COTA’s Most Dramatic End of a Race | 6 Hours of COTA 2017 | FIA WEC

Oh, a left front puncture! Alessandro Prieguidi, well that is definitely not manipulation of the team of the race order in favour of the 71 car. He has got a flat left front tyre and he's... Oh, there's the Signatech car! Dear Lord, that was nearly two class leaders off track together. Puncture left front. And that's the number 2 Porsche gets through. You can't make this stuff up. That's why motor racing is fantastic. One of the many, many reasons. Bits of tyre being thrown off left, right and centre. And the 51 car is going to lose the lead of the race because Michael Christensen's Porsche was 34 seconds behind. They can't do that stop and change the tyre and still come out in front. Oh my goodness! Well, it's the time on the in lap that he's lost that's going to be the thing here. Signatech are in. New rear end going on. They had a minute in hand. That's time to do it. As long as they don't panic and get it done, they will come back out in the lead of the race. And that's what a time advantage on the track gives you. It's got two rear lights. It's good to go. Left front tyre goes on. Where is... This will be very, very close for Prieguidi coming out. No, he's going to hold the lead because now across the line comes Sorensen. There's the Aston Martin with the yellow lights. Here comes the Ferrari in between. Oh no, the Porsche rather. Here comes the Porsche-Toyota in between. And that stops Christensen getting to the Ferrari. Christensen looking to go down the outside. That's first and second. Nine minutes to go in this battle. And Christensen having a look around. Prieguidi's closing off both sides. That was a good bit of pit work by the team, but also for Prieguidi to lose the minimum time coming into the pits. Unbelievable twist in the final 11 minutes of the race brings the lead two cars in GTE Pro within inches of each other. But if the Toyota hadn't been there, Christensen might have had a lunge, which he couldn't because the wretched Toyota was inside him. Yeah, if he hadn't had a puncture on that right foot, then he would have had a 30-second lead if you're Prieguidi. But the question for me is, sorry, left front, why did that left front puncture? I don't know. It was only nine laps old, so unless it was ten laps, so unless it was maybe a cut in the inside edge or something like that from cutting the kerbs too much, I don't know. There's been very little contact, but it's not impossible that there has been a tiny bit of debris that it's just picked up and that has deflated it. Or maybe a valve, whatever. But either way, it's left us possibly with a grandstand finish in GTE. And right behind, the Signatech car that almost went off trying to get around Prieguidi with the flat tire is coming through them again. And here's a battle behind. 31 and 38. Thomas Laurent and Nico Prost. And Laurent has got the run down the outside. It is Thomas Laurent. No, it's not 37. It's 37. It's 37, Alex Brundle. So that's Nico Prost putting a lap on Alex Brundle? Yes, it is. Thomas Laurent four seconds behind and it's kind of stayed that way for quite a little time. This is Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy. Earl Bamber's the car ahead of us. This is Nick Tandy. We're riding on board. This is for the race lead. Crikey. There's nothing happened for about an hour and then suddenly it's lit itself up again, this race. Fantastic. Nick Tandy in the number one car trying to take the lead away from Earl Bamber. He's hove up behind him. Last lap, Tandy, a 53.9. Bamber a 49.6. What? Yes, but I think the 53.9 was the sort of thing there. Why is the 53.9 unless he's let him past that we didn't see? Is that a change of lead? Yes, it is. Yes, I think it's because of the first sector. The first sector was three seconds different between the two of them. Wow. All right, let's hear from the number two and one Porsche. Left-hand side, that's the Porsche. That is Nick Tandy that's there on the left-hand side. And now Earl Bamber has just sailed off into the lead sector one. Right, OK. Switching a position. So that's why Nick Tandy seemed to be closing up when he was actually four seconds slower on the lap. So he had slowed right down to allow the number two car to go by. No team orders at Porsche, they underline. Car number eight again being told to respect track limits. So team radio. Yeah, basically saying switch over. That's what that was. He must have missed a gear on the straight there, unfortunately. Yeah, the problem is it's impossible for the driver to miss a gear any longer. And he's managed to find them. So I think Bamber's just going to run through to another victory. That'll be what, four on the chart now for those guys? Four straight, yeah, four straight.