Audi Have The Pace In Damp/Wet Conditions of Hour Three

Oct 11, 2015
3 min read

The third hour started with Mark Webber flying around the circuit and bringing down the gap between him and the two cars ahead. Both Porsches upped their game as #18 made very easy work of the #7 Audi down the main straight to take the lead. But it never had the chance to properly pull away for a lead. The job was made a lot harder for #17 as, two laps later, it looked like Webber had the move done, only for Lotterer to switch back for the inside line of turn one and regain second positions. After a few laps of position swapping, Lotterer pitted for his expected pit stop, freeing Webber to chase down his teammate, who was then five seconds down the road. Things turned to Porsche’s advantage as the #36 LMP2 car spun off the track and brought out the full course yellows just as they began to complete their pit stops. This gave #18 almost a lap lead over the sister car, but with the conditions being on the damp side all of the cars switched to the intermediate tyre. Audi proved that their pace was the best in the drying conditions as #7 caught and passed #17 with relative ease. As of the end of hour three the Audi #7 was slowly chipping into the exceptional lead of the #18, with #17 around four seconds behind the Audi.

The LMP2 car that had lead from the beginning, #36, spun after getting on the power too early, ruining the lead they had built up. But it was car #43 who brought out the full course yellows, trying to use a run off road to get back onto the track only to find the turn was too tight for the car to accomplish and bumped into the Armco barrier instead. The disaster for the two front running LMP2 cars has seen #47 taking the lead in class, with G-Drive #26 having managed to climb the order back to P2. A stellar stint from Sam Bird on the wrong tyres for the conditions saw him limit the damage of their poor start and place the #26 car in the opportune place to optimise on the other’s mistakes.

A small amount of rain fell again towards the end of the hour, but that appears to be all the rain that will fall for the rest of the race. It caused a few concerns about desired tyre compounds but for such a small amount of rain fall none of the teams reacted to it. The LMGTE Pro cars remain to still be lead by the #91 Porsche, still split from the sister Porsche by #51 AF Corse. An annoying race for #71 AF Corse who started on pole in class as they have dropped back to P4 in class.

Porsche Dempsey #77 is currently leading the LMGTE Am class, optimising a different tyre strategy. The past leader of class Aston Martin #96 was overtaken by the sister car #98 with a brilliant move into turn three, taking and holding the inside line. #72 SMP Racing were hit with a twenty-second stop/go for speeding in the pit lane, dropping them down the field and taking them further away from the fight with the Aston Martins and different-strategy Dempsey Porsche for the podium. With the #77 being a pit stop down it is unclear whether the strategy will pay off or if they will have to take that pit stop to make it to the end of the race. Because of this, currently Abu-Dhabi Proton Racing #88 is potentially net P3. AF Corse #83 tried to make a move on the Porsche but couldn’t make it stick, leaving them P4/5 respectively.