uh this is the in lap for kobayashi at the moment we've got a little bit to go and it's also the in lap for uh that was my question so so the toyota has now or had is now going to produce a full stop advantage yes yes yes this is the this was the point that they needed to be actually pulling away as opposed to swung around where they're being sort of caught and dragged in and we see vactivia already pulling into the pit lane as he does so for another fastest lap of the race for the jota car now leading the race tom blonkfist another lap in the 32 ones boy's on fire is that this is a stint he's got a couple of laps to go he's uh but he's very very quick he's only two tenths of a lap on average over this full stint slower than machu vacci and toyota that's going to be a penalty i'm sure for the toyota as he came into the pit lane got onto the grass somehow and then lost the breaking force and then banged into one of the the pilots but there there's also rfid that's what they hit for the tire recognition system for the steward for the the organizers so and because he was locked up on the grass he'll have come through the speed limit going too quickly so speeding in the pits hitting infrastructure that was not a good entry to the pits for kamui uh for kaz and nakajima here we see it again for a long time you look at the black marks for the tire marks wow as he's whacked it's actually not the rfid we're quite lucky there it's uh just purely the 60 pylon yeah and uh so from that perspective then not good and i would suspect there's going to be an enquiry into that yeah that's a big lock up he carried too much speed in he's lucky actually because there's metal barriers around something in the middle of the pit lane in what would be the hot lane and out comes the alpine where it should not have been in front of the toyota potential penalty looming as well for the number seven car but i stopped behind but that is only going to realistically affect the battle between eight and seven there's philip senior watching with interest yeah but it bring if there's penalties coming into it it brings in the potential of the safety car bringing the whole system back together and uh when you look at it there it was a one minute uh six pit stop time by the seven kamui kobayashi and a 118 by nikola lapierre but that would have been driving a change to the tires whereas it was a fuel only stop i suspect for camille kobayashi which means he's had to go back out on the tire that he's done a bit of damage to coming into the pit lane um you know what you're saying about spinning in the pit lane how long does it take them in a uh if you'll only stop um what has all other things being equal he was too fast yeah yeah yeah he can't have been down to speed if he was locked up on the grass hitting stuff he can't be and well i'm curious why he was locked up and pointing straight to the grass yeah coming in too hot or there's a potential issue with the braking yeah both both fronts were locked up yeah remember we did have those cars in some breaking troubles deep into the race at spa yep and we've got two more hours to get through here and in higher temperatures and you would think alan a track that's probably a lot harder on brakes than sparrows and you don't get any chance for them to cool down here pay two leader on the pit lane after that stellar stint from tom block fist tom blom ahead of roberto gonzalez gonzalez will come in this lap as well they're normally cued in the pit lane although he's 40 seconds back so long blockers should have gone by the time 38 gets in this is a punishing track in all sorts of ways there's one notifiable straight down the front and then a short shoot down into the hairpin he's back in oh is that kaz nakajima that is nakajima yep okay it is nakajima just behind uh roberto gonzalez from second in on two that's the car you can see in the distance there it's a warning flag meanwhile for driver romantic crack limits yeah these rookies you know need to be reminded you won't have that next week at pikes peak yeah you're either on the track or if the track limits tend to be fresh air don't you indeed yeah miro konopka has retaken the wheel of the arc bratislava car in lmp2 they're in 10th place for the time being meanwhile wayne boyd takes the lead in lmp2 with two jojo cars it's like your sequence there of course again yep now seven continues on its merry way it's a new fastest lap of the race immediately for nicolas a 131-0 [Music] yeah lapierre is determined to try and pile the pressure on toyota all he can do is try and pile the pressure on that's that's basically his job between now and the end of the race 33 in the pits as well you can see the turquoise aston martin and ben keating keating brought it in door was open but that's the right door not the driver's door and here is 28 stoffel van dawn on the out lap just ahead of charles millacy this is the battle for second in lmp2 the yellow highlight on the nose marks 28 not 38 38 car from joe to sport also on an out lap and that is and davidson in fourth uh am place correct that there's a timing glitch and the 36 has not been scored on map here uh it's not two minutes down on the leader it needs a race yeah and he did have a longer stop at the they've done six stops at alpine only five at toyota and he stopped on the same lap at seven and there's malaysia around the outside that's really big what's it's for charlie lazy goes around the outside of stoffel vandoorne in the 28th johto sport car did he overtake on the uh so he overtook so therefore normally he should have to give that place back because that was a long and lasting advantage yeah if he had all four wheels off on the outside especially at turn one which is where almost every lap in qualifying was disallowed and he will have to give it back and somebody as savior van sant voss will say okay just pull over let him go go again you know you've got the car under you well it's not as a stuffel vandoran slow no and so it's not like he's holding him up too much time long push there taking a well-ironed drink because that was a pretty dynamic stint by him stofflin is in here it was that it's not his outlap this lap but he just come off his outlap and so shell had a little more heat in the tires carves his way through malaysia is not keen on giving that spot back no not not at the moment so he's not going to do it off his own volition at the same time talking about performance then uh nicola lapierre he did that here we see it again there's no chance he's on the track but he's going to claim that he was forced off it's it is a tough one i have to be honest if i was in stoffel vandoorne's position i would do the same and if it was in charleston i would do the same and i would wait until i was told all right and that's how malaysia was able to get a run yeah to overtake vandoorne yeah and that was the uh iron dame's car of rahel frey which is in sixth place in gt yam i think when you're on the outside you leave yourself vulnerable to somebody just taking the road away from you and stoffel was entirely entitled to do that he was in front going into the corner and uh again if i was van sam voss let him go if he compromised someone's run down there and yeah i felt he had to defend yeah but malaysia was on the outside and it was always possible that he was just going to get pushed further wide and he did gain the advantage by using the runoff area he gave the long and lasting advantage the the way you always look at it is if that is a wall and would he have been able to make the overtaken so roman dumas hands over you assume to richard westbrook in the glickenhaus in the car now has completed uh 142 laps of the race the leader is on lap 188 and malaysia has got a front end that he's over driving he's trying to keep van dorn behind him yep stoffel now perfectly placed uh open drs and breeze but oh no hang on a minute oh dear oh dear look at the way that the wrt car pulled out that advantage out of the final corner well we've known in spa that straight line speed was not the setup strength of the jota car it was in other areas and they've improved a little bit but certainly the wrt car is looking pretty sling in the street sorry very slippery on the street closing traffic ahead he's a one p2 kind of gt car there it is it is the dragon speed car on the tf sport car on the challenge now for this pair 33 we saw in the pitch a couple of laps ago and dylan pereira is now at the wheel of that bright blue car and as we see now just behind the third place overall car the 36 alpine is on its way through you said about pressure nicola lapierre's outlap a 131-0 he's second lap 31-1 he's third lap 131-3 and so he's just delivered three laps that are quicker than toyota in the first three laps of this stint it's called keeping the pressure on or alternatively keeping the pressure off of stopping them from lapping that car because he's a minute and 24 seconds uh behind the number seven total that leads the race it's a one thirty one one thirty two gap trouble yeah clicking house after the pit stop remember they just came out of the pits and that car's going very slowly and so richard westbrook is in the car i thought initially they were moving to the side because of uh lap traffic but this looks like it's going to be coming back into the pits louise i'm sure it'll be running down to the red glickenhaus pit to find out what's going on just being told she's a wrt at the moment but very soon i think that was i don't run i think i was that was my interpretation of it yes wrt around the outside of the ferraris on the inside i've got the run here yeah here's a great opportunity for the jota sport car if stoffel vandoorne goes by and right behind why is it always the alpine at the hairpin where things are just about to happen in front of him i've got to say that i think is two occasions now where there has been an advantage by being completely off the circuit yeah and uh he was he wouldn't have overtaken round outside if he hadn't been able to go off the circuit in reality it lost the position but he's got to be careful of that as a general point because you can get away with it maybe once however you can't get away with every single overtaking good lock up as well there from malaysia lets the rp go well again the alpine there doing the same job on the p2 at the p2s doing the gts there the p2 needed more more room and again stoffel wanted to get rid of the alpine before he got here where he's trying to build up speed to the final corner he didn't really need to catch the car guys kessel racing ferrari there but lacy has to go the long way around the outside high wide and handsome ladies and gentlemen he does like the outside line doesn't he he likes the off track excursion occasionally as well doesn't it you think does he drive coach trips in the rest of the week the uh spectator safari there's the jota boys enjoying life at the moment [Music] ahead of all of this incidentally lest we neglect to say wayne boyd is once more in the number 22 united auto sports car leading lmp2 here i'm putting in some good times at the moment stafford vandoorne in that battle last time around 135 133-4 from white boyd 138 for charles malaysie that lap 132 for ann davidson 132-8 so wayne boyd with a 133-4 not far away from at davidson's pace 91 is in the least well placed of the two porsches he's in fourth in gte pro field going in i'm gonna take the cap off this time yeah i think i think that's a one-owne once only issue not the kind of thing you do twice is it so left sides only left sides only well we win the pit lane graham on thursday friday rather watching left side tire rehearsals up and down yep it was clear that everybody looked at this track and and looked at what happened lms even if they weren't here you know people like tom ferriero were going yeah this is gonna be a left sides only track isn't it rickard leetz and uh he was here last year of course for the lms with the project competition team one of the mentors for michael fassbender in that program so now aboard the factory car champion of course with the 2015 uh he was the gt pro champion before it was an official f5 world championship interesting how the young guns at porsche eventually become the elder statesman and then the senior citizens i'm thinking of the likes of christian mental who mentors their junior programme and savvier mason who's now in charge of sasha mason who's now overlooking all of their young drivers five hours into the eight hours of portugal race that started in warm and slightly cloudy conditions promise of good weather all the way through stark contrast to spa frankenshaw where you can never entirely trust forecasters for the first ever french cartel french team to take pole position senior tech leading away the hyper car ahead of two hyper car rivals from toyota the number 28 g um jota sport car leading in lmp2 all the way up to turn three where it was collected by its sister car and turned around tom blanche the pole sitter around the nose of antonio felix de costa by which time racing team nedland had already gone around the outside from two to three to take the lead porsche qualified better than ferrari but that has been reversed in the race ferrari working their way to the front contact between dragon speed and the jota sport car earning dragon speed a penalty [Music] racing team netherland for a long while battling at the front of the lmp2 field dragon speed and serving their penalty racing team netherland also the top pro am car then the first big incident of the race ryan briscoe just not judging the length or width of the glickenhaus new hypercar collecting triple seven and double seven the aston martin and the porsche both survived the initial contact but not its after effects team wrt at the front of the field battling with united auto sports but their charge was hobbled slightly by a pair of penalties and the aston martins that had rushed to the front early in the race in gtm soon being closed down by the ferraris porsche starting to struggle all ferrari battles chetala and af courses 54 machine struggling against each other for supremacy in the gte and field toyota executing team orders on occasion to move one or the other car ahead depending on which was deemed to be quicker and the aston martin with a battle for the lead on his hands with the 54 ferrari aston martin back in front courtesy of using a new hard tire big error by yacht van it a slight contact with the ferrari but just enough to break the rear suspension and the drive shaft of the racing team netherlands currently leave them at the tail of the field and that leaves the number 20 high class racing car second in pro-am behind real team united auto sports leading in lmp2 the number seven toyota leading the race outright [Music] next round the pit stops the gt ab cars underway with gr racing and deputy protons 88 machine both in the pit lane martin haven alimonish and graham goodwin watching the action with you from trackside here in portugal where toyota are one two with a potential question mark over penalties as the number seven toyota hit everything there was to hit coming into the pits a little too quickly last time round united auto sports jotas and wrt the four cars in contention it seems for lmp2 honors ferrari a lap ahead of porsche in gte pro but it's aston martin ferrari ferrari and porsche in gte am that battle definitely seems yet to be decided so that's it after five of our eight hours the temperature now still remains pretty constant air temperature around 24 degrees it's just after five o'clock in the afternoon here in portomal and the temperatures started dropping in qualifying around 6 p.m where we are currently at just under 49 degrees but in the half an hour it took us to do qualifying temperature dropped from 40 to 25 odd degrees so we could see a very major change in the final hour and a half or two hours of this race we're watching the action in the p2 here it's uh both a before we get to go and talk about gte let's go and have a word with falzon voss down in the mid lane with louise wrt the number 31 wrt is putting in a great performance there and some great battles in lmp2 yeah well unfortunately uh we had already two drive-through uh due to some issues one was uh one was not able to uh engage the pit limiter in the first pit stop um at the right time the second one for blue flags [Music] not always easy to understand to accept them but uh well we are still there fighting for we are only uh 16 seconds from the lead and uh about three hours to go you just laughed at me when i said it's not stopping you but clearly it's not stopping you okay it has set you back but you're still showing you guys are strong yeah but uh we could have been a bit further yes i appreciate that so what can you do we've still got a long way to go yeah it's still a long race i mean uh it's not an easy race there is a lot of uh overtaking and i mean the number of uh of contact is quite high there is a lot of strategy going on and uh let's see what we can do till the end may i suggest that maybe a tire strategy coming into play at the end though well i know we are all in a different strategy i believe and uh let's see how we get done at the end okay thank you yeah where is the flat maybe i maybe we need to give him a panama for hotter races i think that would be the right way to definitely as we watch the 31 card with uh toaster getting by the third one um gtm we begin to get the big guns rolled out here again and um with what i'm watching at the moment it's a battle for third position beginning to develop gentleman racing with antonio fyoko one of the youngsters that ferrari have got their eyes on without a shadow of doubt uh with matteo caroline uh aspirant porsche factory driver for some years now um of this parish in the 98 aston martin the northwest car rotating at the top of the hill there at turn eight the top of one one of many tops of the hills indeed so the two young drivers there something's a battle here and they're exchanging fastest laps at the moment kairouli the quicker the two under the 140s more than once as he start trying to chase down the ferrari the gap about 16 seconds i'll keep an eye on that one because that could get very interesting got some fairly large gaps at the moment but remember this is a pro am class and it's going to depend who's burned that bronze driver as we saw that little replay we cut back to the amr garage and people getting ready for a car to come in does paul dalala head into the pit lane or does he feel that the car's okay seems okay notice with the front exit exhaust just behind the rear wheel when you get a side on shot of the car how smeared with black oil it is the car is the fuel that they're using this year burning more oil and so they have to keep topping it up because just for some reason getting through more oil than it previously would have and that's street down the side of the car [Music] and dalai lana coming to the end of a stint actually he's done 34 laps in this one but it's been a pretty blinding stint apart from that particular spin against augusto farfas who was in before who was as we know quicker than the porsche gte pros as we see a replay of it it just gets wide onto the gravel and then as he's trying to get it sorted out it does a loop around but uh he was only a second and a half off augusto farface on average through the course of the stood so it was a pretty strong stint but ultimately lost more in that one spin than anything else bear in mind we were lost in some admiration at farthest pace at the time so a very good yardstick indeed for the bronze ranked canadian driver scott andrews in the kessel racing ferrari kessel racing ferrari challenge for our marinello challenge they race in the gt3 series they've raced in gte and in asia le mans european le mans michigan le mans cup they have this swiss team have raced ferraris for a well since three five five so they've had a long story in history with it having a pretty decent race in their debut here in the world endurance championship as as a background team have a lemon went under their belts they were the technical support enhanced good area courses win american team had them on some years ago it's great to see them back here in a further collaboration with the car guy squad from fuji just uh outside the circuit um i think it comes down and that will continue through 24 hours now is he going to get left sides here or are they just going to send him out on the tires that he's already looped round into the gravel by the way hearing from the toyota team that there is no evidence of mechanical issues with that number seven car coming in and biffing things way and there's the aoc bratislava car in the gravel and this might be our first significant yellow flag period of the entire race yeah just got went in a bit deep got wide got onto the dirty stuff and looked it around it was uh here i cannot not uh it all started as he was turning in but just a little bit on dalai lana's car as well the rear diffuser which is an aerodynamic device that sits at the back of the floor it's broken on the left-hand side whether that was broken in a previous incident or broken when he was bouncing across the dirt and dust and everything else i don't know but that will lose a little bit of stability from the rear of the car and mirror has the door open we could go full course yellow here he's at turn eight that's the top of the hill on the sort of top right of your map there you can see the little yellow highlights bit entry closed we are under safety car closed we are under safety cars and safety car boards out that's a straight to safety car that's a minute gained by the alpine yep a game on now then if that's not a minute gained that's a land gained because the toyota was not far behind him so he'll go round he will to join the back of the queue that will have the toys at the front allen's waving alan yeah but uh there's going to be probably about 18 or 20 cars between the toyota and the alpine so it's not as if they're going to line up absolutely linustern there will be some traffic in between of them i would suspect but interestingly there there's also about eight or ten cars between the two toyotas as well so sir sir sir what groups of cars are imminently due pit stops if any ie are all the lmp2 cars so they're gonna go safety car we need a pit stop and we're only two laps away there's bruno carrera he left the seats like that with me in the car yesterday the other part of my son was just checking that one through is this the task ahead now for lapierre completely changes his task since he got in the car was to ensure that he pulled away he was not lapped by the totes his task now is to chase them by the way since he got in the car he's taken the better part of 10 seconds at the totals but this time he'll be chasing from behind them rather than from almost in front of them yes well if it works out perfectly and the pits open up 57 the leader in gte um is absolutely one lap away from his actual pit stop window and that would be just heaven for them and paul dalalana has just stopped under green yeah just pitted everybody else is kinda in the middle nicholas nielsen as well in the 83 ferrari he's uh very close to it and everybody else is sort of mid stint ish fights garvissa in the number one car could probably do it and but if you then go towards the end of the race and that's where you extrapolate towards the end of the race even as alan predicts in comes antonio fuoco in the car guys kessel racing ferrari that leads in gte m he will get a safety car stop but will he get out before the safety car queue comes around can only take emergency service can't you yeah yeah it's closed yeah so you can only take five seconds of fuel yeah we'll have to come back around actually that didn't work well for him did you see by the way in the insect shot in the arc bratislava garage the old-fashioned equivalent of the discord which is one of the team guys saying to the cameras just push him out clearly he's got fire in the hold but he's buried in the gravel amira cannot only pop the door open so he can get a bit of fresh air because otherwise he's just gonna boil you know race drivers die in hot cars two minutes away from this being a full stint sequence for an lmp two-car poke oh which means jota can take that short stop now or let's stop now and be on strategy to finish this race right here comes the tow vehicle amir cannot go pull me out pull me out that's an amazing but you know you should not have mirror but it's amazing i'm not sure that they speak speak much slovak he may not have an awful lot of portuguese either but between the two he is going to want to be pushed pulled out and they don't want the flatbeds that's what the team really don't want it's a turn eight there doesn't appear to be any damage he's just beached in the gravel they could really really do with not being stuck on a truck now there is a tow rope on the back of that pickup safety car comes around and eduardo freitas will if he can get the car snatched out of the gravel and back onto terra firma this could be a four five six lap safety car potentially because once the car comes out there will be a lot of gravel there that will need cleaning air temperatures still hovering around 24 track temperature well it's gone from 48.9 down to 48 and that's in some 30 minutes or so so it remains stable the skies are blue the sun is still beating down and uh gary roberts like the rest of us pasty brits happy to stay out of that i think at the moment he lives in the shadows don't we all as well our french crew who come from the cooked as you are all a very different color to us so safety car wave buys now look at that how many cars were there between the toyotas well there's none there ain't many and then there's also then uh one two three three am cars in front of the alpene and not too far back is the glicken house as well and again this suggests to me that eduardo thinks there's going to be quite it's not going to be a brief safety car we're not going green this time round because he's doing wave buys he has to do wave buys at certain points once they activate they have to do wave buys unless it's within the last hour i think and then the or 30 minutes and then they've got the flexibility to decide but at the same time they're obviously pulling this car out and they'll maybe tidy up a few other things that are going on absolutely he's got a housekeeping list and it's all going down now i think what they're doing is lifting him up squaring up they're going to put him back on the track facing in the right direction which definitely wasn't um yeah all right fella if you've got an engine we'll put you it's like you put your scale electrics car back in the grooves off you go fantastic make it so it's so simple it well eduardo is making it simple he's got him on he's got him on the crane dangling onto the road off he goes well with the way that uh things are at the moment the safety car is at turn five as we know but the cars that were released on the start and finish line are now about half a lap ahead so we've at least got another lap before that there could be any chance of it going green yeah we've got to move that truck as well back out of the way to where it originally was on the hard standing we've got to move the snatch vehicle or rescue vehicle miro konopka may just opt to join the back of the queue so we won't go green this lap chances are there'll be another lap after this and suddenly when how many laps have we done now is this second lap of safety cars so the pit lane remains shut they are on the second lap and the other thing of course those uh intervention vehicles will have to be back to a place of safety they've not moved yet well they're not just to a place of safety back to where they were originally placed because exactly yeah so they're strategically placed for a reason to cover as many eventualities as possible so eduardo will want them back where they started their day yeah so remember this is a reasonably short lap and the uh the second queue if you like the first moving queue are rapidly making their work the back of the safety card train safety goal train rear is at the moment turn 11 and the front of the chasers if you like is in turn nine they're going to be with them at the end of this map and that will then give our safety car driver pedro cachero a chance to bring the speed of the train back up to actually allow everybody to get heat into their tires heating to the tires we've been complaining about the tires being too hot for the whole day well drivers i think the tires will be oh thank goodness for that we're going to turn 15. just give me a break give me another breather for another lap throw some water at me please but drivers are like farmers it's never the right weather it's either too hot or too cold or do something safety car in the next lap let's hear from paul de resta he's handed over the 22 car to wayne boyd they lead in lmp2 paul it's always good to catch up with yourself paul the rest the driver of the 22 united car you're the super sub this weekend but you've been superseded in super subness by wayne boyd how do you think wayne's doing right now it's obviously quite a big ask for wayne to come into this race uh you know he only got a phone call thursday morning and then he kind of arrives here time he done his test and when you do your first world championship event there's you know there's a lot of pressure and a lot on them so to get in the car saturday trying to get up to speed but we're both on the back foot because i haven't driven a carson's battery last year i need to be put into this environment uh to drag up the speed's been tough enough for me never mind him so i think we've been a little bit on the back foot just in terms of direction uh but somehow managing ourselves to the front it's just whether it's going to play out there because i think on pure pure pace we're maybe not just quite where we need to be we can see phil behind you is suited and booted ready to go have you had any chat with phil in between stints no i think you've just got to go on with it it was quite a short gap i've just got the car after a couple of stints due to get back in obviously but you know with a safety car at this point the race you know you're five and a half hours in with two and a half to go this is where it all gets a bit fruity and ultimately straight you can play a massive part looking good for tires tires are fine um as i said it just depends if you went long enough for the stints and where you were we were a bit out of sync with the other cars which i think was something that surprised us how others have been able to achieve something but listen it's all about how you come here and do it and it's been quite a tough weekend off the back of what the other great weekend is about thank you paul right are we going to see the lights go out on the safety car we are into sector 2 sector 3 of the lap so we should have seen them go off if we go green this lap that's normally the way it works at the end of timing sector two the lights go off to allow everybody a chance to get themselves back up to speed the queue has not quite joined up and ewando may still have marshals out of their uh safe areas doing debris connection i know down at a hairpin there was a big lump of body work sitting there just offline so that would definitely be on his list of things to get shot off also reintroduce the uh marker ball to the pitway super interview by the way duncan yeah super yeah super great smashing super super uh so safety car remains out now uh is the pit lane open and is anybody going to risk going in if we go green this lap i'm sure they are so i think any chance of anybody doing a bit of a a quick shuffle in and out of the pits has not happened 20 guys who racing with a pit stop in hand they laid one two over rebellion the rebellion is about the sixth or seventh car in the rebellion cinetec alpine there it is yeah all right so it's a year ago there you go picking up the debris yep just talking about that entry is actually open yeah and so they can come in this lap depends whether the safety car actually pops its lights off and comes into the boots as well because it looks as if the circuit is pretty clean yeah the pin men have been so uh handles out been men about handles in been been in a bin um still no explanation of toyota's uh entertaining pit entry that's where the debris came from and it was off the yeah off the back of the porsche so that's some proton body work this is ryan briscoe just misjudging the length and the width of the clicking house and unfortunately ending the race for triple seven the aston and double seven lights are still on and the safety car flashing suggesting that another lap so it's going to be a restart this time by just as the safety car is uh coming into the pits the pits are also yeah so pedro cacero were now beetle off down the hill as quickly as is possible and backing up the field kamui kobayashi and no passing before the line no he wants to give himself the best run and the no passing before the line might not just affect kamui kobayashi but also the out of the cinetech carcasses right behind the united auto sports 22 car and nico lapierre is wise enough not to try and make that move but he really needs wayne boyd to restart quickly and boyd was a distance behind now he wasn't here we go they both pull out to try and get down past the gte amcas the alpine has made it it will be one two three for your one two three seven and 36 will be the first cars on the road with just a couple of seconds between them great move from nick o'lappy timed it perfectly he got the run just as he passed us and in fairness from wayne boyd at united as well because he knew that the alpine would be coming and he also wanted to get by the gt cars and he did yeah but wayne boyd's got stoffel van darn right in his mirrors who's got charles police say right in his mirrors and so therefore it is a battle not just necessarily for one two three in in hypercar it's also an lmp2 as well this has dragged everything back into the game for the top two categories five seconds cover the top four those are the competing cars in lmp2 and 13 seconds between the two ferraris and the lap back still to the porsches everybody's safety car procedures will be investigated but that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be any penalties to serve immediately to the pits we knew the 57 car would come in but also the 52 from second place in gt bro comes in as the race goes back to green and number one as well by fisca pits for richard mille racing team and nick nielsen in the 83 af courser car when you talk about daniel serra there in the second place car he was in a very strong and easy second place so therefore they can afford to do something a little bit different to try and pull them back in to fight with their sister car james collado and also defensiveness against the porsches oh and there comes a neat little porsche battle that's the air of course the car nick nielsen with the kessel racing ferrari of takeshi kimura behind him although they are several laps apart after a big blow up for that chrome ferrari third car in the background coming up as we see this battle between the 20 of the 34 oh alex brundle round the outside and squeezed again against the the curb on the inside there as brundle now puts himself up into fifth position i think it was it wasn't full position but it was it was fending off yeah uh jan magnusson he was there turning the clock back 20 years brundle versus magnuson son of one and the original of the other absolutely first pressing the first pressing absolutely do you really need to be riding the kerbs that much and fringing the gravel it's not really a curb there it's quite flat on the inside so you know you you already have on the track what worked out if a car is in an area and it looks as if it's coming can you go there or not yeah the other car by the way that pitted as a weight race quickly what's the number one reshot build racing uh team orica tatiana calderon back on track yeah drive a change there because by visa brought it in so i'm assuming biscuit has now got to the end of her drive time all they needed fuel one or the other seven is our race leader kamui kobayashi is definitely intent on trying to escape kaz nakajima and still no word on whether there is an investigation for or a penalty pending the number seven car coming flying in and hitting things in the pit lane a couple of stops ago wayne boy trying to fend off the attentions of stuff of vandal and the news on drive thomas and tatiana calderon has actually done them sorry bikes kavisa apologies has done the most yes two hours and 21 minutes so she's easy and flourish and calderon have done an hour and a half each so they will do the remaining stints you would think because uh started the car and she's done two stints since then as well so she doubled the last time i think anyway she's done that well toyota reporting that there was no mechanical issue with that pit stop so it would appear that uh it was a driver error [Music] brandon having a quick chat with uh sebastian bremer you might need to save one extra lap so they've already got two laps in hand over the sister car yeah but this is trying to get rid of a splash at the end yeah four laps of fuel you couldn't get rid of floor but now with the safety car being out there to the point where they're close use roughly about 45 50 of the fuel on a safety car lap to a full uh flat out and we had three laps as full laps a safety car so they may just about have done enough but they're not confident ricky's car on the circuit right now is the third place to outbeat a 131-3 plays a 131 8 for both of the totes ahead the gap first to third is under two seconds wayne boyd on the last lap that he's just finished for united setting the fastest first sector that that car has done so he's not losing anything to phil hansen or paul derester in terms of pace stoffel vandoorne making sure he doesn't a second behind charles lacy now four and a half seconds back from fandor and ann davidson six and a half seconds back from him so the top four spread out fairly quickly in nfp too as wayne boyd toes stoffel vandoorne with him or fandom pushes stoffel ahead whichever it is but here is lapierre almost close enough to nakajima to reach out and pull himself along behind the car fascinating stuff and entering an instant did it didn't it and nothing whatsoever to do with the pace of the toyotas or the alpine it was an lmp2 back marcus mistake that has brought this thing back to be a nose-to-tail race between the top three yep top three covered by 1.9 seconds 1.3 of which is first to second much better run through the final turn from the alpine as well i don't think he's quite close enough here the closing closing closing again quicker 31-2 this time against 31 nines and 31 eights from the totals i remember what nico told us on the grid when he was starting on pole he said to louise beckett they are better in sector one and two than we are which then means we are better in sector three than them and that's why he closes at the end of the lap but can he maintain that enough down the straight to be able to actually jump the car in front of him if he gets right up behind him like he is now well what he's hoping for is that actually the number seven kobayashi car just ahead causes enough of an arrow wash that the eight nakajima can't get a very good run through the final corner and then that'll allow him because the alpena thing's got a little bit better front end on it at the moment in terms of balance especially over that bump that is in the middle of the final corner fantastic stuff emerging here in hypercar great fight as well we'll get to it in uh gte am where the two cars were battling for what was it fifth place now with this rotation and the latest pit stops are battling for the lead with antonio fuoco in the settler racing car ahead of matteo caroline here we go this is where he builds up speed all the way down to the start finish line so let's see how much the toyota has to be light on its toes and feather the throttle a fraction down the hill here comes the alpine they don't want to see themselves we don't want to see them that's sebastian jose maria lopez he's got him has he got enough speed at the top end to go by the toyota around the outside nicola toyota driver versus current toyota driver doesn't quite get through tried it around the outside once he was off the circuit though he there's bratislava car going very slowly as well looking as if it has been off yeah but once he got alongside and he was off the circuit he lifted off he didn't try to continue the move as we saw with some of the lmp2 cars he lifted off and gave the position back straightaway yeah he doesn't want to have any potential albatross hanging around his neck he knows he can do this car on speed he's just got to be patient and line him up lap after lap eventually it'll be in the right place i wouldn't be too patient to be honest with you because uh at the same time you've got a 2.8 gap between nakajima and kobayashi up ahead wayne boyd in the pits lmp2 leader brings the united also sport car in for service racing team netherland as well with fritz van aird sean fritz has completed his driving sticks or not but may well be swapped out [Music] so phil hanson will take over the 22 car from wayne boyd who did a good job of just distancing himself a fraction from stockholm dawn here he's lining her up again nicola lapierre coming through this corner if he can keep it and the car's much better than soyuz over the pump now he's got a real run in him i'm sure this time he's going to have another crack that will he tried to go to the outside again i would try and make sure if i went anywhere i'd go on the inside yeah and he's got the slingshot down the inside now he gets onto gonna break dust pour off those wheels into second place good move by nico lapierre this is a really interesting battle isn't it the lp just with a fractional advantage where it counts coming on to the only real straight in the place but it can't carry enough fuel to run as long as the toyota again look at how much garbage is coming off the brakes that those uh carbon breaks and and pads are just being absolutely worked within an inch of their life so now it's about the three second gap first to second toyota against alfie and that was the end by the way of fritz fernard's third stint so that should be him done for the race in terms of the um the minimum driver time required for the bronze driver teammates and rivals watching jose maria lopez wants to win this for the number seven car that leads sebastian kwembe wants to win it for the number eight car that leads secondary of course although primary in for the team is that toyota win the race ahead of alpine yeah but the thing about uh the toyota there that's in third place nakajima remember we heard about the uh was being told you might need to save something here well the fact is they've got to try and save two laps to be able to achieve it however the sister car the seven that's leading seven laps there's no way to achieve that that's just that that's in the complete distance so i'm not really sure that the toyota defended too much after the first one which was around the outside and i think nakajima thought right my game is actually later on that was the ultimate fastest sector three of the race for nicolapia he is off and in pursuit of the overall leader well that last shot of him coming down the hill there i thought well i mean look how much faster he is than the toyota or how much faster he is now in fact than anything has gone so far in the race down that hill eight tenths of a second quicker than the race leader on that last lap [Music] 131.0 still the fastest sports car lap around here is a 29.67 michael jensen in an lmp2 g-drive car and this is the pass [Music] not hard to tell when the alpine's on the brakes is it now there's a lot of brake dust coming from that right now now they have done sorry to interrupt you there they've done five hours and 40 minutes so it's coming up to the end of a standard wec six hour race however the brakes of these things have to do 24 hours at le mans which is quite different to hear in terms of cooling in terms of brake usage and intensity the the point about that michael jensen lap two points to make one is there's been this resetting of performance in sports car racing worldwide so we're not dealing with a standing target on v2 the other thing was my recollection was that came pretty soon after this circuit was resurfaced so it was at its peak in terms of the available grip for mikael we're getting some extraordinary times there so this is still extraordinary stuff we've got a fastest lap of the race goes to nick lapierre 130.919 this time around it's 1.2 seconds he is catching hand over fist here so almost a second as the leader yeah he's looking at 29 this me as the fuel load burns off he's going to give this everything rile frey is in the pits for the iron dames ferrari antonio cuoco in the blue chatelai racing car leads from matteo cairoli in the white and blue porsche that's the lead battle in gte ham matteo cairoli is just seven tencel was at the line seven tenths of a second behind he's even closer now that's under half a second to uh antonio fuoco the leader hey of course is francesco castellatchi lies third ten seconds back paul dalalana fourth and he was in the pits coming out as the safety car came in so a green flag stopped for him but in a different stint uh rotation to everybody else and the alpine goes by dalai lana is now one second behind the toyota and uh alpine just walking into the corner there nicola lapierre he's definitely pushing that's for sure and he's loading the front of the car to try to get it in and the rear stepped out but it's much nicer through that final corner than the toyota he's able to keep the momentum through over the bump and it looks as if it absorbs it so much better toyota bounces around and the drivers have to then come off the throttle a little bit to stabilize before going but now lapierre needs to be right on the back of the toyota because there's traffic coming up this is his opportunity with his gaggle of cars that are coming and that is the 60 ferrari that is the iron links car of mateo crossoni moves out of the way that's the only other real straight down here into turn five the hairpin and uh lapierre is right there this is where he needs to be isn't it you know they'll give you another lap time comparison here and it came from nicola the last time he won a sports car race overall was in 2010 when he was at the wheel of another orica runcar in that at that point the peugeot 908 hdi fap his fastest lap in winning that race was a 132-375 from that epic machine yeah and uh those times those lap times are being beaten by the current generation of lmp2 cars on a regular race well utterly bizarrely that that lap i've just described matched almost the thousands last time around by the lead car here yeah one thousandth difference the fastest lap of the race 11 years ago here in a bergeo 908 that's for me uh through a comparison here kobayashi just squeezing through lapierre though still very close very close not quite close enough to sail by but enough to put kobayashi under pressure now they're going to catch the porsche round about turn four going up the hill so impossible to get another run into the hairpin shame actually for the alpine that the ferrari was where it was if he'd been able to use the full width of the road he could really have been all over the toyota into that first turn and they go by the porsche and the aston there is philipsino watching with interest andre negrow i'm sure was the man in the brazilian hat there's a fair gag of cars up ahead this is at the moment where you've just got to try to work your way through it you've got to look at what's coming up two three cars ahead position yourself and then be ready just to release the brake and nip in the inside if you can [Music] doesn't break in traffic well for the toyota they've got the lmp2 united auto sport car right in front of phil hanson but the gr racing porsche is just being passed now by the alpine little car yes pressure as he dives past hanson he's really fighting for this position isn't he kobayashi leads nicola behind a big lock up there you can see the smoke the left front yeah they got off the pedal reasonably quickly but it's enough to put a bit of extra energy into the tires lapierre's now into the pits yep so the alpine is in the pit lane just shy of being able to take the lead of the race away from the toyota on pace 31 laps let's hear from the team we keep the same tire we keep the same player nico clearly likes those tires the team are leaving them on they're working well at the moment let's see how they hold up in the second stint well the tires will hold up better as the race progresses the temperature of the track is coming down and going to go down even further but if i looked at it after uh the safety car he was still able as the fuel weight had gone to deliver the fastest lap of the race so far so certainly yes in his position they can't afford to start changing tires because you lose the pit stop time here's a replay of the first attempted pass on the toyota ran out wide let the number eight car come back second time of asking no mistakes from mika lapierre sent it down the inside and a proper classic 40 mile move yeah probably six laps or something until the toyota start to look for their particular pit stop but now the interesting thing is lapierre has got probably half a lap without any traffic and so on these outlaps he's really got to nail it to try to get a little bit of advantage in his pocket and pure performance and potentially then come out ahead once a toyota stop watching behind here there's a poor lap last time around improves again this time but phil hanson struggling a bit here 137 then at 135 the dropped tied to all the cars around him was traffic but it was an extreme drop in traffic four or five seconds [Music] duncan reporting that there is a little bit of concern on the brakes at united auto sport and this behind by the way this is the gtm lead battle now this is settler with antonio flocco and that is matteo caroline the 56 car behind this pair have been battling away either side of this safety car with the shuffle but the pit stops at the end of that safety car this has now cycled back around to be the lead battle yeah two young men very keen to use this as a shot window not just actually bring it home for the team and for the customer the shop window as a future factory driver for ferrari for fuoco and for cairoli for porsche and both it has to be said we've got the impressive calling cards here both running out wide out of the turn five hairpin they don't need to be doing that very often very easily spotted run wide three cars have failed to make it so far this distance the glickenhaus the 77 and triple seven cars from dempsey proton and d station racing which involved in a collision caused by the clicking house unfortunately it's just though uh first race in the world endurance championship has come to an end um what right look at our shoulders being on pit lane at the moment i think it's in the garage [Music] just saying that at the moment about it being in there but confirmed in the garage not moving and the two toyotas definitely are moving yeah and into the pits comes the number 28 jota sport car this is our pole sitter in lmp2 stoffel vandoorne you just saw chasing for the lead against the 22 united car and that cycles and davidson threw into the lead in 38 which should follow him down the pit road he comes as he comes in from the lead and davidson indeed the tires are ready and goes around one more time so he will be in a lap behind which day stoffel should have been gone but we're hearing don't convince it down at glickenhaus and it seems that it is the end of the road for their first race well don't say that yet martin it sounds like it's the same issue they had in free practice it's a gear selection issue there's i'm standing right in the back of the garage at the back of the car and they are just working away on a little device on the right-hand side of the box the back of the car has now gone back on the ground i love it when the pace goes up and the tone goes up and we're getting into the those moves so strategic moves as well they're gonna define where the battles are coming for the end of this race you can hear it in the tone they're one two at the moment okay it's uh god is still some things to run through there but for anthony davidson remember he's just got into the car now at the beginning of this stint and uh he'll be in for a decent run towards the end of it right now yeah sticker tires as well so not previously scrubbed and refreshed but absolutely brand new goodyear eagles so and davidson will stay in door is open on both sides tiny bit of precious airflow when you're moving the adrenaline helps fight off the effects of the heat when you're stationary the effects of the heat become even more noticeable tied deadly removed from the front of the car and it's it's hot out there we've got to remember that he's on air conditioned and cool and comfortable and everything else as we see a replay of the toyota just using a bit of inside curb to be able to get past both those battling gtm cars by the way both given warnings repeating track limits it's been a bit wild west down there change underway for and davidson he stays aboard as we heard through goes stoffel vandoorne to retake the lead he's between the two totals at the moment he isn't just looking at lapierre he's actually on a bit of a mission and uh on the first few laps of this stint trying to make sure that he uses the time in free air with less cars on track as davidson rejoins then he's actually at a time that was about five tenths of a second quicker than nakajima and kobayashi the cycles back round by the way uh davidson comes out in fourth position since vandal in the number 28 jota he's got six seconds on phil hanson in the number 22 united auto sports car who is just four seconds ahead of sean lazy in the 31 team wrt car and then and davidson uh alex brundle is the next man back but with a i think it's on that gap now because of that safety car yeah the safety guard put them out of it alex brundles basically on his second double stint he started punched his way up through and he's into his eight laps of his second double stint right now that pro am class keeping on the wrt car it's real team racing the hands of norman nato running ninth overall sixth and on the b2 but leading the brown uh class aboard the seventy real-time racing car he's got just under 30 seconds of a gap on jan magnusson in the 20 car talked about the glick and how's being in the garage i see a clicking house back out onto the circuit just for information so it might be down but it's not out and back on its way to do a little bit more mileage get a little bit more understanding gear selector issues same as they had in practice yesterday they stopped twice on track with it and it seems to be their achilles heel at this moment in time but at least i'm not joking at least they've had practice fixing it and actually be able to do it in race conditions after it having happened in practice got to be better than learning how to do that in the race conditions yes so we've got johto that's up there leading let's hear from the sister car 38. this is the feeling in front of you bbc he's on summer season fires yeah 1.8 seconds in front of these eyes anthony davidson melissa in the wrt double stint tires you're on fresh ones go for it you remember you heard that information on ease in lap now we've got a push push push anthony davidson's on a charge this is for position this is for third in lmp2 and then six sec sorry four seconds up the road from there we've got phil hanson who's second in lmp2 and phil's got the pace back i've heard about some potential breaking concerns there so concerning a one aurica it's like to be concerning on others so this looks like faster it's fast and furious stuff between the top four and he's 12 seconds between the top four here all having the two jota carson recently stopped from hanson malaysia and davidson remember late hour race a bigger point hall important stuff here for the championship like the intensity just look at this and look how little the driver blinks i've been watching that for you know the last half lap and i don't think i saw anthony davidson blink at all there was just some concentration aggressive terry alike we know some of those kobe ash leading the race two seconds back to nakajima nakajima trying to save those two laps that they need to to avoid a splash and dash kobe as she's got roughly one lap to go before he has to come into the pits done 37 so far with the safety car possibly a little bit eeks out on it as well but uh it's going to be very soon for this leading kobayashi and that leaves nakajima back into the lead of the race before he puts a couple of laps later so at the moment we've heard literally nothing about any kind of looming penalty for that uh collecting the marker boards on pits in or indeed whether or not there was a pit lane speeding issue for the toto nothing has been heard oh there's been no investigation which then suggests to me it's a slam dunk if it's a speeding penalty yes it's not a it's not up for discussion you can't really and certainly in this situation you couldn't argue too much about it so it's either a penalty or not so therefore i would presume that he was below the actual speed limit when he did cross the line even though he obliterated the board on on his way through um it certainly doesn't seem to be something that's investigated right now and you heard the toyota there a big liftoff as it came over the pump car doesn't ride it very well that's what allows the alpine to be able to just gain the momentum through that cord and carry the speed down the street very different cars and as you said alan repeatedly through this race generating their lap times in very very different ways there is the number 51 car 21 second lead for james gallardo over teammate daniel serra it's 8.7 seconds back to the first of the porsches that is the number 92 car with kevin est now back at the wheel and then further 20 seconds but rickard leakes and the sister porsche porsches they're going to bounce back from their tyre woes of earlier in this race with the end of the sixth hour looming kobayashi leading the race to kazakh just 1.2 seconds back some further 64 seconds before we get to nicolas coming along but of course the totals are gonna have to pitch soon [Music] and it's going to be a set of scrubbed michelins we're hearing from duncan in the pit lane yeah and a very very quick time though by nakajima as he as we're watching anthony davidson still without battles with charlemagne there um it was 31.4 and then a 31.8 by nakajima now nakajima is meant to be on this fuel economy run i'm not sure if they've aborted that idea and realized they're not going to be able to gain those extra lap backs and then just go for it again uh because they're also remember all in the fight with lapierre who is now struggling a bit in the midst of some of the traffic and so it's going to play out later on and it's going to be super tight between uh the alpine being able to overtake the toyotas after this stop jose maria lopez he's ready for one of them though well we're only two and a half minutes away from what a regular wc race would be but we've got another two hours to enjoy it but this is aunt davidson looking for a way past sean malesi this is for third position in lmp2 it's been a battle throughout initially with six cars five cars now four cars in the hunt for the win and the podium positions you can't fit four cars on a three step podium and you there's still no real indication of which one's gonna come out on top because the safety car might have compressed the fuel overlap that jota had a little bit is it going to give anybody the need not to splash and dash at the end that might be the deciding factor stoffel fandorn leads for jota phil hanson second for united shaw malaysia currently third for wrt looks like he's using a lot more road at the moment than aunt davidson everybody watching very closely new tires in the pit lane waiting for toyota number seven the race lead up and a leader change because seven is on the pit road duncan coming towards you the charm laci hanging on they've spent a lot of time chasing wrt not a lot of time defending but right now trying to keep aunt davidson in front [Music] alan mcnish apparently not appreciating the free cappuccino that i've just brought him so he'd better sit down and tuck into his tonics yep seven down pit lane yep having uh shown some real pace nakajima only says something from that from kamui kobayashi he's the only car in the pit lane right now marcos gomez has left in the aston martin that he's taken over from paul dalalan i think that's the end of paul's driving duties as well look at the release mold the release agent there sheen on the tire it's an absolutely brand spanking new virgin goodyear going on a big lap cut here underway at the moment of course nakajima quicker than he's been the virgin michelin going on beggar pardon in the first sector it's the ultimate fastest middle sector of the race from nakajima on what should be his in lap uh race control getting their knickers slightly in a twist uh warning richard leetz for abusing track limits in car number one well that's quite a job for richard lee's who's in car number 91 we did see just the spell just a little while ago because it's a 131.006 from nakajumi doesn't pit this time around so that's just what's uh it's under a a tenth off the fastest lap of the race we have three of the four gte pro cars setting their fastest laps of the race at the same time oh nakajima's got another couple of laps before he has to pit and then he will have one more stop before the end lapierre uh basically he's got two before he can get to the end so pachito taking over the number seven car and we saw sebastian buemi ready to take over number eight and it may be that this ends up coming down in the final two hours two is somehow a knock-down dragon battle between seven and eight so wrt and joker battling for this final step of the podium at this stage of the race and davidson looking now for a way past the wrt car ahead all sorts of things up for grabs here championship points race wins race podiums yep bragging rights and the potential to be involved as a team and as a driver in the next era of sports car racing it's all on the table right now yeah none of which appeals right now right now it's there's a car get in front of him that's the basic survival jungle instinct of a racing driver a car in front must pass number eight down the pit lane i'm not saying that drivers have got no imagination drivers have got no imagination but uh when you're in the thick of the battle you know team orders and and the future and all the other stuff that's of secondary concern because if you can't focus a hundred percent on getting by that car then all the rest of it is mia bagatelle it's not going to happen in front of me just know duncan vincent we see you there yeah well sebastian blamey done a few limbering up moves he's now sliding himself into that car brand new tires going on here and we get pulled a little bit earlier on that the scrub tires come in very quickly quicker than the brand new tires with the releasing agent so if they're in the heat of a battle we'd rather put on the scrub tyres right now though the brand new tires will be going on the drinks bottle change has been done and the toyota once again ready to be given four new boots for this stint i think that will be him into the end as well when they do that is now lapierre comes through the final corner as we see one of the lmp2 cars just overtaking so the lapierre will go into the lead of the race the left-hand side of the toyota now those are didn't look like scrub tires they look like as shiny as anything else and the only problem is of course you don't go out and scrub in all of your sets of tyres necessarily don't have enough time to do that and enough uh effort to waste that you can do that so nicola pierre resumes in the lead for alpene seven pit stops for them compared to six for toyota and they are still in front so they've already spent more time on pit road and they still are narrowly in front by 12.9 seconds they've spent more than a minute stationary longer than the toyotas but we also need to remember that there was a safety car that brought them back into the picture they went out to the picture they were a minute and 15 seconds behind and so therefore a complete pit stop cycle behind yeah but uh now they're back into the picture now at least i've got something to fight with and mercifully not a full lap behind the toyotas hadn't quite got to lapping them if if uh if the safety card waited till about now to come out they may possibly just have been able to lap the alpine and then there would be no way back then they would have been stuck and stuffed and that behind but as it is 36 leads from eight and seven yes the same number that was on the senior tech alpine in lmp2 for a number of years is on the alpine run by philippsino's team in the hypercar category sebastian vermee fresh out of the pits just squeezing in front of jose maria lopez lopez with one more lap of heat in the tire could not use it to get back in front of puemi and it might be that this ends up being the battle for the lead if they out fumble the the uh alpene well it's going to be purely and simply down to the number of pit stops at the end of the day and that's something that is definitely strategically against the alpines it can only run 31 32 laps maximum 31 laps on a stint whereas a toyota can go up to 37 and 38 and so even at the end they refuel less and so therefore it's uh it's a penalty that i'm not sure they're going to be able to get around today big day for toyota kazoo racing you see for the front of the both these cars that have the number 100 this is the 100th world championship sports car race for the make uh including the group c world sports car championship and of course the wbc where they came in it's a late edition as well near full season entries in 2012 31 world championship race wins they have hands up around 30 of which have come in the hundred era yeah that's astonishing all the cars they entered over all those years and they got one win and and how many did they come close oh sorry you know again that's another 30 isn't it a little bit of wheel spin as they leave the pit box that's antonio fuoco who came in as the leader ahead of matteo cairoli so cairoli now owes us the stock because that's the sixth for chetlar only five for project one for their porsche and in fact project one is the only car in gte am that has only completed five stops so we expect him imminent imminently carroll will have the uh the hammer down something about that pit stop from duncan wrt currently uh in third place in lmp2 racing son of a racing father his father never raced much at international level but has done a lot of racing in porsches and the like in things like the uh dutch supercar challenge so yeah so uh robin in fact i think i may be wrong but i think his uncle might also yeah quite a lot of races at least three uh another looming battle by the way it's in gt pro and it's kevin s back aboard the number 92 car and closing uh reasonably rapidly on daniel serra for second chestnut now back in the lead that blue ferrari of the gte am class because sure as aids are x team project one can't run on thin air matteo caroli is in the pit lane he comes in from the lead and that means giorgio sierra giotto who's retaken the or has been put back into the car has retaken the lead depends because um they were very very close they were close so it was a 119 on pit lane from the ferrari who has taken over though from matteo cairoli or does cairoli stay in in the porsche there's the chatelair car where's the porsche it has not left the pits yet i think it's a stop for the team project one car [Music] yeah looks like it so full service that will be their penultimate stop let's hear from toyota [Music] okay on four or five as the case may be so seven uh being shuffled forward ahead of eight i think the reason for that is that seven's in the battle with uh 36 for second place overall because both of those cars have to do two more stops whereas sebastian gweme can make it on just one more stop and i think he'll be into the end and it's going to be a real tooth and nail fight for that second place between the toyota and the alpine the alpine's got to take a little bit of care over its brakes and davidson trying to get by sorry to jump it out the red white and black car wrt down the inside of the iron lynx car is that claudio skiemoni at the wheel that's andrea pacini surprised that pacini didn't anticipate a p2 car lunging him there but uh through just in the end when charmy lacy but anne davidson is all over the back of him he really hurried me lacy into this move i have to say i don't think malaysia lunged there i just don't think the ferrari had looked in these mirrors late enough in the breaking area to to see what was going on robin friend's little reaction there in the pits going oh come on yeah maybe that andrea pachini didn't quite see that he's been a a good servant of iron links over the last few seasons they've had a lot of success with uh with himself and his and his brother in their cars it's ricotta by the way and then a wheel of 56 and uh so it was a change uh 135 so i lost 16 seconds on that pit stop and they are trailing by 16 seconds yeah it was close as you like wasn't it so ricardo pereira silva driver and in the 47 car uh is giorgio serra giotto also a silver driver cracking stuff out of me too yeah and how much more fun do you think those guys are having in that chat car oh as malaysia runs out wide davidson goes around the outside my lacy comes back eases him on to the rubbish and davidson has to tuck back in again so chester are probably having a lot more fun with that car as davidson this time goes to the inside of the hairpin says right you can have the dirty stuff on the outside but it comes out a little tighter what elise is a bit of a fighter isn't he he's certainly okay he's made a couple of mistakes here but he's fought his way to keep it back into position somewhere i'm sure anthony might have some thoughts about but ultimately he's kept the car ahead he's a scrapper isn't he makes a mistake wrestles his way back in front he doesn't give up [Music] for that angle wasn't quite as aggressive but we got it but it was aggressive enough it's very difficult indeed for anthony to complete that maneuver oh there's a porsche ahead of a ferrari for the first time in who knows how long he was catching catching wow sir kevin hang on so he's come from a lap back so did the porsche get a lap back behind the safety car were they waved by [Music] another cracking run here from kevin estrada underway it's pro on pro isn't it and that's why we have shuffle in the pit lane because instead of duncan complaining about it being too wet louise is complaining about it being too warm but she's saying it doesn't feel like the temperature has gone down much well it hasn't there we go again and he's done that move made the move davidson had it done before the near instant sight and then the next denier is to the side last time around and davidson finally makes it by and now is likely i think going to clear off the difference between the two cars in pace definitely blunted by charles malesi managing basically to block the entire road from anthony davidson and already puts two or three car lengths ahead of the wrt machine and only seven seconds back seven and a half seconds back here from phil hanson who's second yep who is himself under 10 seconds back from vandoorne grandstand finish beckons here gentlemen but that's that gap back to hanson or forward to hanson hasn't actually changed even although davidson and malaysia were scrapping like mad over the last few laps oh they're gonna release the decosta never a bad sign so antonio felix de costa getting ready to take over the 38 car from anthony davidson and that will probably put him in until the end of the race [Music] antonio lives here in portugal not far outside estoril of course he only portuguese driver in the field this weekend with philippe albuquerque away in belle isle michigan for an imps race this weekend rather than being able to be here so ironically we've got more colombians than portuguese on track this weekend [Music] we can go uh to the end without the extra splash both cars we are racing we'll have to do a splash the alpine and car 7 will both have to do a splash without rescue we will not so efficient driving is what we need okay just for a moment there when he said both cars i thought what how is number seven we'll need a splash okay always listen to all the words in a sentence as i tell my kids very frequently so 36 needs a stop seven needs a stop this is looking very strong for the championship leaders of car number eight yeah they actually uh need to have that extra stop as you say the two stops in fact in reality for them whereas just through on that one and there's not much that's going to undo that other than a very lengthy safety car this is not going to save enough fuel for lopez and definitely not enough for lapierre this is what the interesting thing is from a strategy point of view what are alpene going to do because this will be a double stint for lapierre and then there will be basically nearly two stints do they then switch him out and put someone else in my tufa xavier for example i i would think in fact vazimir seems to have not kept the pace up quite as well i my money would be on putting andre negrow back in for a double at the end allen's saying no great battle here between iron dames and kessel they trusted mcgraw last time with some heavyweight stints they've got a lot of trust in him i think he was at least as quick as matteo vasimier didn't quite seem to have it rahel frey ahead of mikhail jensen that is full position michael jensen the lmp2 lap record holder here until next year [Music] that's quite a stellar rise up the order isn't it from new kid in gts up to lmp2 and elms remember we were talking about him being the lap record holder here in lmp2 yeah um if you've not heard of mcgill yes he is very quick yeah kind of quite reserved individual but um absolute staff yeah rajel frey very quick as well really good pair of hands and a very very quick driver i'm not gonna be easy to pass here either no she's not gonna let him go by in a hurry look at that look at the trust between them you know he is two or three inches five centimeters off the back of the car in front that could all go very very wrong again he gets the run on the inside up to the top of the hill tight left-hander through he goes very well judged by michael jensen i'm sure the kessler racing crew will be happy with that she never gives up rael frey doesn't even know how to spell it never mind pronounce give up never surrender yeah so really good move by michael jensen and all of that moves him up into sixth in gte m andre puccini the iron links car in fifth place there is the iron links team they run both the 60 and the 83 car at 85 karat to the left of that picture by the way that's shakib buccini amongst other things looks after the gt3 programs he's had a major role in the danes project too huge kudos by the way to debra meyer who is uh one of the co-owners of our links the driving force behind this program and again you know fantastic individual enthusiast who's sort of pushing it all along and you know philip senior who's running this alpine as well very much of the same fiber he just lives to race there's his two cars there's the being going by his p2 car yeah the uh richard mill racing team which in itself introduces a real dynamic in this debate about capturing classes fishing both ponds yeah but i think you know we we talk about singular lapse and then we talk about races and i have to say that there was a lot of complaints about the class differentiation when we looked at the practice and qualifying but now it's came to the race and there has been some decent separation between them there's clear performance differences and so i don't think it's uh you're going to hear the same mumblings and grumblings from the drivers afterwards i think you'll hear just as much from the toyota drivers about how hard it is to get through traffic yeah but look traffic is one of the determining factors always has been i think factor for them is the fact they don't have the insane hybrid boost capability that they used to have the car is heavier as well and so therefore it is a little bit more tricky but that's more than the ballpark that it is for the alpine and also for the clicking house as well [Music] a very well rehearsed team a really superb set of drivers and that means that they are less likely to leave those glimmers of hope they don't have a gentleman driver in the lineup that they have to worry about which most of the p2 cars have on board with a 38 car you saw antonio felix decosta waiting patiently in the garage and then ab davidson is called into the pits chances are antonio will take over for the remainder of the race tyres waiting on the apron for porsche and somehow having been brought back into the equation by the safety car the question is have they got anything in the entire department that is going to help them battle ferrari because ferrari didn't see well ferrari didn't have the pace of kevin estrella no one had the face of kevin she qualifying but ferrari from the beginning of the race have definitely had the whip hand and porsche have just been nowhere so estra on pit road now surrenders second place once again to daniel sarah got the feeling that race is done yet yes i agree i agree and and the difference between second and third doesn't sound like a great deal but it's one and a half times the difference between second and third and could suddenly move this team back into contention or keep them in contention so esther wants to mean a sweat from his brow yeah fresh or if that's not the right word but uh fresh from another green 24 hours win last weekend certainly not jaded judging by his qualifying lappery and we did say yesterday in uh in free practice allen probably that's the way to do it to go from the corridor of payne the 25 kilometer jumpy bumpy corridor pain that is the green hell to this place rather than go from a sort of wide open modern circuit into that that inferno it's definitely very different types of tracks both are up and down quite a lot but uh one has got a tremendous amount of dark and rain about it and the other one is 40 now well the other thing to say is with the weather delay they got last week there's only an hour and a half more track time at uh last week very true i did say to kevin estrada after yesterday was the best thing about nurburgring the picking up the trophy the fact you got 12 hours sleep at night in a hotel bed yeah it was uh pretty grim conditions and davidson is on a charge here and the target is phil hansen 132-0 from uh davidson last time around took a second and a half out of hanson's effort and that gap is now under five seconds how has the gap progressed in gte m to last giorgio cena giotto leads in the blue ferrari behind him project one's ricardo pera catching him 13.3 behind when they came out from the uh the pit stop for the team project one car it was 16.9 okay okay so slowly slowly creeping closer it's it's tense and not much much more than that okay over a thousand kilometers in the books for the gt leader at the moment we should we shouldn't by the way uh discount the third place cart here it's in the hands of you have gone giancano fizzy keller the 54 car it is still a one two three for the ferraris checked it out from oh sorry one three with the team project one porsche in the middle yeah 51 ferrari and james collado and of course daniel serra first and second for ferrari well let's hear what the ferrari 52 team have to say it's funny i was just looking at daniel said he's done 31 laps in this stint he's got six more to go before they actually get to the pit stop and then from that perspective he'll be pretty clear to the end the issue is going to be he's got more of an issue with uh estra because him and astra are the ones that have got the the pit stop delta whereas collado pretty much plain sailing all the way to the end now so why is he asking how many laps is he running out of tires how long do i have to nurse these horrible lumps of uselessness around or he's been here for 79 laps so far that's why so he's getting cramped and hot oh he's just bothered and he wants to know where he is in the stint yeah i remember the the advantage in those terms that uh the porsche guys have is they've got three drivers yes that's a very good point that's a very good point well made just as well it's not 40 degrees of air temperature here in the milder 24 degrees because that would really be burning them up extra by the way is continuing on to a double stint with this one he's at the moment 71 seconds back from daniel serra but with the pit stop to come in comes from second place phil hanson and benestro's got one more pitch stop daniel serra's got two more pit stops yeah phil hanson was only a couple of seconds ahead of ann davidson as he peeled into the pit road and davidson has gone through this will be pulled arrested back in to the finish under thought yeah one hour 35 minutes so it's two stops isn't it so it should be a double to the end it's actually going to be it's one stop yeah the only two steps here what's 70 60 laps one stop and a trickle now they drop back down behind wrt charmilacey is now up to third behind the jota cars here's our pro am leader real team norman nato race for rebellion last year with matthias besh and esteban garcia the third member of that lineup in the swiss team and they lead in pro-am from high-class jan magnusson appears now to have locked himself in the loo or or in the cockpit and refusing to come out and the third car is ben hanley in the number 21 dragon speed car that's third in proam yeah not monato as well as this campaign is also the test driver for the aco's collaboration with total energy and others for the h24 the hydrogen fuel cell technology demonstrator hope we're going to see that new car race for the first time at monza in the lms of the monza in the michelin mod cup well in a few weeks time that'll be cool and uh that got aiming for something like gt3 performance yaplan back at the wheel of the 29 racing team nederland car now that has come out of the pit lane behind tom jackson in the arc bratislava legier and that is the battle for fourth in pro-am and i think that is probably achievable for vanit he could move ahead of the arc bratislava car as long as he's well he's got an hour and a half to do it i think that is definitely doable and fourth in pro-am would be much better than fifth in pro-am [Music] reeling off the laps our race leader ahead of jose lopez and sebastian puemi perversely the way the fuel is looking number eight should have the advantage the longer the race continues certainly number eight i think we'll have the advantage without question they've got five more laps give or take uh before they come in for their second last stop for nicola lapierre whether they changed drivers and that's the question because he'll have done a double stint now and he did a double at the beginning uh negrow is the driver that would be suited booted ready to get in if they do the driver change personally if i was that team i would try and stretch nicholas as long as possible and see if he could make it towards the end because without a question he understands how the circuit is he understands how the car is how the tires are how the traffic is in the other drivers around and he's also been their quickest driver without a question today he's got everything going he's got the experience he's got the speed he's got the comfort in the car there's no doubt at all the fire is still burning bright it is but the gap's coming down a little bit jose maria lopez has taken about four seconds in the last 15 16 laps out of lapierre so it's not as if it's plain sailing and it is down to the absolute details of it and ultimately the toyota will have to take less fuel at that splash at the end of the race and that could be the defining point however right now 10.3 seconds is a gap between this race leader and second place jose maria lopez but the real overall leader is sebastian whammy 13 seconds back in third now part of the question as to who finishes where might possibly be who's got what tyre left as well wait and see driver of car number 86 worn for abusing track limits that's ben barker in the gr racing porsche now he's just joined the club with everybody else i think the only driver that hasn't is you allen you've been sat in the booth for the last i think the safety car driver also was able to make it through there we see negrow just ready just in case but i think that'll be a very last gasp look can you do it two laps from the end can you make it to the end yes or no and if the driver says yes then you go and keep it that way and if he says no then have to make a change magnuson will hand over the high-class car when it comes in after his long stint behind the wheel 31 for wrt down the pit lane this will be their penultimate stop they too will need a little tickle at the end of the race punchy stuff wasn't it from charlemagne yep impressive nobody will be underestimating him in future no no don't be pushing him in the playground he's all the soft touch that gabrielle tarquini isn't in a touring car yeah definitely charm a lacie out slightly shorter more ginger giancarlo fizzy keller yeah definitely but no good stuff and great stuff in olympia it's been really good from the start and high class are in as well so to daniel serra in the pit lane for a of course at number 52 ferrari left side only again robbing friends in the car now yep licking house back out doing its run towards the end richard westbrook back at the mill as out comes the wrt car westy doing 30 fours one minute 34 second laps so not setting the world on fire but again it's about gaining knowledge of the car working all the time with the engineers to perfect the set up to learn what it does what it needs testing is one thing alan as you very well know racing is a whole different world certainly is there's no question that's when you find out exactly where you are in terms of performance you know there's no fooling the stopwatch no fooling the other cars and also where you are in reliability with other bits of rubber that pick up your little bumps against other cars the fact that you've got to start keep starting and starting uh them all the time and so in that respect it's where the real action is and it's also where the points are at the end of the race [Music] louise beckett saying no she was down at ferrari the tyres that came off the 52 car still very blistered really struggling still and i wonder that looked like a scrub set it looked like they've been written on rather than still had stickers so is this a set that has just unqualifying have porsche as we've seen so many times managed to keep fresh tires to the end of the race they always say it's like the daytona 500 400 miles to survive 100 miles to see who's going to win this thing you've got to be in it in the final hour and you need a trump card is this uh esther coming to unlap himself before the 51 pit stop i think it is yeah it could well be that is the 51 ahead i think well he's not allowed behind is he because they were unlapped behind the safety car no i think he's on that behind it was close with a toyota there just trying to dive down the inside didn't quite get it done it just shows they're still pushing like heck and lapierre into the pits so nico lapierre's epic stints have been completed and he will head down to the alpine garage to hand over to andre mcgraw who will do the remaining 90 minutes is that confirmed well we saw him with a helmet on it's unlikely they have both drivers helmeted up i would definitely have every driver helmet but you're right negrow is definitely getting in i think it's all oh 22 it's not that high it's the real time it's the traditionally misunderstood that will incur the wrath of somebody might actually end up having a penalty for that driving in the wrong direction oh dear oh dear he's did he cross the track again he made it yes he did looped it round and made a right hash of that esteban garcia that's a turn eight yeah it is anybody he's on his way again so thankfully there's no full course yellow or safety card oh got a [Music] friends got caught there now that says get that's as get out of a jail car as the 22 united car had when it almost got collected by the by the clattered porsches that was on four hours ago i was on the wrt mans look at the break first flying lap on that stint as well that was something that they we saw earlier on in the race and they had a little bit of concern about it because when you get to a certain thickness especially on the front brakes the wear and it's just goes up so so quickly it's incredible how the wear rate just gets out of control and it's on the disc more than necessarily on the pad that was tire change wasn't it for the wrt car uh i think so it was a full set going on to andre negrow i i would be surprised if they have any sets left the reason i ask is that if that was his new set of tyres he's just driven with the left-hand side of the car through the gravel yes but at least it didn't flat spot them [Music] so robin friends it might it will have picked up gravel and he'll be needing to shake it off but at least they haven't carved their way through to the canvas 20 high-class racing leading in pro-am with anders fueled back let's hear from junior driver jan magnusson the young dane is with louise beckett magnuson finally getting out of the 20 high class that was an epic run from you oh so it was a long three steps but i had a ton of fun out there so much fun fighting with well fighting against you know the the lap time but also fighting against the other guys out there super fun so happy yeah you're in the lmp2 class but also within the pro-am category and it's looking good for you especially after that we've just seen yeah no so so right now it looks good but it's still an hour and a half to go and a lot of stuff can happen but i'm pretty sure that uh dennis is happy about this so kevin won yesterday yeah so i mean you've got to win today well i don't have to uh you know i can wait for for him and me to win on the same weekend we can wait till august that would be the better one definitely thank you thank you i i was about to say a driver with whom louise beckett can go eye to eye but you could clearly see him looking down and john madison is not the tallest man well i i can't just say you can quit with the height oh that's outrageous they've developed their own wc support group now of course the other reason kevin stayed at uh yan stadium is it's like three hours that he doesn't have to read kevin's bragging on the family oh alc bratislava tom jackson has brought the car back in the garage did has anybody noticed ollie webb's name actually driving yes yes well what what that does do is it secures the more uh the greater likelihood of the fourth place for the delays 29. doesn't it that drops the 44 back and there's tom jackson and there's merrick mirror in the background i did actually see ollie webb a couple of days ago so i definitely know easily yeah but uh i didn't notice at any stage him driving or didn't mention his name while the car was being talked about so lc bratislava with the the only legie in the field and they will be hoping to get that to the end of the race didn't make the start in spa it sprung a fuel leak which is not ideal and not quickly fixable jose maria lopez leading the race now from sebastian puemi and andre mcgraw yeah we saw the uh incident unsurprisingly between the 70 and the 56 under investigation that could cast a win for team project one they are rapidly catching the leader ricardo pereira eight and a half seconds behind uh giorgio cena giotto he's half that gap since the pit stop he's also sort of locked step that's uh eight seconds ahead of zhang canada fizzy killer so both those cars are catching the leader could then have just handed the win to the 54 and it's interesting actually now marcos gomez is back in the 98 aston martin it hasn't got the pace that it had when augusto farfus was in it and took it to the lead of the class chota on pit road stoffel van dorn our lmp2 leader comes in with 82 minutes and a half on the clock they're spot on in terms of the fuel studs aren't they tom blom getting in 38 antonio felix de costa these are the drivers that started so sam hignit will be just hoping that he doesn't see them coming together again and 38 much closer to 28 as they come into the pit lane than it has been on the last few it's stops an impressive race from jota yep it's um they struggled a little bit in spa i think we have to be honest and uh they've managed to sort of uh find their way with the setup they raced the good years last year as you can see the damage there and that's from the first corner incident um and they they raced the good years but the goodyear tyre changed over the winter developed in a different construction in the way that it works and it required a different thing from the car and also from the driving style and i think to some extent that last year's experience of the way to conserve the tire actually hampered them a little bit and everybody else had no experience just took it on face value when and mullered it and they were trying to look after it and it and yeah didn't need to but uh clearly they've had a little bit of a think they've had a scratching in the head and they've delivered a setup that without question is putting them in a good place now 38 car picked up seven seconds on that pit stop up against the leader that was a much quicker stop and here comes the united auto sports car all the rest are closing in as well yeah terrestrial on 22. they're all on the same strategy they'll all have one more stop to go towards the end and the rest will have a little bit more fuel to put in earlier eight seconds behind 38 and further back in fourth place the other car that's in the hunt for a podium finished team wrt the number 31 machine everybody else on that back starting with inter europol kubish makovsky in the 34 car and then our pro-am leader anders fjord back in number 20. [Music] as we heard from jan magnusson they don't have to win here just for him to stay level with kevin on wins per weekend but uh he might want to save it for when they race together and that's a great opportunity for any father you asked derek belliott asked hans jock and stuck i'm sure jan magnusson will feel exactly the same martin brandle chance to race with your son and then you know you might get back one day if you decide to come back to racing and allow young finn a chance yeah i think i would certainly still need the booster seat like uh he did racing again with dindo and tom the fact that he's about uh you know 10 centimeters taller than me already i should say by the way just as an update uh kevin estrella has now taken that back back from james gallardo so he's running ahead of the 51 car yeah minute 41 is the uh is the uh is the gap it's almost a full lap but not quite newer tires for kevin estra so what have porsche got can jimmy bruni engineer something he's half a minute behind miguel molina in the second of the ferrari so that's the battle for third place molly knight in the 52 and jimmy bruni in the 91 porsche well what it does mean uh martin and we've got an hour with 20 minutes to go any safety car now we know the basis in the porsche yep [Music] any safety car now and suddenly things are looking an awful lot better for toyota brings in the 85 car she stays in still another 80 minutes to go and stop yeah so still a stint to be done before the final stop will they swap her out for the final stop i think she's she's a bit like walter all i always think she's just made of sinew so she'll probably go no no chance she's getting out but you never know what effect he can defeat the heat is now going to start to ease away at 6 40 at 5 40 rather in the afternoon it's michelle gatting has now bought that car okay all right then getting into that realms of making sure they've cleared up on driver time for particularly for the bronze and silver drivers all of whom have to do 2020 in a gtm car air temperature's actually a little bit up at 24.5 degrees the wind has dropped then so it's still a bright sunny afternoon here on the algarve down the inside comes a 38 car is that a battle for position uh michelle gassing ahead of dylan pereira it is she's fresh out of the pits and this is the battle for seventh in gte am this is a test yeah highly rated porsche super cup driver dylan pereira and aston martin the 33 car the only luxembourg driver in the field and as you say highly rated won two or three races in last year's porsche mobile one super cup and came within an ace of winning the title michelle gatting race winner this season in prairie challenge i believe and a firm part of the iron games project this is now year three for this all-female crew in all competition in the european le mans series and now here in the fi world endurance championship with new talent coming along behind in the michelin demon cup the shape of diampa and uh sarah bovee joining her this year for the support series for the lms and through comes the other all-female crude car the number one here is the clicking house diving up the inside and contact with the number 70 car the real team racing car mr stefan garcia has been in the wars in this stint this time though not of his own making yeah that was a little bit uh necessary in reality because uh clicking house was you know it's 52 laps back because of the problems earlier on i have to say though westbrook's been going very very quickly with lap times in the 32s in the mid 32s which is only half a second to you know a second off what the race leaders are doing so they've got a bit more pace out of it but ultimately got into something he didn't need to do it's a real engineering test session isn't it for them in in proper conditions in race grace trim with lots of rubber going down lots of dirt coming on muck off line other traffic to get by gives you a realistic idea of what the car will do well michelle gatting is in the iron dame's car pulling away from dylan pereira and her teammate rahel frey is ready to chat to louise beckett in the pit lane [Music] rahel frey you brought in the 85 iron links and actually you're looking like you haven't really been out i mean how difficult was it out there it's difficult out there right now um yes we have air conditioning in the car it's a big big support never delves to our field quite long but we are fit unfortunately the conditions and they are difficult the car is sliding quite a bit we have some tire issues um but in the end we managed we stay on track and we are still running there's major tire issues across the board actually and i saw yours just come in and i could see the blistering all over them so how do you deal with that out on track trying to push but knowing that's going on on the tyres yeah the first synapse are quite they're quite important we just have to manage them well we can't push immediately going out of the pit lane but honestly speaking i failed a little bit today because um i had a huge drop for the for the last 10 laps and this is something we have to investigate and we have to learn from it and we have to come back stronger okay thank you thank you very much i told you she was made of whip cord you know i've seen it get out of the toughest races looking like she's not done anything at all and that's not exactly the case lead battle here in gte am and this is ricardo pereira has caught giorgio cenagiotto half a second the gap as they went through the last timing beam one thing i will say is impressive we've seen some pretty extreme damage to those tyres blistering across the glasses have we seen with maybe one two failures of tyres at all yeah we've seen uh and it was predominantly the front but that was from lockups and things as opposed to the blistering once they blister they don't necessarily the construction once it releases the heat from the blister it's not too bad so here counters looking on and on the outside of senecioto forces him to go defensive is this the opportunity for the porsche man this battle has been going on for quite some while hasn't it with a i think probably with all of the drivers in in both cars involved in it georgio santiato for chettala just hanging on in front of ricardo pera tucks in and this this where he's gonna just tried the dummy that's not going to work now he might get slightly better traction out of the corner by having used a different line but that didn't work there he'll want to get through quickly if he can because not that very far behind is giancarlo fisa keller yep 7.8 seconds back is fizzy michelle getting by the way great times coming from her she is at the moment just pulling away a little from dylan pereira yeah and ben barker also some good times but a little further back in the 86 as the joker car comes through past these two cars well just about passed two cars chetillar giorgio cena giotto trying hard not to run offline and onto the onto the marbles onto the dirt does allow the joe to sport car to come through tom blondquist is the leader in lmp2 antonio felix de costa in second it's jota 1-2 head of united's paul deresta and wrt's robin friends there the cars in the hunt for the podium these two in the hunt for the win a of course is giancarlo fissi keller in third and here we go pera running out very wide trying to keep that momentum high looks like the ferrari is better planted down the hill though good straight line speed the ferrari considering but he's defended where he didn't need to he compromised himself there but there was no way the porsche was going to be able to come down the inside so now he's on a bit more of a defense mode which is then compromising himself up the hill they touch the ferrari pulled across the front to take the line the porsche was already just there no harm no fowler ultimately in the end and physically coming he's taking three seconds out of this pair with this battle underway not surprised and behind them is the second of the joe to sport cars that's going to queue up to get by as well so that will slow then down and in fact fizzy keller is behind the number one richard mille racing team car so there's only two cars between them this was all caused by the fact of defending into the first corner when he didn't need to and then into that corner because of the first corner and ultimately compromised a little bit too much there uh for seren giotto behind here decosta needs to get a shuffle on as well because he's been caught compromised the ferrari yeah this could be the moment forward it's not really that quite there is it's not quite but uh paul deresta is closing on antonio phillips de costa [Music] we could be in for a real grandstand finish in all of our classes actually battle on our hands for the hypercar and overall win ricardo perez looks like he's got the move going on the inside it's a long run down to the straight but [Music] he will pull out of the slipstream of the number one and that is sofia flourish no to tony calderon now here we go he gets slides down the inside into the final corner the ferrari turns in and just boom there attacks the left rear body work now it hasn't damaged the legality side of it i don't think but uh certainly it hasn't improved the aerodynamics i don't think they put that through the porsche yeah dragon speed looked it around and he's on the circuit somewhere yep oh and he's just still there that's the that's my class that's the leader behind into europol going well it was in front uh and fuel back has just gone by so that was a clash with the 88 car yeah trying to get his nose inside he was there the 88 either couldn't or didn't give him room the 88 in the hands of dominique bastia and who would have thought that car would still be running at this stage after all the issues early on and then getting hit and getting hit against the drama i do like the american way of things keeping your foot planted on the throttle whichever way it's going yeah and john o'leasy was a big fan as well so he's got it back and running yep yellow is removed i turn 13 but there'll be a lot of gravel around there i'm sure fueled by fluid spanish invective i'm sure may i just say about when we're talking about lead battles and coming to the end that safety car definitely has brought this race alive again eight hours um without the safety guard i think would have sort of been reasonably static certainly at the front in the hyper car however andre de garaud is dropping lap time quite quickly to jose maria lopez the momentum swinging back to lopez even with the extra splash at the end that he's going to be able to maintain that second place overall firmly planted you see him just like click click flicking it down the gears right let's donut this thing around and get going prepare for the spring flowers at some point there nicely duck up um lopez coming towards the end of his stint he's got about four more laps to go but uh it's been a pretty stellar stint actually consistent tidy from argentinian fastest race lap for this car 131.103 on the last lap the only car that has gone quicker is nico lapierre in the alpine [Music] once the toyota's on its way it's quite clean and tidy now and it's also he's pulled about five six seconds six point eight seconds actually to sebastian boehme but remember bueny is on a one stop to the end uh whereas we've got for lopez and also nick growl so for uh they will have to stop once more and uh at the same time we're going to require a second stop for them it's going to be a different length of fuel and it'll only be a splash actually for lopez but that's just enough for the 28-second pick delta anyway before they stop for fuel we saw some aggression in defense didn't we from uh giorgio cena giotto he's gonna have to do it again because jan carla fizzy keller's with him now on track for second in gte am as in the pits comes number one and the total yep so that is lopez race leader is in and as you said graham car number one is in as well it's not showing actually the number one car but we could see it that was a clicking house that's why ah it was the clicking that's okay so red rear end my fault miss lettuce no i thought he was the same car as well i think what'll happen now is the toyota won't do a full fill i think they'll do sort of half to three quarters and split the rest of this race one on six minutes in two equal stints that means they're carrying less fuel which means they'll be faster overall over that one at one hour and six minutes but still have to have the fuel hose connected don't you remember for that time do they have to do that the last one it's not the last hour this last hour and it's not their next stop oh yeah that's true so you can you can under fill it but you still have to have 34 connection seconds of connection ferrari in the pits that's the race leader james collado happy birthday by the way james 32 today oh happy birthday steps out of the car one of our world champions of course yep [Music] the introduction just a few years ago of a world drivers championship gta 4 tyre change so porsche may not have much of an advantage of tyres left collardo steps out and that is a four tyre change on the ferrari so that was the standard 67 second stop or 67 seconds on pit road for the number seven car and it's came out ahead of the 36 as well yep i think hopes are evaporating here at cenitec alpine that they may be able to pull off some amazing blinder here the alpine has already made eight stops it needs a full stint and another bit so it will be a 10 stop race for the alpene 10 seconds added to the next stop of car number 56 that's ricardo perra for causing that collision with the number 70 real team racing car could that have the victory to the 54 is just now with the seven of the 47 car and is going by for second position so i think the settler is less of a threat for the win here than the 54. wow 10 seconds extra in the pits let's hear from the alpine team but that doesn't cycle alpine in front alan [Music] i don't think it does yeah but it means they're not completely without a chance what they're saying is they also need to stop again there might be something that we can do yeah yeah i'm not sure when that particular radio message was but uh it certainly wouldn't have lifted my heart completely however it does keep a little bit of focus on for the driver all right well let's see what the number eight team have to say five laps to go five laps wow he's getting a lot longer on fuel he's already done one more than the sister car so they have a six lap advantage how's that going out from one lap to six that's been consistently over the course of the race from the second stop and then through and they've just been able to maintain that momentum and uh they're in a position to be able to sort of stretch the mileage and they've done that purely on driving style uh well i don't know they could have done it on mapping they could do their strategy so if i look at the first one blemish 37 laps on the first in lopez 36 boy me 37 lopez 37 hartley 38 conway 37 hartley 37 conway 37 nakajima 37 kobayashi and then nakajima 40 kobayashi 40. that was the safety car one and now we're at boeing 35 and remember has cut short that stint a little bit he could have gone another two or three laps later yeah yeah yeah so it's effectively a three lap advantage and two of their drivers in the first stint on the tire have found a lap over their rivals that's impressive well the first thing you don't necessarily want to stop both your cars at the same time if you can if you can give priority to one and that priority usually goes with the card that's leading looking at the brake dust coming out to the front of that alpine there could be a little bit of a long pedal coming for alexandra to grow here because uh in that when it gets to this point where there's a lot of brake dust that means there's a lot of wear and with a lot of wear the more wear it gets the longer the pedal is the more you have to pump it up to get the pressure onto the pads to go onto the disc and that ultimately just starts to bring performance away as well winding brake balance away from the front to go to the rear that's good for the front brake wear but it also heats up the rear tires and we do know that the rear tire temperatures has been a discussion all afternoon gt leader is in the pits jan carla giancarlo fisca keller gets out of the ferrari from second and private channel second yes yes catching ricardo pero wasn't he so we've got remember the the we've still got stops to come from the two leaders we've got a pair and giorgio cena giotto but pera or rather than 56 car is going to have 10 seconds added to its pit stop when it comes in right so who is in for fissi keller is it castellachi or does thomas floor still have more time to do just checking that right now but i think thomas floor has done it's right there i i have a feeling he's done quite a lot we are 40 seconds away from the final hour of the eight hours of portimao here so we are getting ready to see who has got anything special left in the locker to decide the finishing order in race two of the fia world endurance championship for [Music] [Music] 2021 [Music] 60 minutes remain in portugal to decide five class wins in hypercar toyota gazoo racing at lead one two from alpine elf matmut in lmp two chota sport one two from united auto sports high class lead at the pro-am category in lmp2 from real team and dragon speed in gte pro they of course are first and third with the porsche gt team sandwiched between the ferraris in second and their second car in fourth and in gte am project one porsche leading from chettala racing ferrari and the 98 aston martin cycling back up into third there are a lot of fuel stops driver changes tire changes and strategy decisions as well as laps still to be played out here martin haven aluminis and graham goodwin in the booth down in the pit lane duncan vincent and louise beckett and the final hour this is how they head into it after seven of our eight hours lapse uh points and a half in these classes for their positions here you can see the pro-am category still pretty tight for second place but our current leaders high class have a lap in hand gtam category again is the top four five maybe even six cars you might still have something to say about the top half dozen so the algarve coast of portugal the venue for the second at race weekend of the fia world endurance championship we go from here to the auto roma nationality italy's temple of speed for race three the final sort out before the big one the 24 hours of le mans in august but right now who is going to come out on top this is your race leader the pole sitter the number 28 jota sport car in lmp2 well they started at the very front of the field and an hour left they're still at the front of the field graham goodin pretty straightforward race for them really uh no no it wasn't was it that was the clash between the two joker cars that saw this car turn around and back to the back of the field it's been a fight back but it's been impressive since that moment for jota uh they've got what is it ten seconds over tony felix de costa in the sister car a further 3.5 seconds to a charging paul deresta that's not over 31 seconds back to the somewhat delayed team wrt car few woes on track including that runoff in avoidance two penalties as in now comes chester in the pits giorgio santiato brought the car in from what was second place and that means team project one lead now from the north west amr aston martin but the number eight toyota our race leader and hyper car leader is in the pits 54 ferrari shutting the door and bits of debris there flying off the real team racing entry of matthias besh that's second in pro am that 70 car seems to be magnetic to carbon fiber doesn't it definitely everything's hitting it and it's hitting things yeah so sebastian buemi relaxed this should be their final stop should make it clear by the way that arm is not his he's not triple jointed that's somebody from outside the car just making sure everything is a okay for the driver that's a drink going in for sebastian number seven car jose maria lopez at the wheel but this car will have to stop again yeah the seven karate car this will be them to the finish 36 37 laps to the end for sebastian boyamies is an easy run to the end as he comes out of the pit now he doesn't come out in the lead of the race but uh with the total knowledge that jose maria lopez will have to do that splash probably about six seven laps towards the end of the race but uh lopez is actually looking at this fight where he is in comparison to negrow in third that's exactly what those men are looking at as well in the race suits uh zipped up philip senior the team boss you could see matthias vaseviere and nico lapierre watching as their teammate andreina growl tries to put this car not just on the overall podium not just on the car podium but also between the two toyotas number eight is probably not going to be achievable but trying to get ahead of number seven that's the big target for alpine and it's a very much more competitive race brendan we go to the final hour of the race i know pit stops and fuel have been all things to consider but how do you see this last hour playing out up the strategy for us which means that we can potentially not stop again but the other car and alpine will have to do one more stop so right now it looks good for for us to car right if we can keep everything together thank you so straightforward then no other problems uh certainly for as far as concern it's out of their hands now it's down to whether or not there's drums ahead that they can get uh any kind of uh result better than third i think there's ultimately um they've still got a little bit to play for at the end you know they're not totally out of it but uh there's been some absolutely fantastic highlights of this race so far martin [Music] round two the fia world endurance championship started at the circle of portugal in bright sunny conditions racing behind closed doors first ever pole position a outright pole in wec for a french team senior tech alpine leading away from the two hypercar rival toyotas down into turn three around the outside of the pole sitter when racing team elizabeth vandergaard taking the lead and then worse for tom blondquist he was clattered into and turned around by his teammate antonio felix decosta as blonde chris tried to get back underneath the yellow racing team nedland car he dropped the tail of the field porsche qualified on pole the 92 car comfortably quicker than anything but very soon ferrari got by contact between the dragon speed car and the second of the uh cars then the only major incident of the race so far and that was ryan briscoe misjudging the size of the new hypercar from glickenhaus clattering into 77 and triple seven both of whom later retired battle for the lead in gte am initially porsche versus ferrari porsche faded very quickly aston martin came through but the ferraris have been resolutely quick racing team nedlands big mistake here little touch with the pro class ferrari broke the left rear corner and the drive shaft and dropped them from podium contention to the tail of the lmp2 field leading in pro-am the high-class racing entry little grassy excursion for the 98 car paul dalalana blunted his challenge a little but responding to tyre where they have come back nero konopka causing a safety car the only one so far in seven hours of racing as he spun off at turn eight the safety car bringing them right back into contention giving them almost a full lap back to put them behind their japanese rivals contact them behind ricardo pera turning around the real team car and united auto sport in the battle for victory in lmp2 with team wrt who led early on and jota who currently live first and second hard work for the brakes and the tires and the drivers and everything else here senior check live third toyota number eight in second but will not need to stop ahead of them the number seven car which will in the gtem class could be the battle of the ferraris but the team project one porsche has the lead going into the final hour [Music] and that's team project one porsche on pit road ricardo pero with an extra 10 seconds to serve in this final stop an investigation over the 54 air of course a ferrari which giancarlo fisa keller has handed it over to francesco castellachi that might open up the uh victory potentially to chela racing let's hear from toyota that's okay we'll do a splash remember ten seconds to be added to this big stop from team project one then we'll find out where we stand on pace and pretty soon after that we'll find out whether or not there's further promise from 54 it is not done yet for gtam for the overall or for any of the positions on the podium about halfway through the race the number seven toyota came flying into the pit lane far too quickly left big black marks cluttered into something in the pit lane a direction board surprised that there was no investigation for hitting items in the pit lane and also potentially for being over speed in the pit lane but apparently that was either invisible or nothing to see here number 22 is in this shoe no it won't be the last stop will it for an lmp2 car they'll need maybe another five or six minutes of fuel if we go green all the way we have had no full course yellows just one safety car no this should be the final stop for this car they make it yeah they'll they should make it got a 30 31 lap stint to do okie dokie in which case that could they are the first of our stoppers so anybody else will stop for a shorter time because they are not time limited or mandated in the pit lane remember with the 2021 spec for lmp2 they're going longer on time than they would have done previously 41 42 minutes previously that's come out of it and uh yeah but it's 48 minutes left to the end of the race that's why that was why i had this like question mark but i will certainly defer to alan and his ability to use the computer i think gentlemen may have this it it's i well i tell you what if they don't finish on the podium that will be an absolute shocker some somehow but yes they may well come out on top with their first world endurance championship win with that well it was a full stop for one minute 30 stop oh sorry it was 120 plus the 10 seconds for ricardo perry who's come back out in that car and uh antonio fuoco rapid young man is at the wheel of the number 47 car francesco castellachi is out in third place gap between the three is about 13 seconds for the three podium position cars at the moment have project one made their last stop yes it's surely just done and the other two they've all done seven stops so the other two don't need to start i think that's it it's now one base remember the ten seconds is burned that that's that's now in the mix here so it's going to be about both oh that that did look close yeah this is again in trouble is that the same one that's the same one that's a replay but very close to another one going into the first corners it came out to the pits after its final stop dunker vincent and i were sitting on the ground at the pit exit and i pointed out to duncan that in a prototype or in fact in almost anything you can't see what's in the dick and that's with us sitting without a helmet a hand device and a restrictive cockpit around us not surprising that there's been a couple of near misses there that's kevin estrella i was a stopper i think he does doesn't he uh well the porsches and the ferraris have made six each no he does he's at 31 laps so he's got maybe seven or eight laps to go before his final stop of the event 91 had an out of secret stop because it had a a tyre issue didn't it why is 92 oh us one more uh jimmy bruni owes us one more as well 91 both both porsches do they both have problems with tires but the ferraris don't need to stop again uh the puergeti could be on a splash but he should be able to do it and molina owes a stop okay so i think in that respect the 51 leading ferrari is looking okay the others always stop that is taking the race even further away potentially from porsche on board the 38 jota sport car san antonio felix de costa not portuguese but lives in portugal and clearly speaks the language fluently this is where it's all going to wind down his net for lmp2 anybody stopping from here on in will not need to stop again not just portuguese clearly antonio village de costa my i'm getting my head confused with him without kristoffers antonio lives out near estoril with his uh brothers chasing down teammates tom bloncrist 8.9 seconds between them antonio a second slow on that last lap it can all be down to where you catch [Music] cars joe to leading with blond christ and if and when antonio gets to him they're going to have to be pretty gentlemanly about it there is the jota sport team [Music] trying to make sure that everything passes off between the two cars as neat and tightly as possible and whatever else happens they end up with a 1-2 for joe to sport robin friends in third for team wrt united's paul de resta the only other car that possibly could finish on the podium here leading in pro-am high-class racing and has fueled back in sixth position as up to fifth have come into europol competition let's hear from jota's stoffel fan door stop all vandal it wasn't the best start for the 28th but um both joker's impacts have been in strong performances so far yeah exactly it's been it's been a difficult start for uh for our car we dropped back to last after a hit between between both cars actually but um the pace has been uh makeup from everyone in the team we've managed to recover bit by bit every stint we recover ground on the leaders and the team has been doing a fantastic job as well with with the strategy so we're back in the lead at the moment um 45 minutes to go but the sister car is very close so uh we've got to keep pushing and hopefully we can bring it home have you got stuck today uh we still have one stop to do yeah the sister car as well so we're uh we're kind of on the same strategy so the gap we're seeing right now is the real gap so hopefully we can bring it home all right thank you you can see on the left-hand side all the p's cars going in and out of the pit lane wrt into europol high class and real team all stopping on that lap wrt coming out but into europol have already left with louis delatraz at the wheel of the 34 car taking over former cooper schmidkovsky wrt robin friend stays in uh matthias besh stays in at real team matias especially has been in since lunchtime it seems at real team and emma's fueled back brought the high-class car in looks like he remains in the car but there's an issue are they what are they topping up that looked like was that a battery coming out it might well have been actually and that could be a problem for high class they lead in real team in second are two laps back so that gives them its course for concern three minutes less than three minutes two and a half minutes to get that sorted and to get the car back out to hang on to their lead and as you heard from stoffel they will need to have further stops for jota and wrt and united are going to be a minute and change behind in fact right now you united car is a minute and seven back minute and seven is a is a pit stop no but united at this moment in time are i think able to go to the end robin friends definitely owes his pit stop there's no question about it it's united that's indicated so friends has just stopped so the joker cars will stop later a standard pit stop will be about a minute and seven minute ten they'll make a shorter stop it could be three cars down into turn one very close together for victory in lmp2 and this is a major drama now for high class and at the same time as well uh when you talk about that it looks like the alpine is just gaining a little bit of performance mcgraw has been a bit quicker and bringing himself really close to jose maria lopez after their final stops as well absolutely right he's battling number seven not number eight high class are on their way they didn't lose r they got passed by the richard mille racing team but not by real team yet yet so well let's hear from louise becky who's down at the pit lane it looked like a battery yeah well i [Music] turn the wrong wonder off you idiot uh wondered whether that is actually the car trying to crank and just over fueling itself and it's coming out the exhaust rather than out of say the floor well on the uh the united car fuel to the end how tight well very tight very tight so it's higher going to be done yeah well the thing i'm thinking about is will an extra lap depending on where he is in relation to the overall leader make a difference to united here i think they're very edgy here they're on the edge but i think they're capable of doing it they should be able to do 30 laps six 30 laps 31 laps wayne boyd did 31 laps they've been doing 30 laps all the way through so i don't i see it tight but i don't see it critical 40 minutes to go it's 13.6 seconds between the top three overall hoisamira low maria lopez 10 seconds up on sepawami with three and a half seconds then to andre the growl pace last time around all three of the top cards in 133.2 tom blogfist 11 seconds ahead of antonio felix de costa with alderesta 69 seconds back a loose device in the cockpit of the high-class racing entry not what you want really things rattling about presumably something electronic which had broken free of its velcro and was just attached only by the cables which would have been rattling backwards and forwards like a bottle of water in the footwell well what had been two laps is now a minute and ten seconds yeah and it's uh it is under field back from matthias besh for the win in pro-am now 10th and 11th overall how far back is juan pablo he's only half a minute behind as well so we've got so we've got the top three covered by 90 seconds which is a basically just about a lap isn't it so that's very close indeed 91 porsche which does it was a stop as does the 92 92 at the moment it's 15 seconds back but with the stop to come richard leakes animatedly chatting there to the team porsche been really on a hiding to nothing since the start of the race all of that you know excitement and positivity from pole position and a crushing pole position from kevin ester just evaporated as soon as the race began the ferraris just left them behind and in the end lapped them before the safety car came out now i didn't quite get my head around uh sydney check in as well or the albion is in that senior tech didn't get my head around whether the porsches were waved by or whether they somehow managed to get a lap back during the safety car i think it must be waved by uh this is the lp and for that final stop for them final stop as well for 91 porsche final tear-off being removed that way goes it's got about 25 laps to go so it'd be 25 laps of fuel in that car left side porsche left side only yet again ferrari's had four tires on the last stop porsche only have a pair left it's a busted flush isn't it porsches and i was thinking maybe they might have fresh set like you know we've seen before in the final hour i think they've struggled so much they're doing well to have two tyres left gtm by the way as we see the 54 car i think was indeed that car running in third position francesco casalacci is 4.8 seconds behind ricardo pereira a second they're laughing at about the same speed antonio though is beginning to go away from the pair of them yeah 12 seconds covering the top three with just over half an hour to go well this is the glicken house's uh major i was gonna say contribution but uh to the detriment of triple seven the aston and 77 the dempsey proton car and if united end up on the podium how close was that to being the end of their race as well within maybe a coat of paint or two maybe a little more than that but it's been a pretty tough baptism for glickenhaus they didn't complete all the free practice sessions without issues they had gear selector problems that contact damaged the clutch and they then had subsequent gear selector issues so they've still got work to do but it is a brand new car in its first ever race testing is one thing and they have tested successfully over quite a lot of endurance running racing that's where endurance really comes back to bite you in the backside next three or four minutes should see both joe to cars on pit road for their final stop and then we'll see just how close paul diresta is but that runs the flag jimmy rooney leaves the pits in 91 going in is kevin estrada in 92 which is second in gt pro there's jose maria lopez and andre negrow battle for second what but lopez is leading yes but the number eight car will not stop again number seven must and so must 36 36 has just done its last stop yeah so they've done their final stop one minute 11 behind the leader one minute 119 behind the leader so that's the gap to lopez but we have to remember that lopez will do a shorter fuel stop but we're not sure that it can be any shorter in time he'll have less fuel going in but does the minimum time the hose remains attached still count we'll find out after we hear from birthday boy james collado james collado of the 51 is watching on at that porsche pit stop and also at your teammate how's the rest of this gonna play out for you well um it's tricky out there all the cars are suffering with blistering on the tyres it's quite severe so we're just trying to manage that as much as we can and uh yeah we're quite on the edge on fuel to make it to the end so la's doing a lot of fuel saving just to try and see if we don't have to do a splash so uh so far it's looking good the porsche's just boxed so um let's see it's still still 35 minutes to go there sure is thank you very disappointed we didn't get even one little line of happy birthday to you from louise beckett there we go so yeah alley his teammate alessandro pierguidi desperately feather feather touching the car around off the gas early rolling it through the corners trying to keep momentum rather than have to pick up the throttle just desperately trying to eke every little smidgen of fuel out of the car that he can so that they are not forced into the pits they are the leaders from teammates miguel molina and daniel sarah and they do not want to have to stop again yeah the 52 car though in second place will have to stop but pretty soon as well so that will put the porsche of kevin estra who's back out after his final stop into back into second place so yeah marginal fuel says james collado that's what he's prepared to say on air yeah marginal because they don't want to stop again they know they probably need to but if everybody else has to peel into the pits and it gives them a 30 40 50 60 second margin then suddenly alan you can save an awful lot of fuel if you haven't got somebody breathing up your exhaust yeah but that's very true but you have to start very early in the stint to be able to do it because then your percentage of fuel save requirement per lap is much much smaller easier to understand easier for the driver to be able to achieve and also less detrimental to your laptime performance i bet they've been trying to save fuel for the last four hours they've been right up at the front of the field haven't they since the early early laps against porsche cars off pit lane they are indeed i'm keeping an eye as well on the pace of the program leader that was a very slow-lapping deed from anders fjord back at 140. no no no no no something else come loose inside the car 28 and 38 here's antonio felix de costa chasing tom blanquist his teammates joe to sport one two at the moment united in third place won't get to them but it will be close er a lot closer actually looking at it again it is going to be pretty tight for dorresta pretty tight the eye the ideal formula one car of course runs out of fuel and falls apart as it crosses the finish line now these may not be built to quite that extreme tolerance but oh and fuel back has stopped high class have stopped and this fuel back rather has stopped well and whatever was loose inside the cockpit again i'm guessing it's an electronics issue it may well still be loose and have pulled out full course yellow here or safety car if it's a safety car then suddenly all fuel bets are off potentially in 31 minutes we will see the checkered flag being prepared [Music] that is really tough for high class real team have already gone by matthias pesch leads and dragon speed may go by as well within the next 30 or 40 seconds to move into second place racing team netherlands could end up on the pro am podium here yellow flags only at the moment that's a really tough luck for the danish team never have won a race in lmp2 well you'd hear in formulary the race director talking to the driver can you restart not sure that we've quite got that ability yet here that might be another step forward but that would be something that eduardo freitas would dearly love to know can you restart the car there's richard dean keeping paul de resta calm the jota cars have left the pits it is still a local yellow up towards the top of the hill at turn seven where is the nearest um assistance for the 20 car and which side of the track is it on it'll be on the outside between seven and eight because they've got to cross the track he's on the right hand side but yeah that's the point if they've got to cross that track surely makes it more likely there will be some on the outside of the hairpin at the bottom of the hill and as they come up the hill they will be on drivers right but they're gonna have to bounce across the grass the good news is that he's not really in an obstructive position dragon's been through to second in pro-am by the way yeah this be the rescuing of the the day of racing team netherland yeah well they'll see brothers lava by the way haven't rejoined the race it's a lot of laps back but if the high-class car does not move again then racing team nedland will just i think it's coming yep 30 seconds 20 seconds to full course yellow and that means everybody comes down to pit lane speed limit 60 kilometers an hour chugging around the circuit wherever you are in the race whatever the gaps are they remain [Music] frozen [Music] so everybody down to 60 kilometers now full course yellow is in operation and into the pit lane because the pit lane is not closed comes sofia flourish now then where is the number seven toyota where is the number 36 alpine and what about united what about jose joseph just stopped we know they're good to go well depending how marginal they were united this could help them yeah this i think will bring them into the picture without any any issues uh the question is for me is the toyota in terms of jose marie lopez he's got 14 laps that he can continue to do in this stint um but that would mean he'd have a five six lap splash at the end so i don't think it'll get rid of his splash but it may mean that he can do it under a full course yellow speed yeah at 60k which is effectively like a half free pass so do it now is what you're saying 100 yeah and that's what senior tech have to do they have to bring the alpene in the same but the alpine doesn't need to do it it's it's already had itself right in this position high-class car of anders fuelback is on the back of a rope it will be under tow on the back of rope on the end of a rope horrible look for them horrible the seven crew are ready and in comes the number seven followed in by the 54. yeah or is that 83 or was it the 83 i think it was the 83 wasn't it 83. now 83 is coming in this is nick nielsen going for the awful i would imagine they would box but then also we can raise our target because we won't we can the race will be shorter so we can raise our target do you think you've taken people ahead or not yeah i think so yeah absolutely i think they number eight they're nailing their colors to the mast is passing now yeah well they have to they've you know that's track position for them so they will be leading the race with 27 minutes to go they've got track position there'll be cars in between but also be gaps in between remember this is full course yellow so it's not like the uh the number eight car can actually close up onto the back of the the sorry the seven closes up onto the back of the eight yep at meantime by the way the 36 the alpine is only in turn five yeah that has torpedoed alpine's hopes i'm afraid completely and utterly and has taken away the race from the number seven car potentially but oh i don't think it has i think it's actually giving the seven half a chance to have a go at sebastian bohemi so the fight now is between the two toyotas whether uh lopez can actually have a go at boemi but both of them will turn up the power to max to go for it in the last 25 minutes marina takes his stop now doresta did stop for fuel yep the rest are stopped for fuel so super tight then they must have been effectively giving up uh any kind of uh chance of the win of the race on pace but uh has emerged just checking i believe ahead of he has significantly ahead of the 29. ferrari trying to make sure that molina has the best opportunity to hold off the porsches brand new left side tyres and just giving him that little squirt of gas that he needs this is handed i think second place to the ferrari the fact that he was able to make that stop under yellow means he was he was a minute and a half ahead 30 seconds to remove he loses absolutely nothing 15 seconds on dame's in behind as well michelle gaston will stay in nine eight seven six five four three two one full course yellow removed full course yellow removed right 25 minutes to sort this out toyota number eight leads toyota number seven in second place they no longer need fuel 10 seconds 25 minutes that's the arithmetic okay from turn seven to turn nine we need to stay left yeah and there's no target no target anymore so full speed now okay so he's got gas to go so is the number seven car there's a 10 second margin 25 minutes have at it uh 10 seconds there's a four second margin that's down to four seconds because the way that the full course yellow uh when they so basically we'll see when they cross the line but it'll be about four or five seconds but as you heard there is no energy save fuel save it is now full gas all the way to the end of the race this is a sprint and this is to be honest what we want we were robbed of the fight for second place due to the full course yellow but we've been gifted a fight for first uh boeing was on a relaxed 25-minute run before this and now he's going to have to work for his living and the other one is up for grabs the choker cars off nose to tail for the lead out v2 oh dear tom blongfist just inches ahead of antonio felix decaster let's hear from toyota number seven okay we are back in the game okay jose we are back in the game what driver doesn't want to hear that you've got four seconds you've got 20 minutes get on with it sunbeam and if they win this one ahead of the number eight car they take the points lead because it's points and a half here so there's more at stake than there was at spa look at the pickup coming off the inside right uh of the the johto card now at the end it's not the jota card it's just generally the pickup through that long right hander right now but antonio felix de costa he's got a sniff or something behind tom blonkus coming down to turn three this is where they collided on the first lap of the race spun blanques around at that moment did i ever think that blancas would be leading with half an hour to go no way but they've pulled themselves back into the game they've had a really strong run to joe to cars the judges sports looking to win a first wc race under their own name since shanghai in 2019 one with the jackie chan dc racing car the final race of last season took two race wins by the way in the asia le mans series in the preparation for this program earlier this year but uh it's an important race here nervous juggling now yeah they should be because this is at the moment where you could have a fantastic one two depending which side of the garage you're on or like sam hickman if you're in david clarke if you're sitting in the middle of the garage in whichever one wins fantastic and the other one finishes i can even better but ultimately it also could quite easily just at the lock of a break in a pinch as we saw at that turn three on the first lap how it can swing from one thing to the other so director is 21 seconds back from this battle he's quicker significantly quicker at the moment than either these cars we've got 22 minutes to go we'll keep an eye on that gap they'll be keeping an eye too both these cars will be given full information on the state of play behind them miguel molina meanwhile does his fastest lap of the race he's got 20 seconds off at kns he's in the 38s best of the 39s molina 48 seconds behind teammate alessandro pierre who leads the race for ferrari in gte pro so you don't see that coming down it is all about holding off kevin est and cheating out gaps 13.7 seconds first a second antonio throco looks to have the legs on ricotta perez and uh francesco castellacci yeah is third four seconds back but under investigation for full caution low procedure oh and so too is the clicking house of ryan briscoe which is probably less of an issue for them yeah they're not going to finish on the podium by any stretch of the imagination whereas well the af corsa castalacci car certainly can actually they could because they're fourth in hypercar if so lap one of the race racing team nedland had already got around tom blanche blanca is trying to cut back inside underneath the yellow car not enough room because antonio felix de costa was still there lopez is catching catching so blondquist went from first to last almost last of the entire field actually and now the jota sport car with tom at the wheel and antonio felix cut to costa right behind him in second they're running first and second that league gap overall has halved 2.2 pacito lopez bringing it down to sebastian buemi last lap of 32.4 to a 33.2 he has really got the bit between his teeth alan where's the traffic ahead of the number eight car eight's on the straight he's got a little bit of clear air both of them are together but it was actually the traffic behind that i think really held up uh buemi and that allowed lopez to come close it is going to be traffic and that will create the opportunity if there is going to be one for lopez to overtake i don't think we're going to see you know gung-ho last lap dive down the inside because they're two teammate cars at the end and you know they understand the overall picture of things but if there is an opportunity with traffic holding up boy me then i'm very sure lopez will try and take advantage yeah i think you're absolutely right you saw antonio fuoco still leading in gte am right there he is leaders are behind and he's holding up wemmi not intentionally but he's got to take the racing line to survive here and he is basically down at the speed of a ferrari and suddenly lopez is there there's two car lengths in it who gets to lead the world championship after this race big points remember on uh offer for this 100th world championship race in sportscar racing for toyota well chances are very strong that they'll have a 1-2 either that or alpine will win [Music] this is lots of pressure now for both of these drivers whoever finishes in front will be the points leader this gt car is going to come into play in the middle of the corner lopez has got to think here back off just then keep a little bit of extra momentum and to try and have a nicer cleaner run it's been actually played reasonably okay for boeing but it's that situation just that the wrong point where you catch the car whoever's got to strategically maybe back lopez up so that doesn't happen however lopez has got to make sure that he keeps him honest all the time three further gt cars they're going to catch on this lap the question is at what stage do or would toyota say okay guys enough one two please it's our hundredth race we want a one-two result we want a photo finish we're gonna hear from the number seven toyota team okay we're gonna swap out five we're gonna swap myself what now okay now i want to hear what sebastian whims reaction to that radio message was well we did see uh a radio call being done whether it was internal or whether what it was uh just a little bit earlier on by pascal vasilon he was speaking into his microphone and then 30 seconds later they've got a switch of cars well well well now that i was not expecting [Music] let potito go because he's quicker no not a chance is pueri gonna let him go he will make the point and have an overlap at the line he's been told to give away not just this centenary win but also the lead in the world championship yeah potentially the world champion yeah but whoever finishes in front will have the lead i don't understand no well i think it was clear that pachito was a little bit quicker but at the same time there's 16 minutes to go and he hadn't even got to the stage where he was able to think about putting in a pass i would like to be inside the debrief room this evening when they're talking about the race strategy point but well anyway this is the way they've played it i'm gonna send duncan vincent now and plant him under the table and he can just record all the effing and jeffy because i think there might be a bit well the only thing i can think here is he took four seconds out of that car in two laps yeah yeah but that was traffic a little bit as well yeah and we know that he's been told they were good on fuel it's not like he was marginal drive through penalty for the 54 ferrari but it's all about why toyota did that [Music] no alan allen is just shrugging and uh i have to say well they didn't sure he's not shrugging there's a way to control the race and i'm not sure why they would switch it to control the race yeah you're saying guys no no more racing basically hold position yeah no more racing absolutely and uh so effectively they have done that but they've given it towards uh one of the other cars who's giving it to carson anyway that's their decision there's maybe internal reasons internal backgrounds to it that we are not aware of i think this thing drive through penalty for 54 though because of full course yellow procedures that takes castellacci from the podium no it doesn't it's not quite it's just a hold on a second it's a 28 30 seconds he's uh he's one minute six so he's going to bring him back towards the fourth police car yeah it is gomez has been at times quicker than him it should be reasonably comfortable as long as he keeps his head 56 car here ricardo pereira is not catching the leader this is the lead car in gta gomez needs to be three seconds plus a lap quicker than castellacci to catch him but i don't think he's going to do that so castle actually should still hold on but for chetila again graham is it going to be their first ever win in world endurance i mean what a day that will be for them remember new sponsors of the factory ferrari team very proud italians and uh wow they're what they'll do their second race in gta that's some result antonio cuoco in comes uh castalacci as the jota cars go along the bit straight the gap still under one second doesn't look to me as if paul deresta is either able or indeed the team are pushing to close that gap you know two very fast guys here that's not going to help the attack no 38 car were on board with antonio felix de costa has never won in portugal in his professional racing career that i can tell i haven't looked at the go-kart results but certainly not in a car he's got 13 minutes and maybe one lap to sort that out some small recompense by the way for high-class racing they are back out and running we got the car back to the pits and that car is back out running has not lost a podium position in pro-am now four laps behind them still racing team netherlands so y'all knighter isn't going to close that unless high class have another total failure and don't finish the race hey of course is alessandro pierguidi on a massive fuel save that full course yellow will not have hurt them one iota could well be that birthday boy james collado gets a very pleasant gift at the end of this after qualifying they may have thought we're going to have a tough race on our hands trying to reign in the rampant kevinest in race team though the tyres that porsche was going through just always looked like it was going to swing at the balance in favor of ferrari no matter how much they were blistering porsche were blistering a lot more and alessandro pierguidi has been nursing the tyres and sipping at the fuel as parsimoniously as possible to try and get through to the end of this race with just enough to avoid the final stop that his teammate daniel sarah has had to take yeah is still fuel saving the previous lap was a 41 maybe even 42 this one's almost a 41. there's not enough time for this to be done on pace if they've got it wrong then they're close enough to for it to be disaster but they're not going to get it wrong yeah well if they drop by the wayside 52 is there to scoop up the result for ferrari it's extraordinarily unlikely that porsche will somehow out fumble ferrari and end up on the top step of the podium but ferrari would definitely want it to be a one-two result they've worked very hard for this through a very tough race on tyres and drivers he's done 40 lap stints before under full green and this is going to be a 38 39 laps then depending on where they are with the checkered flags so that should still help him he might well be freed of the shackles of having to save he's got a 30 second advantage over his teammate and in the remaining 10 and a half minutes or 11 and a half minutes the teammate has first got to catch and then think about passing jose maria lopez leads from sebastian buemi toyota casu racing gr010s are first and second front let's change back again yes they have changed again you missed that there but he's back in the lead so why did they bother swapping them in the first place okay so we've brought back breaking into turn five back breaking into turn five stay [Music] now there are occasions where you do think what on earth you're thinking on the pit wall i've never seen a situation where you think what on earth were you doing why did you take one car out of the lead and then put him back in both were good to go neither needed to save fuel all you've done basically is just alienate and confuse the viewer well we can hope that they're both allowed to free to race to the end now well in the last 10 minutes we were hoping that would be a great option we were hoping that 15 minutes out now 10 minutes out they've shuffled them forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards as lopez got an issue buemi is pulling away and i would have expected lopez to have his nose firmly up the exhaust pipe of the car in front depends if he's cloaked [Music] let's see if there's any response from toyota on exactly what on earth was going on there i think there will be radio silence but we'll find out under 10 minutes to go still the jota cars nose to tail no uh bewildering team orders at uh total i i just can't think of a reason why they'd have done it no they're probably not gonna tell us either nope but anyway between the two i know that antonio felix de costa at home will want to try to bring this one home yeah i know that at the same time tom blondquist has actually had the performance this weekend to keep his nose ahead and that's no easy thing to do whatsoever but uh he's in a position where he's able to sort of keep the costa behind at the same time for joe it'll be a superb one too absolutely incredible performance because you've got to say united have been so so dominant over the last 18 months two years at the same time wrt have came onto the scene swinging and punching and done blooming well but they're in fourth place right now and so therefore there's been some great competition to bring a one-two from a singular team against the might of uh the the people they're fighting absolutely well joshua have always been very good with their engineering and their driver lineups but it's it's been a an impressive don't forget in the first turn or the third turn on lap one that 28 car that is leading in the final eight minutes was facing backwards as everybody went past him after contact with his teammate and now here we go again he's not been closer up until this stage this is the closest they've been [Music] sam higner on the radio will be going boys i trust you you're professionals but i'm going to kill you dead if you touch again well that basically means boys i don't trust you yeah it means i trust you but this is a point where if you unless you are going to full blown quest unless you are going to say hold position then you don't get on the radio yeah no no no no no i'm sure i'm sure he won't be on the radio either he'll be leaving that to somebody else to make those calls no you just leave them to do it they know what they've got to do you've got to either give us hold position or you let them race you can't do anything in between or you shouldn't do anything right now it is the two of them first and second three tenths of a second between them and there's nearly 30 seconds back to the united car in third place the wrt the only other car on the same lap that is the number one 31 car in fourth place into europol top five result again ahead of the richard mille racing team sixth position they have worked their way steadily up the order and again through traffic blomfist held up behind the gr racing porsche just manages to squeeze around the outside antonio's going to have to go outside inside gets underneath mike wainwright and through he goes that's tom gamble and nothing gained nothing lost there six minutes graham how many laps well not not many but the the key thing here for the two jota cars is not a lot of traffic either now but a pretty clear run on the on the on this uh this lap yep just the 47 car the gtm leader ahead of them then they've got oh two or three turns with no traffic whatsoever yeah so that'll be they'll probably complete most of the next lap before they catch slower cars there's the chateau la car our am leader antonio cuoco and he will be absolutely nailed on the line he won't be focused on anybody else so oh jose maria lopez nearly slamming into the back of the number eight cara puemi and there's antonio he's got through decosta has passed the 28 car is in second 38 is the leader just as we are watching near disaster for the toyotas antonio felix to cast a dive bomb tom blondquist here we go they got held up by the chittel our car blanche with the gold most didn't get the drive off the turn down into the hairpin and through goes antonio felix de costa he leads at home five and a half minutes of the eight hours to go and davidson roberto gonzalez can't believe it wow wow wow it's not over it's not over blankets won't take this that's him got dirt on his tires i think it's it's over now five minutes to go very good move opportunistic we knew that they were going to fight it was quite clear by the nose uh attitude of uh antonio felix de costa and also from bonk blanco's point of view but that little bit of traffic it can just be the difference to give you enough momentum to be able to take it right now has pachito being told to back right off on the number eight car because he has a long way back he's gone from hundreds of a second to 4.1 seconds behind it's done the the explanation we believe is given the opportunity as they were telling the team they could pass and pull away they were given the opportunity to do so to secure the went with comfort they couldn't and then they were told to reverse the position again that's what they were told so the phrase is we don't allow them to bank wheels so what we say so what toyota is saying here publicly is we don't allow them to race each other we decide who's quicker and who goes we don't allow them to risk we don't allow them to risk the win with a banging of wheels at this point in an important race our case is what the position we don't trust some of the highest paid sports car drivers on the planet not to crash into each other so we will rule with an iron rod well okay fair enough meanwhile in the race chetala still out front antonio there's i think there's probably several italians just a few minutes away from some fairly major hangovers i don't think it's going to be apa plexi in that garage if they bring it to the line and both gt categories will have been won by ferrari because af quarter run one two alessandro pierre guidi half a minute ahead of miguel molina and anna is just still just allowing that gap to to shrink to shrink to shrink just to make sure with chetila sponsorship yeah it's uh what this is going to be roberto lacourte's day of days yep um excellent run from them until hypercar when when the ferrari i become a worldwide sponsorship on as well who knows what will happen in 2023 but right now yeah he probably doesn't know what he's more excited about supporting the factory team to a one-two or having his own team and driving his own car to victory for the very first time and what a success for them it's been changing away from from prototypes and into the gt cars it looks like they've enjoyed themselves more and they are producing the goods better as well our lead from team project one and a of course as jose are one two in lmp2 they've been competitive straight away in gtam and this has been a convincing performance as what what's been a class gentleman that is entertaining from the very start i just sort of say something uh michelle jensen is closing in significantly quickly into the back of uh marcus gomez yep he is gonna run out of time seconds back he might have two laps to do it in two minutes on the clock the eight hours of portamou is fast approaching its conclusion toyota number eight out front and only a catastrophic misjudgment by sebastian bremion traffic can affect that two seconds back is jose maria lopez again you said that out loud hey whatever uh with the elf alpine elf matt mutt in third place a minute back now their pace right at the end has just kind of flagged a little bit i'm not sure that that is entirely driver related and as they cross the line a minute and 21 on the clock it's a minute 30 lap this is the final lap of the eight hours of portugal and the fourth place type of car is lapped by the first place hypercar the click in the house has had a number of problems not least the collision with the d station and dempsey proton cars the only two retirements from the race are those cars they didn't retire on the spot but they did retire as a legacy and the clicking house pulling to one side ryan briscoe to let the toyotas go through and i imagine actually he might then pick up speed and try and stay with them a little bit to uh get in the nice red white photo at the end for toyota 100th world championship race should end with a one two result and they'll do it with 300 laps of this circuit wow that's a nice little round number as well isn't it in lmp2 toyota also looking for a 1-2 victory in gte pro af courser a 1-2 win and it is chetlar and team project 1 ahead of af course in gte am the pro-am category real team matthias bech who's been in the car since lunchtime ahead of dragon speed and high class henrik hedman and anders fjordbach will bring those cars to the line behind besh as the podium in the pro-am category but out down the hill for the very final time asking just one last effort from the tires comes sebastian buemi toyota win the eight hours of portimao and across the line in second place has come jose maria lopez you saw the glickenhaus just behind ryan briscoe they complete their first race in the world endurance championship so it's the number 18 that one in spa extend their advantage chesterlar win from team project one in gte am third place across the line united auto sports here's the gte pro winner alessandro pierguidi and birthday boy james collado lead an af course a one-two miguel molina and daniel serra will be in second place porsche vanquished as they could not keep the life in their tires ferrari struggled porsche really struggled and in lmp2 it is a first racing win at home in portugal in the number 38 jota car for antonio felix de costa the reigning former e champion claims his first win in his first race here in portugal roberto gonzalez and davidson all put in stellar efforts to take that victory along with their teammate yep the alpine home in third overall the uh so it's a 100 record there for uh antonio felix de costa on uh everyone yep time to retire and um he's i'm not sure he's raced in portugal i can't think what championship he'd have been in but raced in estoril surely at some point ending his career i don't think so he's never raced on the streets in porto or villarreal i don't think he's raced at an international level in portugal well there you go i might be wrong formula three euro series didn't come here world series by renault so two liter formula renault reformer arena 3.5 wouldn't have been here not in formulary not in gp3 not in gp2 not in none of them raced in portugal hasn't been a portuguese grand prix for decades before last year real team home as the lmp2 pro am winners and who'd have thought that with the race that they'd had well i i know multiple incidents if anybody's got a long list of incidents i think it's real team they have must have the longest of the loss here's sebastian buemi our race winner though the 100th world championship race and chetila roberto lacourte giorgio siena giotto what a great result for them and antonio fuoco the young boy comes through at the flag to take it so real team claiming victory and of course they share uh the engineering of tds with racing team netherland who could so easily perhaps have won overall but ended up with that uh drama contact with the ferrari costing them nearly a dozen laps sebastian buemi the team of number eight winners in spa now points and a half here as well in portimao they are the comfortable championship leaders that is the 19th wc win for sebastian boyemi once he joins pedro lumi another of our portuguese uh wc drivers with the most wins of course with sebastian all overall good job good job it's the fifth win in wc competition for jota under their own name level now with kcmg united first one too uh no they've had their twos before but not not and yeah yeah it's davidson's 13th win but i have to say it's been one of the most best delivered one twos i think oh yeah because they did it nailed it absolutely nailed it qualifying and then considering the problems they had at the beginning of the race strategically came back but also from pure performance as well and so there's no question in my eyes that the team delivered the performance the drivers did as well and it was a fantastic race all the way to the end of the checkered flag between the two of them by the way first gte sweep for ferrari since fuji in 2017 would you believe gc pro yes yep yeah porsche in the end flattered to be just 45 seconds behind the leader should have been a lap and 45 seconds by the safety car i think but you know racing is what it is you can't say well the safety car changed that and so we should change it back headlights on coming down pit road there in the shadows but here at just after seven o'clock in the evening local portuguese summertime it is still it's still 24 degrees outside it's still a warm evening and uh the end of what was a pretty adventurous ice look at the chetela team there yeah baby i'm not sure what the italian for year baby is but that was it that car's gonna need uh dent master by the time this is over and antonio i'm pretty he may have won here and cut away he won't have one hearing karting because when he was in cast this circuit didn't exist he may have won in portugal in karts maybe in something very small and local but in his international career he has not had a race win i don't think in portugal certainly couldn't find trace of one it's a big day for him and uh 32nd birthday and victory in wec for james collado with alessandro pierre guidi and there's so many strings to a racing driver's bow you got to be fast you got to be brave you've got to be committed sometimes you've got to have lead foot sometimes you've got to have the feather boots on and he certainly managed to eke out what they had going there is roberto gonzalez on the left-hand side and davidson and in the center antonio felix de costa let's get down to our race winners toyota gazoo racing car number eight and sebastian boehme sebastian buemi i can see you're in pain actually but uh taking that 100th world championship win the chequered flag and across the line that was just great yeah it was a tough race obviously we had a bit of a different strategy to carr 7. we saved we saved a lot more a lot more fuel and i was able to avoid the splash however they got really lucky with the full course yellow so yeah they were coming strong and then we have some you know internal rules obviously it ended up in our favor so i'm really happy but i i had big pain in the end i had a big cramp on my front arm so it was not easy so i'm really happy what was that swapping all about oh it's a it's a long story it's a internal rules obviously but i'm happy that it ended up like that well done they were quicker and they were allowed to shuffle in front and have a chance to run away and leave the number eight car but clung to the back of them well there you are five very happy ferrari drivers two wins with the af courser car [Music] to improve and uh ferrari porsche ferrari in the am class the aston martin bestie aston's in fourth place kessel fifth on their debut nicole jensen finishing off the run and pumped up forearms cramp for sebastian buemi the one thing that racing cars are not built for anna mcnish is comfort well they are very comfortable in there but uh certainly it's a pretty tough environment around here it's the high g of the last corner a lot of workload it was hot it was hard for everybody we knew super hard for the tires so from the driver's point of view it wasn't as if it was a free and easy run as it may be but ultimately it did give us some close races i have to say i think the the safety car really brought it alive again that was a gr well not obviously for the reason for the safety car but for us as fans it was really good to bring the whole all the classes back together and then we had a really nice fight at the end with the two jota cars and uh clearly a switching of position for the toyota which one was going to win and of course actually the safety car was just an innocuous spin that didn't damage the car but the car got beat and then needed to be dragged out the one big collision only brought out local yellows so one full course yellow one safety car in eight hours and there are your winners chesilar on the left in gte am the 38 jota sport car in lmp2 though in the red suits you can see the ferrari drivers from the 51a of course the ferrari and gte pro and our winners from tgr toyota gazoo racing on the right hand side the overall and hyper car class winners our pro-am winners also get their own podium so matthias besh and the real team racing crew also there me i have an awful lot of physical training all day every day and it's just to survive situations like this [Music] portugal the venue for race two of the fia world endurance championship the eight-hour supporter now at the circuit on the alcarf that is a rock and rolling roller coaster from the first ever french pole position the alpine led the field away the top hypercar in qualifying the top three cars on the grid were hyper cars with the 28 jota car leading the lmp2 field but around the outside out of turn one came the racing team nederland car to take the lead in lmp2 tom blondquist in the 28 jota car then trying to cut back inside into turn three but his teammate had already gone for the gap and the two jota cars made contact blanquis the lmp2 pulsar to rejoined last porsche's qualifying pace evaporated on race day ferrari got in front very early on the first and only really major incident ryan briscoe misjudging the width of the glickenhaus clutching the d-station aston martin which hits the 77 dempsey proton porsche which nearly took the united auto sport car out of the race but missed it two gt cars would end up out of the race early on chetila were right in the hunt at the front of the gte am category from the early going but the end of an effective charge for the podium for racing team nedland when not van it made contact with a gt ferrari didn't do any damage to the ferrari high class in front in the pro-am class as a result hours left but toyota all would always have a fuel advantage united kept joe to honest they finished in third place the 28th johto sport car in second place as antonio felix de costa took the lead late in the race the alpine continued to push the toyotas right to the closing stages high class lost their win in pro-am as the car grounds to a halt bringing out a full course yellow in the closing stages and the pro-am win went to real team racing who inherited that position antonio ferrari to the line to win in gte am gte pro ferrari 1-2 51 ahead of 52 and the final five minutes sought out saw 38 take the lead in lmp2 from sister car 28 jota went 1-2 toyota 1-2 at the end the number eight car winning the company's 100th world championship endurance motor race ahead of the sister number seven and they take a substantial championship advantage away from portimao well it was a busy race all the way through lots of activity gt yam was manic for at least six of the eight hours lmp2 no less frantic alpine made sure that toyota always had to be right on their a game to take the one-two victory and jota well 28 went from last very nearly to first af quarter had tire problems but porsche had tire disasters the two ferraris one two and chateau what a day they claim their first ever world championship win just the two cars involved in the glickenhaus battle uh uh collision didn't make it through to the end of the fight [Music] [Music] kobayashi and jose maria lopez but our winners sebastian guemi kazuki nakajima and brandon hartley from toyota gazoo racing brisket and richard westbrook fourth in the hypercar class as the glickenhaus makes its race debut and we will have the national anthem of the winning team toyota gazoo racing [Music] all the drivers to take the trophies so in third place andre in the ground nico lapierre and matya vasivir for alpine second place mike conway community kobayashi and jose maria lopez for toyota gazoo racing and our race winners sebastian buemi kazuki nakajima and brendan hartley so the first world endurance championship race here in portugal first time for a lot of these drivers at the circuit de algarve here in portugal and a very good combative and close hyper car battle [Applause] yes the safety car brought alpine right back into it but racing is racing and these things happen and for toyota gazoo racing a 1-2 in their 100th world championship win and graham goodwin that's pretty much what they would have hoped to achieve from today whichever car was in front the management probably weren't that worried about but the number eight team have taken a big step forward on their teammates they have indeed it's a big change around here this is the points gap now brendan hartley kazakuchima seboyemi top the table 20 points ahead now of the sister car yeah they're very nearly a win in front but just one point behind is the alpine yep i think there though it's going to come down to le mans that's the only opportunity that that other car has got to get this world championship and so i think the world championship effectively was decided today in the last 15 minutes of the race of course don't forget that when we get to bahrain that'll be an eight-hour race point and a half for there but double points for le mans so yeah whoever comes out on top in le mans suddenly has a bit of a stranglehold on the opposition james james collado i thought that i would um i would bring some champagne for your birthday oh brilliant brilliant i haven't been drinking all year so i might make an exception and have something tonight to celebrate this has been a long time coming hasn't it for ferrari and for you yeah i mean it's been tough uh we were we lacked pace and spa but we still finished second and the porsche was quicker than us here we just managed to get the strategy spot on the team did an amazing job to get both cars at the front first and second it's the best possible outcome so over the moon still a long way to go in the championship obviously but uh yeah we scored we scored good points here and um yeah just uh already looking forward to the next one uh alessandra it has been great for ferrari here in portomal it's great it's great it's really incredible honestly we did an incredible job of ferrari and of course to make an incredible strategy and we won the key was the strategy and victory before the home race is is very nice so we look forward to go in months i repeat the success on to italy thank you well done and as we know from european le mans serious racing gte ferraris have habitually been very strong in monza so that bodes very well for the team indeed this is the gt pro podium third place for the three porsche drivers of the 92 car kevin esther the pole man neil johnny his regular teammate joined by michael christensen daniel serra and miguel molina in second position it's the air of course a ferrari but our race winners after a six race winless streak for los angeles and birthday boy james collado [Music] ferrari team will be a happy bunny today [Music] they looked like they were going to struggle after qualifying but they somehow made their tires live just a little bit better than anything porsche could come up with [Music] so the national anthem of motor racing and coincidentally of italy and if it ain't if it ain't ringing out over at least one of the podiums here uh in monza then i would be very surprised indeed a one-two for the af corsa team [Applause] impressive stuff it's not like their tires didn't suffer like they didn't struggle they somehow managed to mitigate against the real drop-off that porsche was suffering and just crept enough fuel out as well in that 51 ferrari to avoid a final stop just to cement their position at the top of the pile and really sort of blunt the challenge of the sister 52 car there's the points yep the 51 crew 56 points now six ahead of kevin estrada and miliani and again that's points and a half there they should be behind astra and johnny but they jump ahead now so that helps them daniel sarah miguel molina in third and jimmy bruni and richard leads in fourth place their part-time teammates are also picking up points [Music] let's get to possibly one of the happiest portuguese in portugal today and hear from our lmp2 winner what can i say antonio felix de costa i have to start with you that was incredible and also ant i saw your reaction are you not expecting it you surprised me every time mate you surprised i should i should expect it by now but um amazing i mean it's it's down to team effort really uh we all did our part we we had a lot of setbacks but so did anyone else but as a team we we kept doing more laps we kept going longer than anyone by saving fuel a lot and in the end you know we trusted the process which oh it wasn't always clear in the car um and you know the team made this made us be up there at the end and then i i had a lot of fun fighting with with tom i had contact with tom there in lap one which really disappointed me in a way you know i felt sorry for it i i got boxed in and uh and it was nice to you know get a clear click clean fight there at the end to kind of settle things out and huge respect to him and to the all of the 28 crew and these guys and my team it's been it's been such a cool weekend to win at home is amazing exactly what i was just about to say come on it's your first time racing here in puerto vallarta you know it's uh it's it's being here in fuji right now it's almost the same thing but yeah it's a it's another one i crossed off my list and uh so so happy to share the guy with these guys it's i think we have a lot of fun off the track and that makes us faster and on track roberto how were you feeling when you were seeing that last those last few minutes playing out actually it was amazing the last few minutes of the race were incredible at the beginning i was quite a bit upset because on my first stint i think i did a terrible job to be honest i got spun out and then i ruined my tires so i had a terrible time but congrats to the team that on the run they changed the strategy and and we decided to change our strategy so i was in and out for uh three stints and uh we tried to do the best and then these guys carried on and like always and they they did a great job and i'm so happy for this guy winning at home well done thank you he's too humble he's we live on roberto's results in the car and uh he's always too hard on himself he's the backbone of our team we gotta go thank you well done well done well congratulations to joe to sport a one-two result here is the national anthem of great britain [Music] in theory three british teams united also sports based in the uk bananas united auto sports usa they finished third here with a 22 car and antonio felix de costa graham goodwin not only never a winner in portugal never on a podium in his home country before so a great first for him yeah only four race meetings in cars in portugal in his career and his best result fourth twice in single seaters in 2008 and then a fourth place in the gt open in 2017 but has never won a race in portugal before today and antonio my friend there will be better days not necessarily in terms of the win but when your home fans can celebrate with you yeah and i'm sure that's a slight disappointment here but that was a great race in peter just gonna have to come back and do it again that's all there is to it jota 1-2 the 28 car from pole position coming up just very slightly short antonio felix de costa with his teammates uh bertie gonzalez and nancy davidson on the top step of the podium tom blanco has started the car that he qualified on pole the number 28 car and shared it with stoffel vandoorne and sean galel nothing at all wrong with their race but they were just eased out in the final reckoning by the 38 car that is our championship leader with in third place the uh yeah okay sean gale and stoffel vandoorne the new boys in with phil hansen so phil hansen the only united auto sports driver who could win the title and united in second place now behind the 38 jota sport car as we said points and a half here otherwise they would be tied for the drivers and teams championships our gte am battle was always in doubt right down to the final 30 minutes but victory went to shettle our racing's ferrari i imagine there are going to be huge celebrations for you tonight yeah yeah france is very special this morning because a long time working for a big result finally we gained this result we deserve after four years working for a big big day this is our big day i'm very happy for the driver for the team we have the best combination to reach result today is the day and a great battle with the porsche as well that was so good yeah i think it was really tough race we pushed until the end even with the porsche they they were really close i think the team they made really perfect strategy with the call we went out uh in front so i think we need to thanks all the team we need to thank this guy because they they did a really good job today so now we we enjoy the moment and uh and we will push for the next one well done very well deserved thank you thank you definitely three italians in the very early stages of a major hangover well congratulations to all three of them you can hear the emotion of roberto like court's voice couldn't you he was really already just yeah fully choked and giorgio siena giotto there as well absolutely so and you know they've they've raced hard they've really plugged on and motor racing is just a series of disappointments with a very occasional high spot and make the most of that and they are our points leaders antonio fuerco giorgio serra giotto and roberto are caught ahead of francesco castellacci giancarlo fischel and thomas floor in the 54 ferrari so the porsche junior perfecti matteo caroli ricardo perez second here but closing in in the point standings there they are they'll be disappointed uh and probably the only ones on the podium to be disappointed yeah but uh i just got away from the end there didn't it but you can't be disappointed before this trio you certainly couldn't be graduate and the top three in the championship are these three cars on the podium here points and a half have had a big effect they have overhauled the podium finishers from spa front shop [Applause] well pack up day tomorrow is going to be starting far too early for everyone in chester i think [Music] i'm a big fan of the passion of the gentleman driver yeah uh there's a few more passionate than this well they're the backbone of sports car racing always have been always will be and even the fia president jean-top when we spoke to him in spa recognized exactly that you know it's the it's the passion and enthusiasm i knew and and it's not just these guys reversal of court and his teammates but men like jim glickenhaus bringing a brand new car he's not a major motor manufacturer he makes some sports cars sure but he loves to go racing and loves to create and now there's somebody who doesn't need well he needs one more lesson from tom cornell on how to get the most out of a bottle of champagne but congratulations to all three teams now though aston martin on the podium for four hours of the race you'd put good money on there being at least one aston on the podium in the end it wasn't to be i think they ran out of tires perhaps towards the end but ferrari porsche ferrari the familiar names back in the frame team project one taking second spot chetila on top of the pile [Music] 47 car 53 points for settler racing in the teams and they are now 18 points clear of the 54 car team project won a further seven back what a good season they're having so far can you imagine how they will be if they ended up winning the title on their debut of course the 83 af courser car winning last year they had a really wretched time of it and we have one more podium left to go for our pro um drivers and of course are the prime lineups in the lmp2 category but it was a pretty busy race from start to finish kind of calmed down a little maybe around hour four just as i was about to say you know nothing much has happened in lmp2 in a couple of minutes then suddenly it all got crazy again and it was the lmp2 pro and battle that dealt up the late race drama as well with some of it yeah for sure yes with the 29 car and then the 20 car racing tin netherland from the lead yep high class from the lead yep that was the poison chalice wasn't it in pro am being in front plenty of action as ever in lmp2 whether it's more pro lineups or pro-am lineups these are very even cars to race in third place in pro-am the very disappointed high-class racing trio they had a really strong run though for days anders full back and dennis anderson have raced together for years joined this time by jan magnusson and for a while it looked like he would emulate kevin and claim a win here kevin his son taking poll and winning in himself michigan second dragon speed racing henrikh henman and juan pablo montoya with ben hanley but our winners in the pro-am category for the first time real team racing [Music] so real team esteman garcia matthias besch and norman nato on the top step of the podium they are our lmp2 pro-am winners [Music] i rarely heard anthem in motorsport the swiss national anthem for the real team racing crew who win our pro-am category newly introduced for this season racing team netherland disappointed with that but their garage mates real team both cars run by tedious racing claim that pro am victory yep great to see the lmp2 is getting a justified podium after what was a fine battle yeah absolutely right there is an awful lot going on and real team boy what a race they had up down back to front left and right everything in sight and those are the pro am points esteban garcia normanato ahead of fritz manning gator van der garde job far nighted within hanley henry headman at juan pablo montoya in third spot well that's it for a month we will head to the outer drawer nationality monster italy's temple of speed for round three of the fia world endurance championship next time out until then on behalf of graham goodwin alan mcnish duncan vincent and louise beckett i'm martin haven saying thank you from the entire weck tv team we will be back in monza in july for round three [Music] [Applause] love endurance then what are you waiting for download the fiawc app today [Applause] [Music] [Music] throw in to wake you up [Music] [Music] you

Channel: FIAWEC

Views: 124,399

Rating: 4.9592876 out of 5

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Id: 0nXUHFPAvrQ

Length: 540min 27sec (32427 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 16 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/NXpower04]

Aww yeah I really like that they upload the videos to yt and not behind some paywall there is nothing I love more that just putting on an endurance race and working through a mountain of work while getting some motorsport trivia

[u/AhabFXseas]

I've never heard Alex Brundle talk before, and it's hilarious how much he sounds like his dad.

[u/BriccBoi05]

Giga Glickenhaus hehe

[u/Michal_Baranowski]

They are really fast this year. Finally.

[u/Noormis]

Someone at WEC saw what F1 was doing with its social media and finally decided to start providing us with some content