Porsche Extends The Lead in LMP1 Over Hour Two
- Sep 20, 2015
- 3 min read
The gap between car #17 and #18 as the second hour drew to a close was an impressive 31 seconds. The leading Porsche has yet to loose the lead of this race, even after both pit stops. It seems that no one has any answer for the pace of the Porsche at the moment. But Porsche #17 has gone out on a scrubbed set of tyres – potentially the tyres they qualified on – so the next hours stint will be interesting. There was limited position change during the second hour in LMP1. The non-hybrid Rebellion #13 has now returned to the track and is running 14 laps behind the leaders. Mark Webber got back into the #17 car, which shocked most as Timo Bernhard has not yet been seen in the car. This was always the plan, so it may be a case that Webber did not want to do a night stint. However, the biggest mistake at the closing moments of the hour was Anthony Davidson missing the pit entry, locking up as he tried to get onto pit lane. It was a nervous extra lap for the Brit as he wasn’t sure if he had enough fuel to get back to the pit lane, but luckily managed to pit fine.
47 dropped down the field after the first pit stops but made an easy move around car #26 into the first corner leaving the G-Drive car too much tarmac to defend the move. #28 had a spin as he tangled with some backmarkers, almost taking Olly Webb out of the race as he did. Luckily all drivers were able to continue and #28 brought the car back to the pits for a change of tyres. This saw #28 fall down the order to P7, but managed to get back to P4 in class at the end of hour two.
The LMGTE Pro saw Porsche #91 and #92 fighting for the lead in class. With #91 leading the way for most of the hour there was a little bit of swapping around that saw #92 finally getting ahead and staying ahead. There still seemed to be just teammates fighting in the Pro class, with Aston Martin having faded slightly and now at the rear of the class, but Ferrari not being fast enough to challenge the fighting Porsches at the front. The Aston Martins have begun to get warnings about track limits, with each of the Pro cars being given the black and white flag. It seems to be imminent that the penalties for exceeding track limits will come into play.
The LMGTE Am cars seemed to be getting tangled with the faster passing LMP1 cars. The #50 Corvette tangled with Audi #7 and had a spin just after the start of the second hour. The LMP1 cars have been going off track to pass traffic in tighter areas of the circuit which seems to be causing these issues. Ironically #50 was also nearly in an incident with Toyota #1 but luckily it was only an almost incident. Dempsey car #77 lost the lead to fast attacking Ferrari #72 about half way through the hour, but after the pit stops the Porsche retook the lead.
More pit stops continue to shuffle the order as we go into the third hour. Anything could still happen in the four hours remaining of this endurance race, with track limit penalties and tyre degradation are yet to show there hand in the proceedings, but are highly likely to become active players in the latter stages of the race.
(image: www.fiawec.com)
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