[WEC] The 100th Anniversary 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours - The Race of the Century

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bottom post of the previous page:

The NASCAR Camaro just lost a few minutes in the pits.... not a specific problem that caused the delay but a planned brake change. Surprised a brake change took so long. In V8SC they change Discs and complete brke set up routinely in a couple of minutes at enduro events like Bathurst..

[Everso Biggyballies]

Iron Dames are back in the lead of the LM GTE AM class, but that may be due to being out of synch in the stops.

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Michael Fassbender loses the rear of the #911 Proton Competition-run Porsche and into the wall hard.
Big damage, but he is able to recover the wreckage back to the pits. This wont be a short stop

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The gap from Ferrari to Toyota is holding at just under 20 seconds.

There is a slow zone in the last sector to repair barrier damage from the Fassbender crash.

[Everso Biggyballies]

The two leaders have just pitted again, perhaps early due to the Slow zone, but this time Ferrari did the tyre change they didnt do last stop. Toyota on the other hand did tyres last time so didnt this time. Nett result the Ferrari lead has dropped to 4 seconds again.

Into the last 4 hours.

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Colado is in the Ferrari and Hartley is in the Toyota.... the gap is down to just over a second and Hartley has just been told he has plenty of electrical energy. We have a motor race on our hands.

Interesting is the fact that the #50 Ferrari, although its a lap down, is right behind the Toyota and if he can pass the Toyota might be used as a bit of a mobile chicane. The #50 has to catch the #8 first though, then try and pass him.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Hypercar

#51 Ferrari
2. #8 Toyota
3. #2 Cadillac
4. #3 Cadillac
5. #93 Peugeot

** The #93 Peugeot has just been pushed into the garage though so that is a problem for them.


LMP2 positions:

#34 Inter Europol Competition
#41 WRT
#30 Duqeine Team
#48 IDEC Sport
#65 Panis Racing

GTE
#85 Iron Dames
#25 ORT by TF
#33 Corvette Racing
#56 Project 1-AO
#54 AF Corse

[Everso Biggyballies]

The Peugeot issue must have been minor because it is back on track without losing a spot.
The #3 Caddy also stopped for some new bodywork and has also rejoined quickly.

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Corvette have taken back the GTE Class lead over Iron Dames. Without further issues they should cruise to a win as the car is a rocket ship having overcome its earlier difficulties and driven through the GTE field.

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The 94 Peugeot is and has been in the garage for a while.... a new steering rack was mentioned.

Ferrari is growing the gap to Toyota at the front. 3 hours to go now and the gap is 15 seconds.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Corvette have taken back the GTE Class lead over Iron Dames. Without further issues they should cruise to a win as the car is a rocket ship having overcome its earlier difficulties and driven through the GTE field.

Gap from Corvette to 2nd has as expected grown quickly. Now 23 seconds ahead of Iron Dames in 2nd.
Corvette must have been looked upon kindly by the BoP Gods in their last year and IIRC after a long drought of LM wins..(last won in 2015?)

[theracer120]

The NASCAR is in the garage changing the gearbox. I think that's the first major issue they've had all race.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Hartley is doing a quad stint and has just stopped for new tyres, The #51 will follow in the next couple of laps and probably do the same as they will change drivers.

Ferrari stops as expected and rejoins 16 secs ahead.

Interesting next stint .

The Garage 56 car has seemingly been untroubled throughout other than the lengthy but planned brake change. So no real unexpected issues and a good run.

The #38 Hertz JOTA is also still in the garage. I think the plan there is that they want to bring the car out for the final laps so as to be classified, fearful it wont last to the end from now.

[PTRACER]

The NASCAR is in the garage changing the gearbox. I think that's the first major issue they've had all race.

I was just about to ask about that, I had to go shopping and so some cleaning. Other than the five hours of sleep I had last night I watched pretty much the whole race.

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Hartley getting stuck into reducing the Ferrari lead.... down to under 12 secs from 16 secs at the stint start..

Mind you Brendan is just coming up to the #50 sister Ferrari who wont make things easy as I hinted earlier. It will be a very wide Ferrari Im guessing. Blue flags / lights dont meran the same in Sportscars as in F1 where they almost have to stop to let a lapping car past.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Hirakawa in the #8 to the end now, Hartley out after a quad stint, but will Ferrari cover this lap. Gap was down to 11.5 secs before the #8 stopped.