COTA’s Most Dramatic WEC Moments | FIA WEC

Porsche, a bliff off! Off goes Conway! He's going to do very well to get that back. He's completely locked it up, came off everything and got the front end back around. Now, how much of that was luck and how much was good judgment? We will never know. But Mike Conway at the moment is trying to get his heart rate down from about a million. It's just one big puddle through seven, eight and nine. He's completely off the circuit there. And those are slick tyres. It is like being on ice at that point. He did exactly the right thing and just took his foot off everything. That's the 51. That's the EF Corsa Ferrari. The 8 car in the gravel. And that's Nico Lapierre, the leader. He steered out one lap too long. And also down there is one of the Ferraris. That's the 81. The Ankar with Steve Wyatt at the wheel. And here comes the number nine car as well. And the 98. Look at the front wheel spinning, four wheel drive. We've never seen that before because we've not been used to seeing the power being able to be put into the cars from such a low speed. This is carnage out there. I think we're going to get a safety car. This is the end of the back straight. They're going far too fast as the number seven. Both Toyotas are in the gravel trap at the end of the long back straight. And very, very lucky indeed for Mike Conway. He's been off twice in just over three and a half miles. Porsche off as well, John. And the 26 Ligier, there's no grip at all there for those cars on slicks. The Porsches have changed on to slicks. They didn't put wets on, says Luis. And the 20 cars off. And that is Timo Bernhardt. And Timo is very good indeed. It's... This is unbelievable that these guys should make such a bad decision. And now we've got the 61 Ferrari off as well, which is Luis Perez Compact. And he's an ex-WEC, WRC rally driver. He couldn't keep it on the island. In, down the pit lane comes the number two, Audi Evandro Locker, who leads the motor race. Audi leads Launce d'Arlemont, Graham Goodwin. Now it's not so much heating the tyres at turn one, but it's going to be heating the brakes and a lunge from Estra on the inside, really trying to get a run on Alessandro Pierguidi in the lead Ferrari, with Miguel Molina in third. He's defending against Michael Christensen. Yeah, look at Kevin Estra keeping on him into turn one. He's going for it, isn't he? Sending it down the inside. Pierguidi's not going to give up, though. Round the outside he goes. There's contact between the two of them and Estra gets through. Amazing stuff. Was that... Did Molina just get by? Yes, he does now because off is going Alessandro Pierguidi. Does he have a puncture? Come back on. Left front puncture. Or is it a loose wheel? It looks like a puncture because there was contact, wasn't there, between the two cars. He is sitting down on that left front. It won't make sense. Championship leader. Yeah, he can't make it through the right hand corners, can he? It's because of that contact on the exit. Oh, and he's contacted the 83. Yeah, and through comes the Toyota. Now, that's not for position. The Toyota is a long way back, a lap behind. I mean, that was a bit of contact there as well. Surely they're seated from the other view. Yeah. And there is a little nudge on 51 and 83. Look at the guys immediately scrambling, ready for action. Oh, a left front puncture. Alessandro Pierguidi. Well, that is definitely not manipulation of the team of the race order in favor of the 71 car. He has got a flat left front tyre and he's... Oh, and there's the Signatech car. Dear Lord, that was nearly two class leaders off track together. Puncture left front. And that's the number two 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 center. 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. The time on the in lap that he's lost, that's going to be the thing here. Three, Francois. Seven's off. Oh, second place car, Ben Trelaware. This is, oh my goodness, that's one of the faster parts of the circuit. Just towards the end of the lap, coming out of 18 towards 19. He can't find reverse, but the engine's still going. Now he's got reverse. Four wheel drive might help him a little bit there, but he's dug into the gravel hard. This is turn 18. He's hit the wall, John. He's hit the concrete wall there, Graham. That is an unprotected concrete wall. Here he goes, outside of the Ford. He gets clipped by the Ford. Oh, that's a big one. And they're tech pro barriers. And that is... Now, hopefully he hasn't hurt himself there. And that is the race for Audi. Over and out. Well, Trelaware has already... Let's have a look from the outside. That had already happened at that stage. It's the two cars getting together. Is that a 66 again? I think it is a 66. Ford Corsello is going to be coming out in 10 seconds time. Tech Corse did its job, Mike. It most certainly did. Jose Maria Lopez doing his level best not to look up at him. Yeah, he is, isn't he? Back of the Toyota, don't forget, it's on tyres that are now approaching the end of their second stint. He's got another 11 laps to go, though. Oh, and Loggia up the inside this time. Oh, and Biff Baff Bosch, through he goes, up to second place. Lotterer got it done down into the hairpin at 11, squeezed down the inside. But now Lopez is coming back. He's done a boost and he's on the inside and coming back on Andre Lotterer. Won't have the tyre drip as they sort of squeeze it out. Lopez got the car stopped. Very good. Lotterer goes to the exit to try and have a look around. But that's going to be pretty tricky unless Lopez runs wide at this right-hander. Well, fantastic competitive racing between Porsche and Toyota right now. The leader is only four seconds up the road. Not half a lap, not a lap and a half. And fourth place is only six seconds behind them. So our lead four covered by 10.05 seconds. And that could get closer. Very good use of the hybrid boost for Lopez to be able to get himself back alongside Andre Lotterer, who basically got the job done in the hairpin there. Squeezed Lopez onto the rumble strip in the outside. He's got an awful lot of ability. Andre Lotterer looking to go inside and he's got it down this time. Now, can the Toyota boost back on the outside? He can. Fantastic stuff. This is epic LMP racing. I have to say, I thought Lopez was done there. And you could see Nick Danny go, oh God, not again. But Lopez is doing everything he needs to do. But this is the opportunity in the traffic now where Lopez has really got to look left and right. Here's the radio for Lopez. I just can't see, I can't turn, I don't know what to do. They try to increase the slip, try to increase the slip. They try to increase the slip. It's on the traction control, must be something there with the way the systems are acting and they're trying to increase the slip so that it doesn't overreact. But he's got no grip left whatsoever. Here's Lotterer coming down into the hairpins. Something will happen here. And the next car in shot will be Brendan Hartley in the number two Porsche. Number one trying to go the long way around the outside. There is the number two Porsche and Hartley is closing really fast. 150.2 on the last lap. These guys doing a 51.5 and a 51.9. Lotterer this time has got the overlap. Where is the hybrid boost from the number seven Toyota? He can't come back. Oh, a bit of debris falling off the back of the Toyota, possibly. Yeah, no, he ran over it there, but Lotterer boosted. You saw a big acceleration. Then the Toyota boosted afterwards. But Lopez is looking to the inside and he's going for it. They're squeezing up against it. This is superb. But Lotterer has been able to keep it round the outside. And that'll be the job done. I would suspect McDonnell-Lopez doesn't take no for an answer. Andre's going to have to run him off the circuit, I think. Is that a change of lead? Yeah, it is. Yeah, 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 Rayden. 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 track now for those guys? Four straight, yeah, four straight. Well, with 20 minutes to go, if you're there, if you actually take the tyre, you've maybe got to overtake the guy. If you don't take the tyre, you're in the same sort of boat. But you're ahead. Track position's key. And here we see in GTM, the number 90 tries to go around the outside. Is he going to get it done? Yes, he does. Has the inside position here. Good job, Russ, Charlie Eastwood. Russ Gunn to the 90 car now. He's taken over the lead in GTM and has actually stretched it out a little bit. He's got a one and a half second lead now. So, closing stages into the final right handers. Under the tower they come. Just a moment, those fans up on the viewing platform will see the lead two cars. They'll be separated after six hours by less than three seconds. It is going to be AF Corsa into the last few turns. Traffic in front, the 77 Mustang. Schmortsman goes by. The BMW, Sheldon van der Linde, stays out of the way. Checkered flag is out in Texas. It's the first win for the 83 AF Corsa Ferrari. They take victory by under two seconds. Kamui Kobayashi, second for Toyota, and it should be Ferrari number 50, third, four with Antonio Fuoco at the wheel. But Yiffy Ye under intense pressure in the mid-stages and Robert Schmortsman even more so at the close from the same number seven Toyota. Both held on, both held their nerves. And that, along with a great opening run from Robert Kubica, has given them victory. James Collado, I think, finally started to believe that they're going to win this class. Today. Yeah, just that the way he looked up there, almost you could hear the sigh of relief. It's not over until it's over. Yeah, you know, you just need to ask Toyota that about Le Mans victory that was on the last lap after 24 hours, where they stopped right in front of the start and finish line. But it's not going to be this for the two Porsches in the LMP1 category. Oh, my goodness. Do not do that on the final lap. That could have been victory going Toyota's way. They, I'm sure, felt it was under control. However, it is a Porsche 1-2 at the Circuit of the Americas. Lone Star Le Mans, six hours in the extreme heat of the Circuit of the Americas is underway. Antonio Giovinazzi, the pole man, and right behind it, Robert Kubica tucks in. The second of the Ferraris, the red car up the inside, looking for third place. That's a really strong start. Aggressive from Miguel Molina. Lots of handfuls of opposite block from the BMWs. But is Molina up to third? Ferdi Habsburg in the pale blue Alpine down to fourth place. We ride on board with him. He's got one of the BMWs and now ahead of the Cadillac. And everybody through safely and move up into second place from Francois Heriot in the silver Ferrari, right behind Ian James in the Aston Martin. The Lamborghini goes around the outside of the Toyota. Aggressive stuff. Who started the Lamborghini? The 63 car is Edo Mortara. He was really up for the race this morning. Can't quite get the job done. That's one heck of a start for the Lamborghini. He started from the very back of the grid in Hypercar. I think he's passed about six cars in the early corners. Yeah, and a strong start for both the BMWs as well, making positions. But it was Kobayashi, one of the Toyotas, I believe, got pushed out or lost control momentarily through the chicane at the start. And I think that's how he lost out to the Lamborghini, who's now on the attack once again. But it's a three-way, four-way fight. Down towards turn 12 and contact with the Cadillac and the Alpine there. Yeah, the Alpine just turned in on the Cadillac. That's Ferdi Habsburg and he's gone off. Soto has El Bamba and he's back on. But Habsburg dropped back in the 35 car in amongst the Porsches, the Toyota and the Lamborghini. Briefly also off there in that melee was one of the BMWs. Down the inside from car five there. Porsche just getting through on the recovering Cadillac. Leader, though, must repair the rear light at the next pit stop. Does it have another pit stop? Well, that's just something that's came through now on our monitors here that this car must repair the light at the next pit stop. Hopefully zoom in. Yeah, the left-hand light doesn't work. If you look just at the bottom of the left-hand rear wheel, there is no light on the right-hand side. You can see a small LED. And so that's quite a quick stop because they basically with two... Car 36, you only have one rear light. If you stop before the end of the race, you must repair it. Car 36, you only have one rear light. If you stop before the end of the race in the pits, you must repair it. Well, they're not going to, so that's utter irrelevance. The team are just going, yeah, what? Well, then the question is, do they add time to the car's race time? But then how much? How can you quantify what it is to actually do that job? Does he fail post-race scrutineering for not having a light? Yeah, you would do that, yeah. And then so, a 30-second penalty, or there'll be a standard.