Acura lead red flagged Petit Le Mans with over six hours remaining
The No.60 Acura - with Colin Braun at the wheel - leads the way at the Petit Le Mans, which has been red flagged for thunder and lightning in the area. We must wait for a period of 30 minutes without lightning before we can restart the race. The clock continues to tick.
The No.52 Bryan Herta Autosport leads LMP2, with the No.4 Corvette Pratt Miller leading GTD Pro and the No.34 Conquest Racing Ferrari leading in GTD.
Read what's happened so far below, and keep up to date with the race with our team on our LIVE article here.
The action so far
Before we had even got going, Jack Aitken was confirmed as the GTP champion, as starting the race guaranteed him and the No.31 Cadillac crew enough points to stay clear of Laurin Heinrich.
Tom Blomqvist led the field to green in the No.60 Acura ahead of the sister car at the start. The track was damp at the start, with every car on the grid opting for wet tyres.
That was soon changed though, as the track dried very quickly with the field pounding around. For a handful of laps, it was non-stop action for the crews in the pit lane as the entire field came in to swap compounds.
Sheldon van der Linde in the No.24 BMW came out back in front, with an on-track pass of the No.93 and jumping the No.60 in the pits. The two Acura's also swapped positions.
In LMP2, PJ Hyett didn't take his pole position, pitting at the end of the final formation lap with an electrical issue. That handed the lead to Daniel Goldburg in the No.22 United Autosports, swapping that back and forth with Misha Goikhberg in the No.52 Bryan Herta Autosport.
GTD Pro was heavily mixed up, the No.1 Paul Miller BMW of Neil Verhagen led from pole on wets, but when the field all emerged from the pits it was the No.3 Corvette out front. In GTD, the No.57 initially lost their pole, but got back into the lead on the pit stops.
The No.96 BMW was in contention with the No.57 crew for the championship, but a coolant leak dropped them out of the order, and they eventually had to retire with the issue.
Similarly, the No.27 Aston Martin was in third with an outside shot at the title, but they didn't even take the start. They emerged for a few laps multiple times, but issues still plagued them. Nonetheless, they ploughed on.
53 minutes in, a Full Course Yellow was out due to the No.8 Tower Motorsport LMP2 of John Farano which had spun and crashed and altough he got going the subsequent Safety Car provided a prime opportunity for the GTP and the GTD fields to get a free pit stop, with a lot of tyres changed along with some driver-swaps.
When racing resumed Sheldon van der Linde retained the lead from Nick Yelloly and Laurin Heinrich, who thanks to typical Penske Porsche excellence in the pits, jumping the second Acura of Tom Blomqvist.
Though this did not last that long before another FCY, due to the No.2 United Autosports LMP2 of Phil Fayer spinning into the gravel trap at turn 10. It was a brief one though, with action resuming less than 10 minutes later.
Action was interrupted once more a couple of minutes later, with another FCY called due to debris on track, as the No.36 Corvette of Salih Yoluc caught a piece of an advertising board on the front of his car, coming virtually to a halt in order for him to get rid of it. The DXDT car was given a drive-through penalty later on for unsafely discarding the board.
The Acura team spotted that and called both cars into the pits, them entering just before the FCY was called, essentially getting as close to a free pit-stop as it is possible. This leap-frogged them into a 1-2 when the rest of the GTP field came in, with the No.24 BMW also losing out to the No.31 Cadillac in the pit-stop race, thus falling from the lead to fourth.
Once we got going again, the No.04 Crowdstrike LMP2 went up the inside of the No.14 GTD Lexus at turn 6, colliding with the Vasser Sullivan car. The Lexus was given some major suspension damage, having to come in for repairs. The No.04 was given a drive-through for the incident.
Soon after there was an issue for the No.45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan, which was forced to stop on the side of the track with a mechanical issue. That called for another FCY, with a round of pit stops for the entire field.
When we went back to green, the rain returned. It fell heavily in the final sector of the track, slowly following with the rest of the circuit. Some cars jumped into the pits for wet tyres early, others trying to hold out.
The No.37 Intersport LMP2 had an off before the back straight, hitting some advertising boarding which caused another FCY. This was only a short yellow, being so close to the last one, so no pit stops were allowed with cars on slicks on an increasingly wet track.
We went back to green with Kevin Magnussen in the No.25 BMW leading on slicks. He didn't make it to turn 1 before Colin Braun in the No.60 Acura flew by him on wet tyres. The green flag didn't last long though, as the two United Autosports cars collided on the restart.
They were both trying to come into the pits, and spun into each other, getting stuck on the grass on the inside of the final corner. The ensuing FCY turned into a red flag, with thunder and lightning in the air.
As is the rule in the USA, all sporting activity must be suspended if thunder/lightning is detected in the area. So with six hours and 20 minutes remaining the race was suspended, and we will not resume until a strike has not been detected for a 30 minute period.
Comments