LIVE | Race 1 | Spa | GT4 European Series 2022 (English)

[Music] rate one of the weekend in the gt4 european series here at spa frankfurt set to get underway it is going to be a race that takes us possibly into the darkness it is also going to be a race that will be really interesting to see how free of stoppages interruptions and dramas it is because it's a full field of cars one or two of which have got uh penalties for infractions in qualifying like the jim player jean-luc boba league mercedes that changed a battery and has been put to the back of the grid because that shouldn't have happened we've lost a porsche andreas mile crashed outside andronico's car very heavily in q2 that is off the grid as well but a problem all weekend really has been that now with these new gravel traps people slither wide get caught in the gravel and it is either in a qualifying session a red flag or in a race a safety car period and we'll wait and see how that pats out over the course of this next one hour david addison and ben constanduras trackside the grid is filling up it's going to be a rolling start and it is going to be of course a race with a pit window at to 35 minutes with 121 seconds being the pit stop time and uh let's go down to the grid because gemma scott is there at the front and uh she has drivers with her like you're part of the pole sitting car here of course alongside leclair this is your first time in spa your first season in gt4 and you only started racing last year what did you start racing in it started with the orchid racing team in the porsche gt3 cup switzerland and antoine is my coach there and then last year it went pretty well and decided to bring me here to the gt4 and we had a rough start of the season to be honest with you a big crash in imola and then put a record with the penalty we shouldn't have had but yeah we managed to get a lead and take the win in mizanola last month and now anton did a mega lab in q1 and i hope he just gets off turn one with the lead just slips away from the field and when i when i take over the car i just have to do my job and get the car back home in first place so he needs to get you a nice big gap and then you can take over and bring it home it's a fantastic start to your career to be here at gt4 a fantastic championship as well and your first time in here do you like the circuit yeah i know the circuit i've never driven on the circuit but it's a great racetrack one of the nicest one in the world and yeah it's a blast it is indeed well let's hope you have a blast and get through to the podium thanks a lot you too look villager then who will do the second stint today but he will be the start driver tomorrow and uh understandably in this weather the fans jupiter in hand have stayed to watch the race and uh ben this really is going to be dramatic isn't it especially with jim please starting at the back of the grid uh he he's just described what every racing driver would like their teammate to do you go up the road do all the hard work i'll take over the car and be nice and comfortable i'm not sure that it's going to work out that way because with the gravel traps and with the challenge of spa i'm sure we're going to see far more drama that's going to interrupt these the progress of these first drivers at the very very least so the grid is pretty much formed it's going to be of course a rolling start and we've got the final few minutes of the countdown tar troll is on the grid and uh the team's getting ready then for that formation lap to get underway uh the start driver is the driver that set the qualifying time which driver max kromberg is a man to watch over the course of this race as well let's hear his thoughts going into it he's on the grid with gemma max down here on the start line of course things feel rather calm rather chilled but certainly not for your teammate here yeah definitely not i mean he's had a great qualifying position the car on p2 so of course like the goal is to to push and to bring the car back and p1 looking down here into turn one of course you've got that slight incline before it drops down to the right what does it feel like to be driving into that first corner yeah i think it's it's quite exciting because you have a little bit of banking there so you can really like break down the car like push it into the corner and then throttle for the for the greatest corner of bush do you go flat out through rouge no we maybe one time but not more than not more often than one time yeah well have a great race and thank you for talking to us okay thank you so much and that's an interesting point because it is a rouge is now seen so easy for so many categories of car but these gt4 cars with less aero and more reliance upon mechanical grip are still not able to take over flat so they are just off the maximum speed and that's why sometimes more of a challenge in the gt4 european series then you find in gt3 they're a very different way of driving getting the best avatar and also of course in gt4 you've got perhaps a greater number of ams or certainly less experienced drivers who haven't got that confidence to push without the aero so that's another limiting factor you don't want to be um a hero you want to just get through safely and gain confidence so the grid is being cleared we are into the final five minutes before the formation that gets underway at this seven kilometer long circuit 37 there which is the porsche that uh it's gonna have mikhail laboda to start and the gt4 european series continuing of course with its double header format we've been to emily to paul ricard and to misano and now ready to do battle here as uh rui mayor house and owen bastar very quick audi drivers look forward to their race getting underway that 37 porsche is an amp so that's an incredibly uh incredibly far up the grid for uh what is effectively two am drivers sharing that car uh on the second row of the grid miles ahead of any of the other arms and remember they are effectively three four different championships within this race because we've also invited uh gt4 scandinavia here uh with the mclaren 288 leading uh that charge but to have the um up in fourth position uh of course it was the more am drivers qualifying in the first session so you're more likely to see an amcar higher up the field but still um that's impressive because there are there are drivers that are silver silver that's right so yeah it was a very very good effort of course the the sessions earlier on were slightly interrupted a bit fragmented so there's an element of getting the lap in at the right time uh there one of the toyotas now the other question over toyota's was whether 66 was going to take the start wasn't it because that was a car that was damaged ultimately by antoine potty lost his best lap time as a result and should be very much in the middle of the pack it's shown as having come to the grid you can see it out the window yeah there it is so number 66 toyota has been rebuilt that had a lot of frontal damage and missed q2 as a result so cmr has been very busy getting that car race ready we also have a few penalties not necessarily left over from uh previous events um like we see usually sort of second race effects we don't have that but we do as you were mentioning david in qualifying penalties for uh infringements before this event yes a couple of drivers took part contractually in a mercedes organized track day on monday in a gt4 spec car and that was deemed to have tested so they've been given penalties as a consequence of that stock go penalties uh we've got one car missing off the grid as well haven't we the gabriella ilkova robert howe uh drago racing team mercedes absent number fifteen of luke and yeah it could be a car to watch i think we know that irania is quick very very good indeed at masano wasn't he yeah absolutely and the mercedes were very strong there the aston martins basically strong elsewhere but from what we've seen here it does seem as though the the alpines seem to have good pace both in uh the practice session that did run because free practice one did not it was uh cancelled effectively after damage uh on the first couple of uh minutes of the session but free practice two was uh run by uh uh didn't quite see what was on his steering wheel that's a shame um but yes look away now if you're of a sensitive disposition the rossi fan club have been on the beer all day yes uh alpine uh alpine on the front row on the pole position and uh also looking strong in race two as well so we haven't seen them come to the four yet but uh a very different looking top ten to what we've experienced so far in gt4 europe so grady's being cleared and the formation lap is about to get underway then the uh leading car as it is the audi at the front of the grid i got to say this is absolutely wide open this race partly because of the jumble nature of the grid partly because there are so many competitive combinations and partly because we just do not know really whether we're going to get through this without any interruptions i always one worry with a jumbled upgrade there is that space from the number four machine that should be there it is not a jumbled upgrade means that there's overtaking needed and battling to be done and especially uh when the field is so compressed uh as we have with our rolling starts and you've got a rouge to contend with you've got radion to contend with on colder tires so they're not going to provide the grip that you might necessarily expect in the first lap conditions are fantastic by the way both on the track and in the air we haven't had rain all weekend uh and the tracks being swept between races uh to make sure it's very very clean but with the first big braking zone being let calm a bit concerned yeah could be a bit larry this antoine leclair will start on pole position with hendrick still lining up alongside on the second row of the grid it is going to be uh the car of jean-baptiste mela and mikhail laboda in the am pole sitter is going to be alongside the third row roy mia has lines up alongside simon gache and the fourth row where you find etienne shelley and team patron at jsb julian brichay alongside greg gilbert he's on the next row of the grid he will line up ninth alongside ibanyaf then it's kenjin cook and pierre sorcinaena for the team spirit racing and auto sport gp squads respectively aston martin ahead of alpine 13th on the grid is becky bezler and mike david altman lines up alongside him on row seven row eight is where you've got alex fontana who should be a man in a hurry tom canning lines up alongside him ahead of daniel ruse and mikhail try lining up on the outside of row nine row ten has the toyota zoo racing sweden entry of emile scaras on the inside but missing is gabriella yilkova unless that car joins in from the pits it's stanislav sovereign off and nico verdonk on the 11th row the 12th row christoph amol and the repaired toyotravantoman potty one to watch the thirteenth throw poncho middle reach lines up alongside marcus lungstrasse ahead of gas bowers and then dante raphaege on row 15 there's ralph calendars and philip varva ahead of then the victor pauveng mbla racing entry and for academics asp uh bonjour ricci on the 16th row on the 17th throughout the grid wilfried casalbo for ajs events and alexandra papadopoulos alongside in the 18th row there is uh lucas sundell and benoit leads on for team four motorsport the 19th row jagish gadick and solo driver for this weekend greg faisal for santa lot racing route 20 there's valencia on gizi starting alongside max trisoldi on road 21 there is albano lagrange and jean-luc bets for the seller's lag racing team the 22nd row christopher bourie lines up alongside pierrot and on the 23rd row there is the car of frederick downer and also from the scandinavian championship that's part of this race harry macdonald the new zealander row 24. jeremy lesoudier lines up alongside huck and richness the 25th row is adam carroll now he's going to be a man to watch a big big hurry alexander hartfig is alongside him now andy is on the penultimate row with tom verdier for company and then jim player on the very back row of the grid with gustaf bard lining up alongside him what progress can jim clark make because he's got a lot of it to do the number 44 the number 44 hartfig porsche needing uh permission to start the race because they did do a qualifying lap but it was outside the one and a half one uh 107 percent uh mark and therefore they had to apply uh to start this race uh they had to tear the lap time because there was mechanical problems for the two ags aston martins number seven and the number eighteen they don't have to apply to get into the race because they didn't set a time right they didn't do a slow time they just didn't do it yeah okay so uh so interesting quirk of the regulations but as you said adam carroll is one to watch at the tail of the field jim platt very much want to watch and both of those ags uh astons when they have run well and we've seen a few issues with them across the season they are right in the top they should be right the top ten but aston martin the favored brand for most of the year the best of them is uh kenton cook who is what 10th 8th something like that yeah so the car's now down to the chicane remember this pit window 25 to 35 minutes and the drivers then about to wriggle their way into the chicane where the leading car as it is we'll peel into the pits the race cars will power up towards the line and then the race director steve burns takes a sharp intake of breath and hopes he doesn't have to shout safety car uh for the first well hour really of the next part of his life because the last thing we need is yet another interrupted race it really does distort people's ability to to have a proper fight here the car stream through the chicane making the run now up towards the timing line and a very uh anticipatory start you might say from antoine leclair because he was well ahead of hedrick still when they got to the timing line but he's away henry still seemed to lag rather than leclair jump but in towards la source they go they're still pouring out of the chicane in the background this is the first pinch point of the lap antoine leclair leads them out of it the other side one or two running wide and even wider two wheels hook into the gravel and a spin in the background and one of the audi's has gone around thankfully he's not hitting anything solid that reek tries to rejoin in the traffic no there's no gap wait wait down through the o rouge sequence they come but up at the top of the source the audi that has rotated does get going it's uh launcherman christoph hamill's car but it's gonna fall to the back of the field but that could have been a whole lot worse right race leaders as one three for the lead look coming up towards lacombe it's just going to be the clerk in the lp but he's under attack from the supra on the outside where's that super come from that's uh from the third or fourth row aboard that machine and in second position now being dropped the third but lots of contact further back and a lot of debris and alpine off on the right hand side with a whole front end missing wheels are still going around but that is jean-baptiste mello with a heavily damaged auto ship car and i'm afraid we're going to have to do some tidying up there yeah so the reigning alpine champion in strife then as the carl's dive down here let's shelly in the supra dropped back into third place but it all got very larry as you described up at le come so now it is antoine leclerc in the lead henrik still second and in third place etienne shelley a really good first few corners and that drama up at le com then has taken one or two out of the race there's another car in the background using the motorcycle cut through on the inside as it limps back to the pit lane with damage i don't identify that there's another delayed car look limping off the road up at the top of speakers corner and park so we're gonna lose a couple on this lap i think the parked car was jump up this mellow who tried to continue not knowing necessarily how much damage he'd done to the front of the car because he couldn't have seen it uh christoph hamill was the driver aboard the audi that swapped ends oh and there's a bent aston martin that's kenton isn't it so uh he was right at the sharp end so contact presumably mella we we also had a delayed lubarda so our am entries drops down the field brichay is missing and we'll confirm more at the end of the lap but oh big big bold effort there the aston martin with two wheels on the grass in another big big hurry that is the car of marcus longstrouse trying to get up the inside as they come down towards the chicane it was coming out of launching one in q2 that we lost andrea's mile on coal tires as he went around onto one potty's on a mission as well in the other super look coming up on the outside line there gets out his elbows he's going to get run out wide and up the kirby heads then through the chicken one for the pit lane as the leaders come by it is antoine leclaire head of henrik still third he's etienne shelley fourth is rue mia has 50 symbol gashay sixties greg gilbert they're all in a line unbelievably mixed up field and that was nico verdonk coming in to serve his 30-second penalty uh for doing that uh contractually agreed track day at the start of the week that's his penalty at 30 second stop go to getting it done straight away and great work by the marshals off and they come i believe because we do not have yellow flags we are still green flag racing which means they've cleared out whatever is up there and we've got racing all the way to them absolutely and here comes etienne shelley having another go to get past hendricks still leclaire the very experience down to one leclair moves across on the inside he keeps the race lead etienne shelley is up the curb and hendrick still gets out of his elbows as well and fends him off so antoine leclerc still leads the way but a real battle pack for the race lead three of them as well right mayor house in this first of the center lock out he's looking very sideways uh through lacombe the back end trying to swap ends into brussels as well so not looking particularly comfortable but fast at the moment in fourth position greg gilbert in sixth position the second of the audis sandwiching seymour gachay and and here comes gasha trying to get past slippery surface flag to warn a bit of a bit of debris and the gravel on the road here is cachet to get the run on mirror house then the israeli driver can't defend against the frenchman and simon gashe charges through on the inside it's going to be interesting now to see how long it takes him to catch up with these three hendrik still goes one side then dives to the inside going into the pit back that's brave he mows the lord on the inside elbows out through he comes wow that was quite a move by hendrick still i'm not entirely sure there was a cayman size gap when he started but there was when he finished unbelievable made some space on the grass got himself dirty but thankfully the circuit going right and then left and he gave himself an advantage and has checked out as well so really felt like he was being held up by anton lakirk in the middle part of that lap felt like he was being hassled too much by the toyota and so had to make that pass done now look at gasha he's almost with them he's only been ahead of mayor house for a few corners and now etienne shelley breezes past the alpine as well someone's probably going to point and say you had two wheels on the grass there and you gained an advantage hendrick still but it was a very brave maneuver all of that as now look gasher lines up to have a goat leclair the alpine is fading against perhaps these more powerful cars around it so out of the chicane up to the line hendrick still it is now in the porsche that leads etienne shelley in the supra of the toyota gl supra second third for how much longer disgusts he's on to unless clerk and then behind them is simon gashe ahead of ruin house and in sixth place it is greg gilbert yeah academic bestseller at the bmw best of them uh really good progress and uh fastest lap of the race so far from berkeley with a little bit of space to play with i believe the delayed um camaro that we saw in the pit lane also looking strong although i don't see him on my timing screen he says dante reported he's down at 21st position so there he is oh i know what i was doing aston martin that has a weird uh graphic along the front that makes it look like something else that's where i was getting confused right now here comes shelley look to have a go at the race lead up towards likkom they're certainly getting away now from leclair who is the cork in the bottle isn't he's got gacha mayor house gilbert all queued up behind him 110 is pierson sinaina who is just being able to fend off the spanish driver lookie vanier as they wriggle their way now out of lakom the mercedes looks the bigger looks the mightier car how's adam carroll getting on he's 35th jim clara is 34 they've got a lot of work to do yet i would have thought this is where the the alpine is strong through this middle part of the lap making up uh space where it can be more agile than some of the bigger cars it's certainly not winning any pace along the long fast kendall straight and dragging itself up the hill uh and also through the fast blanche but he's a fast car it seems this weekend as far unfortunately we've just lost them all well a flash of the lights from etienne kelly to try to get henrik still to crack under the pressure and simon gashe comes one side and then the other to try to terrorize the little alpine out of the way he is conscious that rooney mia house is coming back with him you're right about becky bezler in the better of the bmw's out of the borison automotive team because that also is closing up but now hendrick still is being caught very definitely by uh etienne replay of the start as the cars steam down towards la source now whether this shows us the spin we'll have to wait and see now there look the alpine was certainly a row ahead of the porsche but was that hendrick still not being uh rapidly away or was it down to one declare being a bit anticipatory uh this is from another angle and the porsche moves across look at that getaway from etienne shelley's supra being able to line up a really good run down towards the first corner through which they turn and it was towards the back of the field wasn't it that we had the rotating audi well it looks as though christopher who comes into shot in just a second is on his own uh because there was so much field spread at the start of the race and i think he might oh no there's someone's just come across him on the right hand side there was contact yeah a little bit of bodywork onto the road but then that was the scary bit trying to rejoin uh eventually he got the message and thought i better stop and wait for everybody else to come by but that could have been very nasty he's working his way back into contention now what happened here one car it was the alpine that got sideways drilled the aston and fired that into somebody else so that was uh jean-baptiste meller getting it wrong and harpooning the uh kenton cook aston wasn't it yeah lost it on his all on his own just under yeah not as much pressure in the tires as he would light but has absolutely wiped out the front end of that uh alpine so as we spoke about the the second race is uh early tomorrow morning so that's a long night for auto sport gp and here's the lead change imminent as exchange shelly comes up have a go at henrik still and they lean on each other hendrick is absolutely determined to lead to the pit stop window trouble it says etienne shelley the porsche sits in the middle of the road the way that he got the lead was pretty brave and robust well now he's having it done unto him and look leclair is back at the races and he's brought uh simon gashe with him hey shelly goes for a gap on the outside into turn nodded at the inside goes the alpine and shelly is off the road and in the gravel and that surely if he can't get out the other side it's going to be a safety car but he just didn't seem to turn or was it though the tyre had gone down well there's a possibility isn't it because it was quite a shove the contact between the two is a big wiggle moment from seymour gache as well i wonder whether whether there might well have been a tire down but it was also something we saw from antoine potty in qualified get offline there and it doesn't seem like there's any way of getting back yellow flags are out yeah so rather looks we're going to go full course yellow in 20 seconds then so full course yellow full course yellow in 10 seconds that's the voice of the race director steve burns so the race is gonna be neutralized so full course yellow to neutralize the pace and that's the answer so the toyota off the road so it could have been a tire could have been a breakage after that contact but it just did not seem to turn until the last moment and then it didn't have enough momentum anyway to get through the gravel it would make sense with the contact between the two so turns in quite hefty elbow and it looks as though the steering might actually be broken there won't feed it through here because it's a right-hand turn so if the steering's broken on the uh the inside wheel it won't make it effect until you go this way where you're relying upon it and it's just not turning so i wonder whether either as you say puncture or damage steering well it puts the car into the gravel out of the race but i would imagine this will be a relatively lengthy full course yellow followed by a safety car to get things back up to speed up to temperature do you wonder if you have to do that we obviously at the start of the season when we were immolar it was cold and so you needed to do that but when you've got such high temperatures 28 degrees air temperature this evening it's just become the norm yeah okay you know the the regulations are that you can go faster under the safety car than a full course yellow anyway so in a way it's done for safety reasons because no matter what your ambient is you're still going to get the temperatures up better through doing a safety car lap or two than just going after full course yellow because the tires are absolutely stone cold really as the americans say though safety cars breed safety cars i couldn't agree more i've heard it said in touring car racing boogity boogity boogity and don't say that can you imagine it at the moment we've got nice gaps between everybody and so if we went back to racing now we wouldn't necessarily attract the chaos that we would do if we punch them all back together well yes there is that element of keeping the gaps but also the fear is that with the tires colder and we're having lost pressure as well yeah it's safer to get them at a quicker speed but you're right to do that they have to all get into a line and so that is going to get the cars uh all in one group there is the safety car so we are going to go safety car conditions and so the field i mean the full course yellow works very well because you know within 20 seconds everybody has slowed right down you've got them all under control get the point of that and uh there is the recovery vehicle ready to hike the super out of the gravel back it's not been a good day for toyotas and it's at that corner and it's interesting because that corner is one of those corners that didn't have a gravel trap before and it's never really been much of a place where cars come to lie but we have had quite a bit of uh we have quite a had a bit of interest down there and as you say toyota's uh in that uh in the gravel trap this time rather than the tire barrier but uh all perhaps well is it his own doing are we investigating that contact between the two of them because it was it's quite it's quite aggressive you you described it as a lean i would describe it as an elbow it was a it was a bit more of a jab a jab okay yeah well i'm sure the team will have a thought about it let's have another look hendrick still moves acro i think he just went for the line and the toyota was there i think he was deliberate i think yeah i agree and if it did do damage well it was uh collateral damage really going through the shot there was the uh the aston martin that has racing written between the two headlights and it looks like the logo that hummer have on the front it doesn't at all that's an aston martin it looks like an aston martin because of the way that the the colors follow the splitter but that ortman car doesn't at all from a distance that's where um that's my excuse anyway this is ice by gt4 cars written by honduras uh available in all good bookshops this is about to come into shot here see how they haven't colored in the the lips of the yeah of the splitter and therefore from a distance you don't see them so much and you've got the obvious line which is between the two headlights safety car procedure safety car procedure so the race director calls for the safety car the pace can be quickened and let's just have a look to the outside of turn nine yep so you might get away with with one lap could you get away with half a lap given the length of the circuit bring them in at the end of it i think you probably need to do a full lap don't you well it depends because again we we did see this where the safety car didn't wait to bunch everybody up and just went that was in paul rico i think because they're not concerned about bunching the pack up necessarily no so the track's clear so why not get the lights off as soon as the lights will come off around this area now yeah you just need to get them to go quicker and then release them but yeah then have you achieved the temperature thing you need precisely yeah that's why i say you might need to give them a full lap anyway we'll find out in a moment uh we're about 10 minutes off the window opening and it is still hedrick still in the lead from antoine leclerc and then simon gache in third jim pla watch up to 29th out of carroll watch the greystone gt mclaren is now 31st and we've lost etienne shelley we've lost kenton cook we've got jean-baptiste mailer and we never had gabriella ilkova out of the not race in the race so safety car staying out not aware that it's going to be brought in it's probably a bit too late now anyways it'll be one more lap behind the safety car at least and then we should be back up and running ideally the race director wants it in before the pit window because if you've got a window that has to be delayed it all becomes very messy best of the swedish runners is uh the mclaren of uh ruse that car here in the 24h series race in april so plenty of track time that they achieved by doing that and actually won the gt4 category or we're going to win it but then the engine blew i think is right i remember it but they were performing very very well and there it comes through the shot they've got like um they've got a a british swedish flag on the roof of that car in a nod to the fact that they are swedish but the car is british right okay um there it goes just through shot and they are a good couple of cars ahead of the next best of our swedish entries which is that one um the toyota gazoo racing sweden i keep saying swedish because actually even though it's the scandinavian gt championship they are all swedish entries yes with a new zealander in one car yeah yeah uh and daniel roos we did see many years ago in safety in this lap safety car said this time we did see in the early days of block pad endurance on occasions a very rapid young swedish driver he was there right so weaving around getting the temperature back into the tars getting the pressures back up we'll go racing and we're going to have something like six minutes or so really before the pit window uh opens that's where mio has goes through now of course what this has done for henrik still and others is reduce the amount of impact that they can make for their slower co-driver because they've got fewer racing laps available now before they have to bail for the pit lane so they'll go to the end of the window anyway but really their stint starts now in terms of building a gap yeah and there's that's where the the wishes of uh loris virgilio on the on the grid were wishes and wishes alone because it was i don't know it wasn't inevitable that this was going to happen but i think with the amount of cars we've got on the grid with the way that spa is i think it was quite possible that we're going to see a safety car we're quite lucky not to have got a saved car from the first incident because there was a lot of bits of uh alpine up there at the com and they managed to clear them within the lap so marshalls would have been out on track picking up bits of car before the cars came round for the next lap um the field weaves its way there now down towards the pit path so uh hendricks still eager to get on with this still we've got uh something like 50 cars running nick over donk after that very lengthy stop go penalty early on a lot of work to do and he's helped by this because he's caught people up daniel roos then the leader of gt4 scandinavia within this race spa isn't the most obvious place for a scandinavian project drivers ravishing the opportunity of being somewhere well warm and northern spa can be described as war but it's a very different circuit for them leading the championship by 10 points is the number 10 machine gus of gus bowers down in 18th position right now third of the aston martins um not such a good weekend in mizano last time out but very very strong uh in imola with two victories uh and with two decent scores uh in the second round of paul ricard as well so some work to do for our championship contenders uh but even uh pro sport not that high up i know ortman sorry ortman in sixth position for the moment but it could all change couldn't it as we are about to go racing then the cars down now into the chicane and so hendrick still is going to control the pace the safety car in the pit so we go racing once more window not yet open so we've got a few more racing laps before people will start to head for the pit road look at the traffic stretching all the way back through blanchimals they zigzag their way up out of the chicane and now we go racing once more green flags fly again of course the timing line further back than the start line on that pitch straight so the timing line beam is just as they come out of the chicane down towards la sauce we're racing again and it is hendrick still ahead of antoine leclaire and simon and a nice queue of cars as well so there'll be pl uh plenty of slip streams to be playing with perhaps not on overtaking opportunity at the bottom of the hill you've got to let the car climb the hill hope you've carried the momentum over the top of radio oh burger has a moment but keeps it facing the right direction and actually i think keeps the momentum as well he might still uh be able to challenge roy moorhouse as it gets to le combe that was a mighty moment wasn't it for the bright blue bmw that comes up to the outside line here is gacha on the attack in the mercedes and drew miohaus is able to hang onto his place as well as they get to le corn he in turn although he's got bezler behind it there's mike david ortman in number 24 there the pro speed aston which is another one to keep an eye on that should be making progress number two in 13th place mikhail got himself onto the back of alex fontana in 718 the cayman what else so that's another battle worth watching as the cars now plunge into brucell once more plenty of uh cars all over the place trying to defend positions where they haven't quite got themselves up to temperature there is the uh the best of the ats cars the 89 machine actually running yeah the the 7 and the 80 40th 41st and 40 seconds so really no progress uh made by those guys a real shame uh for ags there is uh the camaro dante reponge in seven uh 19th position with gus bowers just ahead oh no hang on gus bowser's now behind or is that another aston martin good eye to it we've got a replay here of more dramas coming up to lake com this might partly explain that story about reports because he was being attacked from all sides and got run out over the run-off on the middle of lake horn didn't he yeah so bowers is ahead of them and that was uh ralph calendars who was giving him an attack can't keep a good man down can you uh the opening lap incident up at lakecom no investigation necessary save the race control team and hendricks still on the restart he's getting away now isn't he from le claire well that makes sense because we did see that leclair wasn't so strong in those first couple of laps and it was felt that perhaps hendrick still was being held up that's why he was so attacking with his move around the outside the al fab mclaren to take another position they are not able to take points away from our usual gt4 europe runners so wherever the scandinavian runners are they are really only battering the other scandinavian runners they're very much a race within a race aren't they there's one separate points table for scandinavian runners compared to the european regulars as they're diving to the inside line alex fontana tries to make a move against another of the alpenes pierson cena just ahead of him there there's the porsche alex fontana gt3 racer last year we don't have him in fanatic gt but he's been a an asset to evangelicoma's team and they're really under attack now lukey benitez got daniel roose the leading scandinavian runner that ruse here has to make a decision it's all very well trying to overtake but you need to keep your scandinavian race lead but as you as you said before when we do multi-class racing they're racing drivers they just want to race uh you're right he could just sit there and chill out because the the next to the scandinavians is five places down the road but uh he really does want to show that he can be part of this battle and actually that mclaren is the best place mclaren we only only have one other uh in gt europe this year which is the greystone gt machine which is uh with adam carroll 30th position right now so we haven't got that many mclarens and it's amazing to see that this one doing so well very true as fontana then having got himself up and passed now pierre saucy is 11th his next target is daniel roos this could be quite interesting couldn't it because ruse has been looking feisty and now fontana is hustling on in pursuit of him as the cars come downhill this is lap number eight and we're only about a couple of minutes away from that pit stop window opening as they plunged through once more here so with the race leader having an advantage of six tenths of a second at the start of the lap hendricks still clear in the porsche cayman run by the wns motorsport team max kronberg to take it over and as we get to approaching half past eight local time the lights just starting to fade ever so slightly it'll be interesting to see what it's like at the end of the hour one of the good things about the spa circuit though is it doesn't there's not many places where it shies directly in your face when it's setting and when it's arriving in the morning it's a bit more of a pain but around the circuit they shouldn't have it blinding themselves too much three into one does not go and a big big shovel there that was adam carroll on the inside and the one we got hung out to dry on the outside was jagish gadick in the blue bmw wasn't he got rather uh elbow to one side there by benjamin richie he was elbowed by adam carroll yes rishi was doing that being the squeezed you're right so manchester united was in the middle that is ivanya getting out on the inside of loboda and he goes through so that he's looking back yet now up into eighth place so the massano winning car coming good here the leader goes through six times he's actually down to four cents now hendrick still ahead of antoine le claire and then in third place simon gashay yeah significant for the championship because uh they are in a decent point scoring position up there fourth in class uh whereas gus bowers must be nearly 10th in class down there in 18th position so that's quite a big chunk of points that are missing from the aston and it really is uh between those two for the championship we are now in the second half of the championship and there is a big gap to third spot so for that for that uh particular championship it's really those two that we need to be focusing on ortman aside the abstinence aren't really sparkling here that was about yet running out wide but the bop seems to be almost affecting the the pace of the abstinence they were really good at ah now that's not meant to be happening uh we've got more drama up at the source number seven tries to rejoin and as it does so no andy gets going again but there's an alpine that's rather broken oh no could be another interruption because that car has got broken suspension by the look of it let's have another look i think the alpine is going to get a oh no no andy swipes across the front turns himself around and in the process damages 63 which is the pierlaron figure car right pit window is open and we're going to go full course yellow race director's nightmare pit window is open on the time just as we have to go full course yellow and that set the car's off the road now oh now what do we do five four three now one full course yellow now four call challenges we've seen this happen a couple of times where race control reacts almost a little bit too fast to the incident but the car's off the road so if it's out of harm's way if they can just pull that back quickly they could release this full course yellow and get going again yeah because the temperatures haven't dropped and things like that yeah you know if it's if it's 10 20 flag on short notice there you go green flag on short notice so be prepared to go racing very very quickly is what that means because we want to get you back up to race pace it's funny how some a lot of these drivers know you know they've got he's got a damaged car he's left four three two one green flag green flag right green flag we're back rating there you go that is how you can do a purely a full course together because it didn't take long there wasn't much temperature drop so they go steaming away all of that happened within the same lap and now you've got to hope that your the teams have been very good at communicating that to the drivers because if the message didn't get through then some have got a jump on others and i fear as though uh roy mayerhaus has really been caught out by that bessler ortman gilbert all over the back of him and coming into the bus stop chicane the chicane now it's called i think we've seen many a change of position further back toyota losing a spot but hendrix still made an absolute peach of a restart didn't he he's away and gone so as they come up towards the timing line it is henrik still over the line clear by now 1.3 seconds that's played into his hand suddenly the gaps doubled because he made a good restart on that green flag waiting to see there are one or two coming in early to get the mandatory stops out of the way there's the queue coming down the pit road it's mainly those from mid field onwards mikhail shrive for example coming in to give way to gabrielli piana and bonjourn laresh in also to hand over to robert konstani so simon gashe lost two positions uh at the end of that safety car period yeah uh and loboto lost three positions as well that's an interesting uh improvised line from antoine potty over the hill uh and this mclaren just looking better and better isn't it the alpha mclaren that's one position and could get two by the time you get to the com but that super has got a lot of grunt in a straight line and as they get towards their core bound to our potty on the inside hangs onto the place then up into ninth spot then ahead of daniel ruse we've got just over half the race still to go as the field wriggles out of lakom now down towards brucell they go so people not running too wide there he says tempting fate uh back on the inside line is luke ibanyath who's fallen back behind the uh daniel ruse mclaren saying ban yet there's another one that lost out on that restart downhill they go once more laptop and with the order being shuffled now we have mikhail try in we have bournemouth we have gas bows julian brichay and uh greg faisal all in max trasoli another one tom verdier another at the end of that previous lap to get the mandatory stops done and dusted look at beckey bezler here he's getting all towie against mayo house isn't he i think there's a very good lap time uh time to pit because the cars are not up to full racing uh speed even if they haven't lost that much temperature there is still a little bit of squabbling going on so a lot of these cars are circulating aren't quite where they should be maxed out you come into the pits now as with the leading car is our german gt uh champions from last year mikhail shrey he's handing over to his pro driver get the pro driver in for the maximum amount of time as well gabrielle piano will be aboard that car as well as the cars out on track not really circulating at the best of their ability you could find yourself with a really interesting advantage here so look out for the likes of the bmw number two and the audi number three benjamin larish from 19th position on the last lap uh but i think that could be a wise choice to pit now i think you might be right though yes out of second place look leclair bales to give way to villager villager and that means up to second goes mayor house but actually very few others out of that leading line also head for the pit lane so yeah still they stream through yeah because also remember these are the less experienced drivers starting this race so okay there's plenty of silver silvers and therefore you don't really have a less and more experience but for the pro-ams uh there there is very much a gap side by side here 42 versus i think 66 antoine potty yeah that's one potty who shares with roman monte goes through absolutely touch and go wasn't it but it works he goes ahead with greg gilbert so i get the supras are quick cars they're a bit low on luck collectively whether it's in this series or british gt you name it but uh they've got good pace now the race leader look in traffic because those back markers coming out of the pit lane and this is going to really jumble up the order now yeah so there's another consequence of not pitting straight away you find yourself with the cars that have pitted getting up to speed now of course for those that have put their pro drivers in it shouldn't take too long but it will still take a little bit of time and it's going to get very very messy for our leading drivers right now no blue flags to jump out the way like we see in formula one here hendrick still the race leader he is the pro in a pro-am car and so now it's where is he the porsche there going through shot leading up into second place now it is the bmw looking back a bezler down a third he's right here that's in fourth place is simon gachay and fifth is mike david ortman so they're second third fourth fifth all in a queue hendrick still has got away and adam carroll is receiving a warning for driving standards yeah so my argument about putting your less experienced driver in if you're a proam entry you've got your pros in at the moment it's the outlet we'll start tomorrow's room that's right yeah as they go through the setting sound there and the leader has got a problem that is hendrick still who has got a puncture possibly the car has slowed right down and stops by the side of the road and like it's cut out all of a sudden he's trying to restart it and he sort of gets going it's almost an electrical reset yeah exactly but he's not happy oh and i think that's the end for hendrick still and now the question is where is he going to park for some power because the lights are on you see the frustration absolutely moving his head around such an aggressive first stint he's moving again so yellow flag in sector two into the pit lane comes bessler into the pit lane comes mayor house into the pit lane comes ortman into the pit lane comes potty so we didn't see that one coming and it's all shuffled around now what's been a really lively race in the gt4 european series simon garcia is staying out so it inherits the lead of the race most of the other cars behind coming into the pits this time it hasn't got long before the window shuts to be honest it could be quite tight for gacha and gilbert to get their pit stops done especially if you go into something like full course yellow true true so down the pit lane everybody peels well pretty much everybody now uh adam carroll in to give way to tim whale that's lucy baniff giving away in number 15 mercedes to enzo juliet and that's hendrick still and i just wonder whether that car is going to have to be moved under a race interruption from there the fact that the door is opening suggests that he's about to bail doesn't it as the rest of the field all turns up through le comm number 42 there greg gilbert that's yet to come in hasn't it that car and simon gashe has inherited the lead and he also has yet to stop gilbert in virtual second position but with so much traffic around him he's no way he's at his maximum's best speed yeah best laps in the 31s the last lap for gacha 35 gilbert at a 37. so five seconds off their ultimate pace probably due to traffic dante rapport she just saw coming in and i just wonder whether once the pit window was closed whether we might not go to an interruption to get that porsche out of the way but uh you need to get the window done in a sort of natural way don't you first before things become even more complicated it's not in a massively dangerous place also uh if there was an accident you are very much in between two corners there [Music] so covering it under yellow flags means that the cars shouldn't be making errors at that point of the circuit i mean that's part of the argument isn't it you know that if drivers are very disappointed hendrick still knows that race has got away from him uh drivers ought to obey the flags but if they don't and somebody hits the car then the race director is asked why didn't you interrupt it rather than why yeah you know did you when nobody ended up going anywhere near it so what do you do for the best either way pit window is coming to an end and the pit lane is emptying uh villager going through shot there ahead of roman monty and this group of cars that we think are kind of the leading group so i reckon the alpine there he is uh will inherit the lead again obviously antoine leclerc was in second position behind hendrick still we don't have still any longer so theory would suggest that villager if it is to form would uh inherit the lead but uh the toyota second position therefore is very impressive depending on where those other cars that haven't pitted yet uh fall into line but rama monte is much more experienced a driver isn't he than uh villager so that puts the emphasis on his pace now to watch us into the pit lane as comes to montgomery to give away to eric debar greg gilberry's in alex fontana is in and jim pla in as well for jean-luc bubulik to take over and the majority of the field now yes everybody that's still circulating has pitted uh and with the pick window now closed that's fine as long as you're in before the window closes then that's okay so villager leads but he's being chased hard there you can see by the toyota in the hands of roma monty which has got in turn ahead of will burns in the bmw and then uh it is urban bastar isn't it who's taking over from rue emir has in the yellow audi that's the porsche the still porsche still has in stationary as well as still as in the first driver and it's still there as well so it's not yet be moved wow good night um pit line time is something we also have to look at a gt4 series because we have seen in the past a little a few infringements on the amount of time it takes to go through pits looking down uh the order i would say the number nine aston martin uh with a pit time of two minutes seems to be quite a bit faster than everybody else yeah it's 121 seconds but you are allowed a joker of a second in either race okay so if you're a second under you can but you can't do it tomorrow you can only do it in one of the two races but you are given a one second joker tolerance if you like and roma monty bang on two minutes so a point of a second faster and he would have definitely got a penalty but uh he that toyota will have to play the joker yeah and uh as i say the number nine aston martin will also have to do the same thing right so it is vintage ahead of monty by 1.9 seconds and now the spotlight turns onto the toyota but it's going to be third isn't it because here comes eric debar out of the pit lane so the mercedes was ahead as it came up the hill there it is but only now is de barr up to proper pace and here comes a little alpine behind so this is lucy villager's chance to try to go for the race lead it is eric dibar on the pit stops who's got the lead but on the track back ahead goes look villager so monty actually after all of that he's still only third and i feel as though that is a gain of position ultimately from through the pit stop window so despite having to deal with all the traffic uh for simon gashe uh they have still found themselves in a better position than where uh the they were at the start of the pit lane opening now jacob is being shown as third position that's not correct because he's nowhere to be seen yeah i think that was partly based on the fact that the car was third when it came into the pits on that previous lap so this is the order as we've seen villager ahead of debbar who is under attack from roma monty will burns is fourth the supra tries to go for a gap on the inside but to no avail interesting erwin bastard in that yellow audi is dropping away just by a couple of lengths against will burns isn't he we know that urban bastard he's quick he drove a supra in the french championship last year and then who's behind him it is enzo juliet in number 15 mercedes the nm racing team car will burns there to the outside at piff path but eric de bart in the mercedes bit of caulking bottle sort of uh role here because he's holding up roman monte who has to dive to the inside he gets forced up the curb he's coming through so he's burns so he's start it was a bit brutal that but it was the only chance for monty because certainly dybal was holding everybody up absolutely opened the can didn't he there was a there wasn't really the space and the space ended up shutting the door as well but he had to get his elbows out to push him out of the way and he managed it but still with compromise speed it's side by side at bmw versus audi side by side through blonde shaman there is no room to run off on the outside if you make a mistake was a little bit but certainly not as much as they used to be and they both get through the corner safely the one that went wide this was eric de barr who wasn't really part of that battle and he's about to lose another place enzo giulier goes to the inside way up the curb and it's really like a ramp it's more angled than it looks on camera so you sort of clamber up it like a proper slope skateboarders i love it and now will burns under attack because then when bastard has caught back up again in the audi 21 minutes still to go out of that source been found this and here comes bastard then the audi gets a good run out of the source goes toe-to-toe with will burns all the way down the hill and now bastille's going to have the inside line for the key part of our if he is brave enough but will burns stands his ground on the outside line look at this fantastic racing and will burns just comes out ahead unbelievable bravery from will burns to sit around the outside of the middle part of a rouge there and he's still got the momentum up the hill as well he unfortunately doesn't have the racing line it's the first part of their comp but if he sticks around the outside he can have the inside for the next bit let's see what he does because the shorter line is claimed by bastard he's up the curb and here comes will burns look goes for the gap coming out of the corner a little bit of a rub between them the danger to both is enzo julie who has certainly arrived at the party in the mercedes they're behind so julie is on the attack burns is on the attack as well and eric debar is also under attack because he's got fabian michelle gabriele piana andy van drakoma all queued up behind him as a game his pace is holding up others let's remind you that uh it's uh enzo julie in the 50 machine that is 10 points behind in the championship constantine lachnauer now aboard the number 10 aston martin lack now is uh now only four positions back in class uh from the 15 machine it's still it will certainly close up the championship but in terms of that that is what we're looking at those two cars uh even if we've still got a couple of races left because they will go to uh hockenheim at the start of september and then barcelona uh at the start of october to complete their championship season so they flick through the piff path there's the call that led early on hendrick stills porsche stranded by the side of the racetrack with that mechanical failure as the cars now storm their way up through the core paul freya so the race order is villager three seconds clear of rama monty there he is that's the leading car that's the alpine but last time did lap quicker than roman monte but he had to get himself up through traffic now it's a clear lap in the sectors monty is quicker in both so the gap is coming down up to the end of the lap here carl run by code racing developments plenty of alpene experience in french gt which is gt4 based and also in the europa cup of alpene and well we heard from visually on the grid not a huge amount of experience uh and no experience here at spa other he said i know the track she hasn't driven it so it's watched it on television and maybe played it on a computer game uh but certainly doing the business here and looking actually quite comfortable and quite strong ahead of a far more experience from our monty uh last time though monty was a second 1.2 seconds faster than the little alpene so we've got 18 minutes remaining could well close that gap by the end of the race they flick their way through rouge now look at the progress of gabriella piana up into sixth place having taken over now from mikhail shri that's eric debar who's fallen back behind fabian michelle so that's now changed for ninth place but piana 10 seconds off the race lead and with good pace at the moment so that bmw might be able to gain more ground before the very end so we know that piano is quick and as you were saying not only is he won in this championship in the past but he would try victorious within the german championship in gt4 scandinavia eric barons has taken over now from daniel russ and that mclaren great like clockwork more gravel flicks about theirs somebody's run wide there's a bit of dust wasn't there as well but uh i'm not sure whether that was just somebody a little bit wide off the road because as just gravel everywhere yeah true it would have been debbar the next one up the road andre solo cough ted in the wns motorsport porsche leading his classes he goes through being taken over from mikhail [Music] so 17 minutes on the clock sounds starting to set temperatures finally dropping best lap of the race uh becky bezler very early on in the number 12 bmw the car that will burns now drives as they once more turn their way down through on today here at spa as per usual with uh championships next year's calendar release very similar to this year's calendar just uh monza in italy uh monza in italy monza and imola swapping as we've seen previously so monza will be the start of the season rather than emilia that we had this year and there will be a six hours of vala lunga at the weekend of my birthday in october uh so there's a there's a present for me six hours for gt3 or gt4 gt4 excellent a gt4 only six hour race non championship uh but uh that could be quite kind of a gt4 world final feel to it which has been mooted in the past hasn't it and then circumstances have changed like you know a pandemic appears on the scene that derailed plans but uh yeah the gt4 drivers they've always craved a long race haven't they because they've always had this traditional sprint race format where you get half a race each at best so out of the hairpin through la source the lead gap is down to 1.2 seconds roman monte is on for a win here this car which ironically is going to start at the back of tomorrow's grid for not qualifying in the second session has made very good progress up through the order bearing in mind its travails in the qualifying session it lost its best lap time for causing a red flag which put it even further down the order and they've had to repair it and yet out of all of that with a quarter of an hour to go it's 1.2 seconds off the race lead that's all red flag was in the first or the second session the first session wasn't it so it was the grid that set this this race yeah it was the red flag in this yeah which did the damage lost its best lap fell further back on the grid to the 12th row and they never got out in q2 so a real uphill weekend for them which might result in them certainly at the moment standing on the podium but uh you get the feeling that with 15 minutes still remaining there is the possibility of a change here indeed so well it's honestly i mean it's a quicker car and you can see how much closer roman monty has got dropped downhill once again here down to pueblo and then erwin bastar up into third at the expense of will burns who has dropped away so that sorted itself out for now juliet's fifth piano is six and not actually now making progress piano's lap times are plateaued a little bit this is the thing you can't teach we we heard antoine leclerc is uh villagers coach driver coach and you you're able to look at data and say where you need to put the car and all the rest of it you cannot teach how to deal with traffic and how to how to cope with the pressure of a car getting closer and closer he'll see on his dashboard but the gap to the car behind is reducing and how that affects him as a driver is key to to being a successful racing driver yes there's one thing being able to pump in the lap times on a test day on your own and be able to do that racing another driver and being able to deal with the pressure of racing is something so so different and actually for the moment really doesn't seem to be putting too many wheels wrong no he's doing a good job isn't it i mean okay he's being caught but look at the gap he's got over the third place down now whether if he does lose the lead he becomes a bit demoralized and the pace then goes away we'll have to find out but uh i still would put money on roma monty winning this he's got time left in which to do it but that said round here 13 laps with a lap being over sorry 13 minutes with a lap being over two and a half minutes there aren't many laps available in which to do this further back porsche cayman versus uh audi evangelicoma is aboard that 718 machine which is in seventh position now eight because robert constantine's got a head in that multi-colored audi so the burger king backed r8 has gone ahead of the porsche and his next target he's three seconds up the road and it's gabrielle piana but he's not having us quickly it's quite a slow lap from jacob it's a 36-7 uh i'm sure he could do better pace than that so maybe a mistake from the porsche oh wow that's a interesting line yep constantly sat nav was on the blink there so he explores all the run-off tarmac going up the hill [Music] and now that gives the advantage back to ivan jacoba who has the momentum going up to lake com now as he thinks about trying to make a move into the breaking area but constantly fends him off on the inside line yeah probably did the right thing there blended out the throttle to show that he wasn't gaining an advantage um although who's just is that message on the screen for somebody else that's car nine uh who has to give a position back for gaining presumably gaining advantage off track and that's christian geezy who is in 21st place we've not seen it but uh the race control team will have down on the back of monitors there at their disposal 12 more minutes on the clock mercedes they're going toe-to-toe the nm racing team car looks as though he's about to drop a place as they dive up to they calm that is number nine that's christian geezy then who is being told he's going to give a position back well he's just giving a position back to a bmw of uh jason de hinchey right uh but on the timing screens they're quite separated so i'm not quite sure how many positions he's actually ended up giving back man it doesn't say which car he had to give it back to anyway with eleven and a half on the clock still villages only eight tenths up on round my monty now so the gap down again by half a second last time around and here is the move that robert konstani made on ivan jacoba coming down to the chicane the jacob got ran out a little bit wide so not only did he lose the plate but he tried to find the apex of a corner there so he also lost a bit of the time that you were describing that he had lost and in this little battle pack you've got tim whale going great guns in the mclaren now 19th kenny harriman's behind him and then christian geezy so this is now 19th 20th and 21st and the speed of car number 88 is now under investigation for blocking in the pit lane so the race officials have all sorts of things thrown at them as the leaders go by with only half a second between them now 88 is the sovereign off and vine trump nm racing team mercedes that's being looked at that's going too slowly car 11 is being locked out for going too quickly the jason to hit you bmw it's all happening yeah tahinshi's now showing as two places three places behind gizi uh with uh andrik sasser and noel between the two of them so i don't know what i've got confused there because i'm sure i saw geezy giving a position back to a bmw but maybe i got got myself mixed up i don't think they've completed that lap yet i think they're about to come through and that will confirm the new order you're looking at the leaders who are nose to tail coming up towards lake horn and villager monty was half a second at the start of the lap uh as the rest come by you have got to hinchy ahead of gizi so now they've completed that the screen's updated itself there are the top two ten minutes to go and we know that all my monty's lights work despite the damage sustained this morning because he's very vigorously using them to try to terrorize like villager out of the way and villager responding to the light flashing by jinking and defending he didn't need to he wasn't close enough but that's exactly the kind of thing you can't really teach you know he suddenly was worried that perhaps there was an opportunity and vlj uh getting really to the inside line there gets himself back onto the racing line before he throws the car into the first part of puerto gush depending on who you are and what you like but yeah he's being hassled now and he's feeling that pressure and he's putting that into the inputs of the car and this will just only slow them up even further what he actually needs is aaron besta in third position to get onto the back of monty so that monty can start worrying about what's going on behind rather than just focusing on attack yeah bastard is not close enough no and villager can't really afford to go so slowly to stack him into the traffic behind because he's going to be in jeopardy of losing the lead to monty anyway so yeah he needs best star to get there the santa lock audi just is not quite quick enough will burns is still four there are the leaders going through shot then so we are going to have round about eight minutes on the clock at the end of this lap so four more laps maybe it's still enough time i think for monty to take the win isn't it yes let's see how hard villager defends though because also with with lacking experience comes unpredictability puts the car in a very good position there into the chicane right in the middle of the road monty to choose is the outside line but can't find a way through he's gonna have a bit better momentum out of the chicane because uh ultimately he had a better racing line through that point and villager hangs on to the inside it's gonna be very very tight to try and get through la source from there and again to the middle of the road so slows himself up and slows monty up too monty tries to get on the power big old slide from the toyota uh out of lax horse that time downhill once more then so good race this has turned out to be and two drivers that you might not have anticipated would be fighting for the race lead are doing just that the alpine then leaning on it suspension you see the little puff of taskbar because it powers over the hill over the brown now down to la combe there's roman monty that's super with all of that grunt and again fascinating to see how the balance of performance works such different styles of car alpine compared to supra which sort of towers over the uh little french coupe they break for they come but is like villager on borrowed time here because certainly roma monty is looking very threatening indeed yeah but felicia is doing a great job but actually was very strong throughout rouge so didn't even need to defend uh into le comm and the flashing lights continue but this time vijay just puts the car in the middle of the road and that actually can be a racing line you could turn in early kind of square off or triangulate the corner until you get a better exit through it so um that also means that you're kind of half defending through that corner as well not very strong through jackie ix uh changing position further back uh our two swedish cars are much more together than they were before as eric derbard isn't it being passed by eric barrons so the scandinavian entries up to 12 the european entries down to 13th and behind them in two to nine is the next of the scandinavian entries it's the toyota of hans holmlund who is trying to catch up to the mclaren [Music] villager i take your point he's doing a very very good job because roma monty hasn't really caught him properly yeah has he still not quite on the tail and he certainly hasn't been able to find a way past him timing screens say they are incredibly close but uh there hasn't been a proper attack really now they might be closed over the timing line but again the way the cars work around the lap the gap rises and falls a little bit let's have a look here at the camaro having a dive at the inside of tim wales mclaren that's kenny harriman's and around the outside of all of them comes jason to hinchey oh and something has to give you know what that could have been a whole lot worse yeah there's not a lot of space there and you can't just open the wheel and run wide like you used to with the tarmac on the outside now you actually have to keep the car on the road this could be the lead change coming up because the alpine ever so slightly weight went into the chicane a smoother line through it by romer monty in the toyota and so now he's right there in the wheel tracks but villager has been taught well hasn't he he goes defensive on the inside line monty wants the wide in tight outline if he can swing at the inside coming out of the corner then he's got the line all the way down the hill but again villager he's just able to move the car across in front of him so rama monty knows he's in a motor race here he is having to work very very hard for the race lead plunge downhill once more this is lap 20 flick left then right then left again at the top of the brow and surely this is where the grunt and go super is going to be able to use all of those horses certainly a lot closer than he was that last time through villager great through erosion over randy on the car staying straight but the distance is about half what it was one lap before defending on the inside line but of course with the chicane you can have two different lines at the turn finishers hold on once more and monty can't find a way through this is a very very good drive by like villager uh rom and monty getting a little bit more determined now you can see the fact that the car is taking unorthodox lines there's a bit more urgency about this now when we started talking about this with the best part of 20 minutes to go we thought monty was a shoo-in now there are less than five minutes to go and that shoe doesn't fit quite so well so as they drop downhill it is still village a ahead but only by that of length and crucially the pace isn't that bad either because bastard behind is only a couple of tenths faster on that last lap these guys are all over the road all on different improvised lines but bastard isn't taking chunks and time away from them even though you would have thought he should be so they swoop once more through pual now the run towards pif path and again look villager hugs that inside line makes monty work for it on the outside where it's dustier where there's a bit less traction so it's advantage lp not by much but it's still the advantage of the lp they're going to get two more laps out of this as well aren't they you can see how different the two cars are too that alpine's so low to the ground that the toyota supra looks massive in comparison just because it's uh ride height is higher all part of the balance of performance but that will affect how the car drives especially on the exit corners getting power down the reactivity through the piff path things like that they are going to be completely different vehicles to feel to drive and yet they're racing for the victory in gt4 europe and and in terms of performance look pretty similar the supra out wide then it towers over the alpine as monty goes to the outside line down to the chicane he's almost level but he breaks late but it's the wrong place to be so through they will come now with time for two more laps in the race which is bad news for villager he might have preferred one really because he's got to defend doubly hard but again with monty on the lights they come through now they're laughing 234s 235s behind them is bastar who is 235.1 he's not laughing as quickly as the leader yeah exactly it's quite quite incredible and again village didn't really need to defend into that source because he had a good exit the lp does seem to be very stable on the exit of the corners where we've seen the the supra kind of wiggle around not be able to get the power down quite as much and villagers able to put that car exactly where he needs to and we haven't seen too many little errors either true enough oh and bastard threw in third place now the gap between bastard and burns is eight tenths of a second and burns to julia he's eight tenths of a second and then it's seven seconds back to gabriele piana who hasn't really become part of that battle there are the leaders once more up to le corn if villager can hang on to do this i'll tell you what i think he deserves to that it's going to be one of the drives of the season equally after the problems they've had all day roman monty and antoine potty kind of deserve a win as well i suppose the other thing to consider is they are in two different classes yeah so they are going to be scoring uh for their class rather than for the overall event no doubt remember monty wants to stand on the top step of the podium overall but ultimately he's still on the top side of the podium for his particular class um and v is in the pro-am class which evan tacoma is the next best car down in eighth position so actually villager wouldn't lose too much if he lost that position but the yeah taking the checkered flag flirts is what it's all about yeah there's pride at stake isn't there and there's that overall race win you can say i won rather than i won my class but determined to try to come out on top now there look enzo juliet right on the back of will burns that gap's come down by about the best part of eight tenths of a second over this lap so the mercedes then with its lights drilling a hole into the back of the bmw they're together down towards campus where the college now sits on the inside of the road will burns just slows the car a touch on the apex to stop the mercedes being able to nip up the inside the leaders though are going to start the last lap this time and it was village ahead of monty when we last saw them there is burns hanging onto that fourth place towards blosham when they go oh and bastard a bit in no man's land up the road he's not catching the leaders but he's not being caught by these two looking at the characteristic of that bmw i think burns isn't either nursing a problem or just nursing the car to the end he's not leaning on the car the car's not sliding around like we see from the supra or the mercedes behind he's being incredibly neat and i feel as though perhaps the car is not at its best finisher holds on by quite a margin over nearly half a second now that stretch hasn't it as they come through half a second so 11 10. so as they go over the stripe roman monty might have just been lagging back to get a bit of cool air in the car because the closer you sit the more it gets hot he might just want one last push well villager he's gone into the 33s so that's actually with a push lap from him it was wasn't it and so the best part of a full second quicker so he was right it's going to be interesting to see what monty can do now last lap he's running out of ideas isn't he the clock's about to hit zero that's your scandinavian leader eric barrons and daniel roose in the alphabet mclaren that comes out of the chicane good drive by both of them this to just get on with the job of winning that category winning their race which is what they need to do through that car now comes and the race leaders make the climb up towards lake home for the final time this lap number 22 in this first gt4 european series race of the weekend enzo is really fifth position lack now down in 11th overall with four cars between them that will close up our championship going into tomorrow i think roman monte is settled i think you're right so like villager in a pro-am car is going to defeat the silvers and he has driven absolutely fantastically because he's withstood pressure he's never raced here before he's done precious little racing and he has responded in style hasn't he a beautiful drive with huge amounts of pressure not a foot wrong really we haven't even really seen the car stepping out too much we saw a little bit through the chicane a couple of laps where he was a little bit keen and eager on the throttle but uh with all that pressure with all the flashing lights with all the driving on different racing lines uh he has done such a good job remember also he wished antoine leclerc would jump up the road so that he had an easy run of things yes didn't happen because we had so we had the uh full course yellows and the safety car periods and he had to do all this work himself now look at will burns that car was all out of shape coming out of the piff path because he's under real pressure from julie so that's going to go down to the wire irwin bastard ahead actually is being caught a little bit by these two now will burns may be having to nurse this car as you suggested but the pace is still pretty decent and he's having to extract everything he can out of it on this last lap the leaders though are coming up towards the chicane the chequered flag is being made ready for this man for like villager who along with antoine leclerc he's going to come through to score a really well deserved win in the first gt4 european series race of the weekend it's a win for alpine it is a win for antoine leclerc and for villager who comes across the line to win and a great drive ahead of roman monty and antoine potty without ambassador i'd ruined my house taking third place and that was some drive wasn't it by villager with all of that pressure unbelievable really considering the lack of experience he has both here at spa and in comparison to roma monty who is a seasoned campaigner in that machine that was quite special and i think maybe a little bit surprised about monty unable to find a way through for gt scandinavia then here comes alphabet mclaren the better of the two mclarens in this race by the end uh berens losing some ground on his rivals in the second half of the race but ultimately the gap uh still a couple of seconds between himself uh and homeland in the toyota in second spot and we await the best of our am category cards which was on the second row of the grid yeah there it is the 37 porsche of mikhail laboda and andre solokoftsev comes up towards the line that's going to finish in 22nd place overall and wins its class from paddle maloney and max trasoli and then third is going to be julian lombard with wilfried cazarbon in another of the ags event entries so antoine leclair villager take the race win by 1.6 seconds in the end a really impressive drive it doesn't really tell the full story though does it because it was down to less than two tenths for many many laps we we called it 18 minutes before the end that it was looking tight so he really did respond so well to that pressure yeah just a great job well done wasn't it by village and it wasn't that he was doing anything ragged he didn't look desperate he looked like he's been doing that kind of drive for season after season yeah yeah you know there are people in this world who respond well to pressure and others that uh panic and he's obviously a man that uh maybe in his professional life is good with dealing with pressure and has brought that into his race car very possibly well either way it's been a ripper drive by villager what did he say have a blast yeah he did he did yeah blasted away so the alpine will head to park fairmate uh then the podiums will kick into life eventually uh with uh silver's pro-ams and ams to look forward to and scandinavian yes probably as well uh and they have a couple of classes within their championship too in the same structure that we see in gt4 europe and drama right at the very end at la source what's happened there and how has it happened yes that's the seller's like mercedes i think of jean-luc perez and johann van rom it looks like it's been savage from behind but there's a bit of front damage as well so i know there were you know in a scrum as they came across the line he was the julian lombard and just ahead of the vine trump mercedes but that car has got proper damage hasn't it did you say it's been assaulted yeah all right let's have a look at the result then uh and antoine leclair taking the race win ahead of antoine potty and aurora malty with roy miohas and now in bastar in third fourth becky bezler and will burns ahead of luke ibanyaf and enzo juliet sixth michael tri and gabrielle piana and seventh portrait laureation robert konstani ivan jacoma and alex fontana eight from fabian michelle and greg gilbert with tenth being simmer turman classes then the silvers being won by monty and potty the winners within uh pro-am of course the overall winners villager and antoine leclair and the ams going the way as you just saw of the cayman of mikhail laboda and andre solo club sev and out of 54 of them that could have started in fact there were more prior to the race because we lost a few in qualifying this morning uh 46 give or take got to the end of the race in various states of repair oh yeah both the ags aston martins ending up in the pit lane again so the issues that they had in qualifying they still haven't seem to have fixed by the list of things interesting that they do have three cars and the third one seems fine um although it's being accused of blocking in the pit lane um i don't know how that works we saw the the 88 under investigation for the same thing i think you go so slowly um that you get in the way of people but uh discuss it seems an odd thing to do unless you are trying to kind of create space for yourself to get into the pits here are the celebrations down at code racing developments though a delighted team and perhaps a surprise team because that was the result that in a sense came out of nowhere is that a montoya style uh helmet by the looks of things i'll be right actually yes well pablo is here this weekend his son racing in formula four it's true yes the drivers we'll get to the podium in a moment like villager i think can't quite believe this it's taking a moment or two to sink in isn't it howdy gets and a very very happy team but he drove brilliantly to win that did a really really good job in me he's fired up too isn't he that cool head that we thought he might have for dealing with pressure has just been released [Music] is he happy or is he a happy man so uh antoine leclaire who's been a bit short of luck in the past in this championship also i think deserves that win deserves a good result finally so as the drivers make their way to the podium we'll have a look at the highlights of that race that was full of drama right from the start with the best getaway being made by antoine then but it very nearly came to naught for some at the first corner christopher getting it wrong in the mid pack rotating as he's one of the toyotas in fact it might have been the answer on potty car that came across the front of him and that locked him into a spin and as he tried to rejoin suddenly ammon realized who was around him then we have this big slide from john baptiste meller that drilled kenton cook now being off the road with lots of frontal damage and that was another retirement before the end of the lap kenton cook day was pretty much done as well as with a puncture and damaging to the pits hendricks still made this really impressive dive up on the inside of le claire to take over the lead and then there was contact between hendrick still and etienne shelley which meant that the supra ended up in the gravel down at turn nine and he'd turn that brought out a full course yellow and that brought out a safety car when the race got back out the way the battles continued cast making their way down into the trick one or two running out of room and it wasn't going to be long before we had another drama which brought out a full course yellow period and there was also this clash between andy and the uh alpene down at the first corner and then the race leader suddenly slowed coming out of the pit pack hendering steals porsche off by the side of the road and he was distraught a race win snatched away from him eric de barr caulking bottle and eventually elbowing his way up on the inside to go through was roman monte others followed suit but we had this great battle between owen bastard and will burns but even though villager was being caught remorselessly by roman monty the toyota never quite made a proper lunch for leadership but it meant that villager hang off for a first win although they do have another race to go tomorrow of course it's an early start i was just thinking that for those of us cars that have got issues for those cars that need to be fixed i'm thinking jean-baptiste miller and the front end of that machine it is going to be a very short night for the mechanics uh in terms of their sleeping it will be a very long night in terms of their working i mean for for all the teams because all the teams will have to turn around the cars anyway but just those extra couple of hours when we're talking uh at a 9 15 start tomorrow morning i'm questioning myself but i know it's early but it's 9 slightly 55 yes you can have an extra weight of it but yeah 955 is the broadcast slot for a 10 o'clock race start pretty much right the drivers then are being brought to the traditional podium so in other words the podium in the endurance pits i suppose we could call it a spa 24 hours podium these days couldn't because not so many other championships use it any longer no that's true although quirkily this weekend it's not the spa 24 hours podium because that's going to be done on the concert stage in the fan village oh how very uh formulary how very innovative i thought yes that's a great word because it takes it to the fans doesn't it so this is villager in replay with roman monty you can see how that gap came down down and down as the gap between them was reduced lap after lap after that but try as he might there's nothing that monty could really do even though he got this close coming down into the la source happy still wasn't enough to let him go through there was never really a a definitive proper attempt was there there was there was lots and lots of sniffing but there was never really a jam it down the inside and and make it happen like we saw from antoine potty in the first in where uh he kind of created space for himself definitely the faster car there's no doubt about that but when it came to the overtaking he kind of needed to be a bit more inventive i think and then in the end the pace just went away didn't it so maybe he'd overwork the tires here by being stuck behind the alpine or he just settled for the fact that he had maximum points in his class he didn't need that number one spot another hugely busy day of support rating before we even get to the 24 hours with formula four formula rationale and gt4 and lamborghini and the sro 30th anniversary gt race although uh that car that feel might be reduced a little bit after today's race and one or two with mechanical woes so those teams are working long into the night as well well either that or they're at the gala yeah quite yes yeah because i'm sure they'll all be invited to that if you bring us bring your uh gt1 maserati to town and actually they don't notice they don't actually have big crews either there's one or two people helping them out right i think drivers are just about ready so we'll see which is the first podium that's going to be brought forward congratulations to sentinel [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i think this is why we're doing this so we can get the overall winners up first uh because it is a pro am winning car outright it is going to be antoine le claire and like and the french drivers in a french car from a french team on the top step of the podium in belgium [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] many a podium to cycle through some very attractive trophies being presented uh to our pro-am competitors [Music] [Applause] the first driver in that car michelle uh ending up down in ninth position overall [Music] so then the winning team gets the trophy [Applause] trophies [Music] villages from his accent was quite quite swiss funky well yes but what you mean where there's a lot of there's a lot of different swiss swiss italians swiss french swiss german and i couldn't place his accent at all but they're not going to spray the champagne this evening uh because they need to those overalls for tomorrow so they're going to smell of sweat rather than of sticky stuff and so that's your first podium done that's pro-am then we await the next one which might be the silvers which should bring forward the uh second-placed overall crew so marley neutral who is the championship manager peeks around the side of the podium make sure that uh everything is being made ready champagne is prepared and the trophies are there behind the podium i think it was actually in total a bit of a quite a well-behaved race yeah from what we've seen of gt4 it can be pretty chaotic and there was a couple of elbows out and there was the inevitable first lap incident but actually when it came to the real racing that was very there was at times very hard but very fair agree with that yeah it was a decent race for sure very very good indeed as then the silver step forward will burns and uh aren't there then we have four santa lott romeo house and uh and then the top step of the silver podium is going to be for antoine potty and roman monte which is a real turnaround given how their day started in the gravel with a damaged car and also close to an outright win as well and even bigger work to do tomorrow when they start right at the tail end of the field but don't discount them especially if it works out why on earth is he wearing a circuit pull recar hat [Music] [Music] winning drivers third place drivers will burns and uh was very very strong as well considering where they started to find themselves up uh in the top five positions and i'm sure burns was nursing an issue at the end of the race but becca bester doing a really good first stint in that car looking forward to seeing what he can do uh in the second half of of tomorrow's race and so there the trophies to the winning team and now for cmr's drivers the spa shaped coloured the belgian flag trophies to anton potty and to roman monty [Applause] and considering they didn't win outright they didn't remotely fast did they they just looked very content with a class win and maybe it was the team on the radio saying all right let's just get the points out of this celebration yeah they had a decent effort didn't they had a decent go at it and once it was clear after a couple of laps it wasn't possible that i think just bringing it home was the the most sensible option but at least we saw a race of it the soundtrack is a maserati mc12 by the way going past the podium uh and uh the long tail mclaren part of the 30 years of sro some of the road going equivalents of the gt1 cars from the period have been given some demo laps at the end of the day just in case there wasn't anything else to happen on track quite quite that's when the clown going down the hill you can hear and so there's one more podium out of gt4 european series still to go [Music] and that's going to be for the ams where in third spot is uh julian lombard and wilfried casablanc second it's going to be the uh italian bmw drivers max tresoldi and paolo maloney and then the winning drivers from the class mikhail laboda and andre solokoff so the drivers being brought forward wilfred kazabont and julian lombard to the podium so the ajs events drivers take third second will be as i say to paulo maloney and max dressaldi and then the class winners of uh mikhail lavoda and andre solo gotzev stepped forward for the top step of the podium their first victory of the season although the car fell away from its grid position still hang on to in the class and they are delighted with a class win yeah very much set up by that amazing qualifying performance on the second row of the grid what national anthem will be here [Music] [Music] so for the german wns motorsport team national anthem played and the trophy is about to be presented third place winners we usually see uh christopher and michelle boschmann at the sharp end of this field but uh with ammon being turned around on that first lap it was a bit of an uphill struggle for them they ended up in uh fifth position in class but expect to see them being stronger tomorrow if they can get away from uh being found in strife and that is one of the major issues of starting kind of in 30th spot which is your kind of which is a good position to start if you are an am but you are right in the thick of any of the action yeah they didn't get roughed up a bit didn't they oh it's so likely to happen when you're starting in the middle of the pack there exactly we actually have seen um christopher qualify really high up especially for a nap and also he's going to be doing the 24 hours so maybe jumping from gt3 to gt4 machinery is a bit of a task the atoms are the ones that spray so the winning drivers get a soaking all right they've got a second set of overalls yeah or an overnight laundry a lot of the trucks have laundries don't they yeah maybe not necessarily in gt4 but certainly there'll be laundries around the paddock so the drivers make their way off the podium very very happy ws motorsport yeah absolutely and then i think we get to scandinavia because there are more bottles of champagne being brought out how very frustrating to to be able to take victory in a race but have no chance at all really of celebrating it they can't possibly even think about even having a small left no that's that's true because you've got to be back on circuit and clean of alcohol by 10 o'clock in the morning or is left zero percent i suppose that's almost acceptable well yeah it's a funny party when it's zero cent party yeah right so for scandinavia let's see whether it's going to be an outright or an amino silver here there's definitely more than one class because i don't notice that on the um on the graphics but for the classification they've all been lumped together on the timing screen haven't they anyway we'll come to that in a moment another beautiful evening here at sport spa at its very best when it is not raining still feels a little bit uh different all that deforestation on the outside of turn one there i believe there's a lot more construction to be done on that point so it won't look quite as barren [Music] you've got uh lucas sundar and marius sorry paulson coming out for third in scandinavian uh contest there for second place from the toyota supra squad from toyota racing sweden hans holmlund and emil skog and then the winners are as we were saying during the course of the race uh daniel roose and eric barons in honor of the victory the swedish national anthem [Music] so the top three drivers overall also the top three in proam which means there's an am class to come away confirmation of the order for that [Music] so the championship officials present the trophies and a lovely weekend away for the scandinavians yeah indeed very different circuit and somewhere that's clearly been a hit with the drivers yeah they've already raced at anders store at the start of the season then they went north to a place that i can't pronounce which has lots of k's and a's and e's and certainly not a track that i've ever heard of but there are plenty in scatter navy that i don't uh and so this is the third round i think if you've made the effort to come all this long way you're going to celebrate with the uh champagne aren't you so daniel roose shame we don't see more of him in european racing actually because he was very quick when he did come into it scores a race win and so with the podiums done that completes race one from the gt4 european series more tomorrow morning but for now from ben consonduras and david anderson it's good night from spa francosha [Music] you

Channel: GTWorld

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Keywords: BlancpainGT, Blancpain, GT, GT3, Endurance, Sprint, watch, FIA, driver, sportscar, car, Spa, 24h, team, pro, racetrack, GT racing, gt4, gt4 livestream, gt racing, live gt racing, gt world, GT World, GT LIVE, GT World livestream, live car racing, live GT racing, full GT replay, GT World live, GT World race, GT World live race, GT racing live, GT race, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe, GT World Challenge Europe, 24 Hours of Spa, Spa 24 Hours, Spa 2022, 24 Hours of Spa 2022, Race 1, GT4

Id: ElGrFT2o3YY

Length: 101min 25sec (6085 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022