Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the full 2023 race in stunning HD and without cuts. This milestone edition marked the return of legendary manufacturers like Ferrari, Porsche, and Cadillac to the Hypercar class, delivering an unforgettable showdown of technology, endurance, and passion. Witness every dramatic moment, from night battles to rain-soaked strategy calls, in one of the most historic races ever held at Circuit de la Sarthe.
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#EnduranceRacing
#MotorsportHistory
#HypercarEra
#FerrariVsToyota
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#LeMans2023
#24hLeMans
#EnduranceRacing
#MotorsportHistory
#HypercarEra
#FerrariVsToyota
#LegendaryRace
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SportsTranscript
00:0024, 25. Yeah, so that is in Indianapolis. It is 88. It is Jonas Reid, the son of Christian Reid, the team owner of Proton Competition.
00:13Oh. That was a pretty hefty hit to the barrier. Lots of debris to collect as well for the Marshalls. So yeah, the slow zone is coming.
00:22You carry a lot of speed through the right-hander there and you have to get rid of it before the left-hander, which is a lot slower.
00:30Driver change in the 50 car. And that is currently... Hang on, where have they dropped down to? Why am I not seeing that?
00:43Am I looking down too far and not up high enough? I was just looking at it out as we watched the Ferrari 50 in the pits there.
00:52I'm looking right across Ant and he's looking left across me. We should each look at the opposite screen.
00:59So I'm looking at the circuit map, so you'll be pleased to hear this time around that Car 8 and 51 are unaffected by this slow zone that's just appeared into Indianapolis this time around.
01:12So that's going to be even Stevens for them. No winner or loser.
01:17Oh, dear. That's a very slow stop for the 50 Ferrari. They're getting tired. It's their first 24-hour race as opposed to test. Miguel Molina bringing the car in.
01:31I think that's Antonio Fuoco taking it out. You can't quite see the helmet as he got in.
01:37No, I think that's Molina in. No, that's Nick Nielsen in the 50 car. Slow zone is now in place. This is on the run into Indianapolis.
01:48Yeah, so Car 8, our race leader, is Brendan Hartley coming out of the second chicane now.
01:55Oh, the GR Asia car very late, accelerated out of Molina corner, had not been told by the team of the slow zone and it suddenly flashed up in his periphery and on his dash.
02:07Big lock-up of those rear tyres. And those are the things that gave you a penalty going into a slow zone too fast.
02:20Interestingly, just listening to that gear shifts on the Ferrari, every time they upshift, you hear momentarily it harvests some energy.
02:28Or maybe it's deploying when it goes through the gear shift, going up through the gears. I think it deploys, yeah.
02:34It will be deploying, I guess, because there is a momentary bit, even in a flat shift, where it's not at full revs.
02:42So, although the engine will be at full revs, it can't be transmitting all the power because you've got to change the gear somewhere so there's a little brief burst to keep the power up to maximum.
02:54Keep momentum going, yeah.
02:55Keep momentum going, yeah.
02:56You know, if you think of, if you think of, oh yeah, Jonas Reed.
02:58Oh, that was a big one. That was a big one. If you think about it in your road car, you know, if, when you push down the clutch and change gear, even if it only takes half a second, if you have sensitive electronics, that half a second, it can drive you along and replace that gap with the hybrid power.
03:23That's exactly what they're doing then, isn't it?
03:25Yeah.
03:26Yeah, so in between that moment.
03:27And then, so you've still got full drive as well as full throttle.
03:31Because you're not allowed to boost on top of, when I say boost, I mean the hybrid power of the battery, you're not allowed to have an additional boost on top of the internal combustion power.
03:44So when you're changing gear and, I suppose they're clutching in this car, you're not allowed quick shift in these, in this category of racing.
03:53Now, see, that's what you see inside the car. And that's where the slow zone starts. So it comes up where, when you're in the previous Marshalls post sector, it comes up next slow.
04:07That means you are in the deceleration zone and you must be aware of where it's going to be. Now, if you're coming down to Mulsang corner, you're breaking down anyway to the slowest part of the track.
04:19You know, it's not there. So when you start to turn the corner, accelerate out, you know, it's going to be in front of you.
04:26There's really no excuse for missing that and breaking late. That was Ricardo Pera in the GR racing car, just pushing on really hard, trying to close on the lead group.
04:38I think it's a rule that needs tweaking as well. The more I think about it, the more I think the next slow, I think it has to disappear.
04:51But you have to have the warning, otherwise people will get to the ATK line doing 200 miles an hour.
04:59That's exactly what we do anyway. And that's what caught out Kobayashi in the cars behind.
05:06Yeah. Driver is a driver reacting to the next slow, thinking they're in a slow zone.
05:11And they slam the anchors on. Yeah. Or slowing down in the next slow zone, not for the line.
05:18Yeah. And that's how Kobayashi is not in this race anymore. Yeah.
05:22Because he did the right thing by not overtaking the car that slammed the anchors on in the next slow.
05:28That's the difference between 100% pro and some of the other drivers.
05:33So if you think about it, we're used to seeing the orange board.
05:41Oh, hang on. He shouldn't have done that. No.
05:45He released it to it. Do you see that? Yeah.
05:48He released the full course yellow button too early before on ours.
05:53You can still see on his dash it said yellow, slow zone. So, yeah, that was an error.
05:586 o'clock in the morning. We have just under 10 hours of racing still to go here at Le Mans 24 hours.
06:07Martin Haven and world champion Anthony Davidson watching the action with you wherever you are.
06:12Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good grief. Is it really that time?
06:16Let's hope that you've got a little bit of time to spend with us towards the end of what has been so far an enthralling and captivating Le Mans 24 hours.
06:26Well, actually, we talked to Ibsen president John Doonan about the beginning of a golden era.
06:32He said, I would argue this is the beginning of a platinum era of sports car racing.
06:36Actually, I think there's probably quite a lot of mileage in that as hyper car really comes of age here in the centenary Le Mans.
06:43And Davidson, we just saw from the on boards there, the light coming into the sky.
06:49It's starting to really become daylight now. If you look to the east, it's still quite dark.
06:56But in the west, the sun is still soon going to start creeping over the trees, over the horizon.
07:03It's six o'clock in the morning in the middle of summer. You know, the birds are tweeting. It's it's daylight.
07:10Tomorrow is here. Yeah.
07:13So the 33 Corvette heading out into the growing light. There is a slow zone down from Mulsan corner to Arnage because of a high speed incident at Indianapolis for young Jonas Reid, the teenage son of Christian Reid, the Proton competition boss.
07:39The 88 Proton Porsche coming at speed from the right hander, the early part of Indianapolis.
07:46And then it looked like dropping a wheel on the dirt on the right hand side there.
07:50You can see the marshals there sweeping up the oil. So I wonder whether he had an oil line leaking onto the tires.
07:58You would assume then he would not have made it around the right hand part of Indianapolis.
08:03Whereas in fact, he didn't make it around the left hand side.
08:07I think that area there being so close to the left hander, he had already hit the barrier.
08:13And maybe it's when he hit the barrier.
08:15That's when the whole load of oil and fluid spewed out of the car.
08:19Yeah, look, they're very deep into the corner.
08:22And that's pretty much real.
08:24You can see the time marks hits the barrier to the right.
08:26And then, yeah, all the fluids would have been pouring out of the car.
08:30Looks like the car in the right hander maybe carried a little too much speed in.
08:34And then the car's trying to spin and he's trying to brake.
08:37And then it's off into the barrier.
08:39It's so easily done.
08:40It's one of those corners where you have to lift off and sort of roll into it.
08:44And you can gain lap time by pushing that limit a little bit through the right hander.
08:50But the key is for Indianapolis to straight line the braking zone.
08:54If you carry too much speed through the right, the chances are you're going to have to start slowing down as you're still turning right.
09:01And that puts too much energy through the rear of the car.
09:05And it becomes a big pendulum basically.
09:07And that's what I saw happen in that moment.
09:10Yeah, especially in a 911.
09:12Oh, yeah.
09:13Historically, they've always had that.
09:14It's more of a mid-engine car than a rear-engined car now with the engine not hanging out behind the gearbox.
09:21It's ahead of the gearbox.
09:22But still, mid-engine cars, if you change your mind, they tend not to like it.
09:28We've got a good race on our hands here because the Ferrari, certainly through the nighttime,
09:33has had a little bit of a speed advantage over the Toyota that we're watching on screen now.
09:37The sole Toyota remaining in this race after Kobayashi was unfairly wiped out of the running,
09:44doing the right thing, not overtaking a slower car like we were just saying,
09:48that it slammed the anchors on in a next slow zone rather than the actual slow zone.
09:54Kobayashi didn't overtake the car and the punishment was cars coming up behind him,
09:59not expecting the car to be going so slowly.
10:02Absolutely.
10:03In this part of the track here, actually on the exit of the S's,
10:07slammed into the back of one of the GT Ferraris.
10:11That then in turn hit Kobayashi and then on top of that, it was like a double-pronged attack.
10:17He got hit again by one of the LMP2 cars, the 35 LMP2 car, the Alpine, and was out of the race.
10:26Yeah.
10:27So, but we've got a race in our hands with the remaining Toyota because the Ferrari is slightly faster on pace.
10:34The gap's gone down from 44 seconds to 41 seconds with nine and a half hours remaining.
10:41And most of that gap is because the Ferrari chasing the Toyota arrived at the scene of an incident where the Toyota had got through and there hadn't been a slow zone.
10:56The Ferrari hit the slow zone. It was a short one, so it only lost 40 seconds, but only 40 seconds is a heck of a lot.
11:04You have to be a lot faster per lap for a lot of laps to make up that 40-second loss.
11:10And that, unfortunately, is just slightly the luck of the draw.
11:14There's the number seven garage door shut at Toyota.
11:17Number seven one remains open.
11:19But, yeah, it's going to take a long while to get that 40 seconds back, especially against Brendan Hartley,
11:26who is definitely, or has so far this season, been the real strong force in that number eight Toyota trio.
11:34Well, I mean, not to, yeah, I don't want to, I agree with you for the majority of the season, but this race, particularly at the very beginning,
11:43Buemi put in a stellar performance to properly hold his own.
11:48We're going to see another shot here of the cargo now.
11:50He went a little bit wide in the beginning, carried a bit too much speed, got slightly off the cambered part of the road over the crest.
11:58There's like a crest there, and he went off a little bit too wide. He didn't hug the inside enough.
12:03This could be a long fix because they need to repair that barrier.
12:05Yeah.
12:06He'll be desperately disappointed, Yannis Reid.
12:09There's Thomas Flohr, his 54 Ferrari.
12:12The Kessel Racing car leads, but the 54 AF Corsa car is in fourth place.
12:18Dabody Regan has just stopped and remained in the car.
12:23Gunnar Jeanette in fifth place in the Project 1AO car remained in the car as well.
12:27And the performance of the GTE Am cars seems to vary sometimes.
12:33Sometimes one car will sort of be relatively common at the top of the pile, cycling up and down, up and down with pit stops.
12:41And then it'll sort of fade away a bit.
12:43And that tends to be depending on whether you've got a platinum, a gold, a silver or a bronze driver in the line-up.
12:50And in GTE Am, you have to have a bronze and a silver driver.
12:54You can then have a gold or a platinum.
12:56And so it depends on the relative pace of who's in at what time.
13:02Each of the graded drivers has to do a minimum based on their license status.
13:09And nobody can do more than a set maximum.
13:12But it's where they race against each other that will make the difference.
13:16Del Rio's first chicane, it's still wet off-flight of the first chicane.
13:23Turn 8x10.
13:24Copy.
13:25Just take margin there in the beginning.
13:27Which is exactly the message that we heard two stints ago.
13:32Seb, have you got any words for Brendan?
13:34Yes, stay on the racing line, stay on the racing line in the first chicane, it's still wet.
13:39And that was an hour and a half ago.
13:41And we're now looking at him, exactly the same message to Rio Hirakawa, who is clearly going to take over.
13:48Well, not immediately.
13:50He's got still 40% energy left to use in the car.
13:54So that'll be, well, maybe three more laps.
13:57But just, yeah, you know, Rio's clearly suited up.
14:01Got the headset on, probably not yet got his helmet on, but listening in.
14:05OK, what can you tell me?
14:07And that's the message, basically.
14:09Car seems to be good.
14:11Sebastien Boemi was sort of chasing his set up a little bit as the night came towards an end and the track dried out.
14:18Brendan's much less vocal on the radio.
14:21At least we hear much less of him on the radio asking about changes to set up.
14:25Seb's always trying to nurse the car and chase the car.
14:29Brendan, maybe less so, maybe we just hear less of it.
14:34But again, passing those messages on.
14:36And Anthony, you know, when you're in the car and you've been in it for an hour, an hour and a half or whatever, you've got a really good feel for the racetrack.
14:43And you want to pass as much of that knowledge on as you can without trying to do it in the doorway of the car in the frantic nature of a pit stop.
14:52That's what sports car racing is all about.
14:54You're sharing that car with two other drivers and you want to, like you say, pass on all of your experiences to the driver eagerly waiting to get into the car, but also build them a picture of how the track has changed.
15:09I mentioned when I was on the mic earlier on, earlier part of the race that, you know, when you're out there, you're building this picture yourself and that the track is an ever-changing thing.
15:21And you follow it when you're in the car.
15:24And when you're out of the car, it's like you're missing part of a movie.
15:27You're then trying to catch back up on.
15:29And somebody's trying to basically fill in the missing pieces before you get back in or get watching it again.
15:36And so, yeah, it really is filling in those pieces.
15:39Right. Yeah, look, the wind direction has changed.
15:41The car's now got great grip through Tetra Rouge, where the Ferrari comes flying past now.
15:47And then, yeah, first chicane, still wet on the outside, stick to the racing line.
15:51Don't touch the curb on the inside.
15:53It's basically like passing on rally notes almost to the next driver getting it.
15:58And you sit there listening to it all, thinking, right, okay, right, yeah, okay, got that.
16:03And you're trying to drive a lap in your mind before you get into the car.
16:07And it really does help.
16:09And part of being a sports car driver, it's also part of being part of a professional outfit like Toyota or Ferrari,
16:17any of the front-running teams up and down the different categories that we have here.
16:24And it was something I always tried to do as well.
16:27Particularly in the latter part of my career, driving at Jota and Dragon Speed when I drove with Roberto Gonzalez,
16:36amateur driver, silver-graded driver.
16:40And the more you could help him, the more you could help the AM drivers, the faster your overall car crew would be.
16:47And they almost took even more.
16:49You needed to push that along even more.
16:54And I would almost give an entire debrief on my in-lap quite often as exactly what the car was doing.
17:01So braking into Mulsang Corner.
17:03Car feels good.
17:04Keep the car straight.
17:05On the exit, a little bit of instability.
17:07Don't touch the curb there.
17:09You know, stones on the approach to Indianapolis on the outside.
17:14Stay inside into that corner.
17:16And I would do this as I went through my lap.
17:19Bring it into the pits.
17:20And Roberto would be there listening.
17:23Look at this.
17:24Look at this barrier repair going on.
17:26This is going to be a long time.
17:28Well, a lot of the time you see the big grinders in because when the barriers bend, the bolts aren't necessarily coming out very easily.
17:36So you normally have to grind the nut off, hammer the bolt out, then put in a new barrier and then it will bolt back together.
17:44Friar would be thinking, you know, I know there's nine hours, 40 minutes remaining, but they're thinking, come on, the longer it stays like this, there's less of the racetrack that we can make inroads into that gap that Brendan Hartley's got over us.
17:59We want the track to go full green as quickly as possible.
18:03We want the horse to tie his race but clearly the все-n git button, they will almost end his ehm so we can't recognise the riders, but there that is.
18:09Now the scallops.
18:13Erl Bamba attacks the Dunlop cicane up and over the crest of the Crest into the SC's.
18:18He's driven a fantastic race, all of them have did a fantastic race.
18:20Richard Westbrook as well, he shares the card with them of course and Alex Lynne, a stellar performance through the night.
18:25St độ performance through the night stints and they're still up there in P3 and podium position at this point.
18:31and one of the joys of the hypercar class being so large is not just that we've got lots of good
18:39cars so we've got a stellar array of drivers you've got some really fabulous sports car drivers
18:45a lot of whom have been racing consistently but not in the world championship they've been racing
18:50in the imps of weather tech series across the atlantic and we haven't seen a lot of them and
18:55now more and more manufacturers turning up here at le mans means more and more of the stars that
19:00we know and like and love you know we can we can watch them in action to battle here in lmp2 that's
19:10the third place car duquesne engineering's nicola pino and the man who started on pole position
19:16in the car that he had qualified on pole polo chatan for idex sports a number uh 28 car in
19:25uh beg your pardon number 48 car in fourth place where did 28 come from 48 car in uh fourth place
19:32yeah great stuff in lmp2 as always here we have the graphics at the bottom of the screen
19:44idex like you say with that driver on board chatan was on pole position a fantastic uh lap but uh
19:52gone are the memories of that moment for him i'm sure right now yeah i don't i don't think you think
19:59about qualifying the moment the race starts do you no i think i you know i always said that it was uh it
20:05was a nice thing to uh flex the muscles about who had the fastest lap in qualifying but it it rarely
20:11translated into any you know into anything when it came down to race day the last man who set the
20:19fastest ever qualifying lap martin uh mark blundell martin brunnell mark blundell that didn't translate
20:26that well into race i'm afraid for the uh nissan r90 ck it was uh it was not a great race for them
20:36down to 41 seconds now the ferrari versus the uh the toyota started at 44 as we keep an eye on that
20:46these guys have just come into the slow zone that takes you towards indianapolis
20:52there's the jota number 28 that just uh yep passes by
20:56that is not on the same lap as their way down now lmp2 drivers yeah jota have had a
21:04a p8 in there lmp2 they've had a bit of a tough time haven't they they are actually two cars back
21:15on the road robin frines in their wrt car number 31 is in seventh place as you can see on the timing
21:23column on the left hand side the car robin in the depths of a double stint at the moment vector
21:31sport have sort of slipped a little bit down the order they were actually in the top two or three
21:36in the early hours of the night time that car now down to ninth place in lmp2 car number 10
21:43ryan cullen is at the wheel of that car ahead of the af courser car which had problems early on ben
21:51barnico is still the pro-am leader though in 10th place overall in lmp2 ahead of algarve pros james
21:59alan that is second in pro-am and the cool racing car number 37 is 15th or overall or 15th in lmp2 and
22:09that is third in the pro-am class
22:11out of the exit of our nation already shaping up to have a go at the decaying engineering car of nico pinot and as they go green there's the line
22:28you can only act or deactivate the full course yellow button on the line and immediately trying to get some temperature back into those good year tires
22:38well the fact of it as we saw from an on board earlier is you can deactivate it any time you like but you will get a penalty if you do it before the end of the day
22:46we're still waiting to see that by the way
22:48maybe he didn't over speed that much but uh yeah this battle continues uh p3 p4 and uh tire warming slash stroke trying to break slipstream weaving around
23:01right at that low speed there's not a slipstream too broken so he was just trying to make sure he had enough heat in the tires because the neck width
23:09once you were going though didn't it down the whole street once you leave our nage what's the next big challenge
23:14turning into the porsche curves you don't want to find out your tires are a bit cold there do you
23:20because then you don't turn into the porsche curves you turn into the barriers he's made a he's made a real
23:24pig's ear of that final chicane though and that's opened him up for shatan to have a look down the inside into
23:30turn one but he hasn't quite got the momentum but it was uh he left himself a bit vulnerable there
23:36very hard to overtake in an lmp2 car around this track you often need the help of some slower cars that
23:43you have to work your way past and again shatan getting the drive out of the dunlop chicane
23:48tries to stick his nose down the inside into s's but uh nothing doing there the slow cars or faster cars
23:57often will will sort of duck in between two rivals it's going to be possible between these two but they
24:03are kind of glued close together you're going to if you're if you're a hyper car you're going to want
24:07to take both of them or neither and you see that natural separation with the uh the aerodynamics
24:12taking play through the s's and through tetra rouge so the lmp2 car they almost seem to get affected
24:18more so than the hyper cars in that uh in that area so uh yeah a bit of turbulence it's not much
24:25but it's just enough to uh take away that immediate threat down into uh say the first chicane like we
24:30have here you can close back up in the slower corners in the higher speed corners that that
24:35separation starts again good morning gentlemen yeah graham yeah the young chilian there not uh let
24:41himself be intimidated by the much much more experienced pole sitting remember uh paul of
24:47shatan yeah paul had a great run in qualifying and the team were an absolutely berserk their first
24:54world endurance championship pole position pole position at le mans in the class i mean that is an
25:01epic result for this small french team paul of shatan has been part of this setup for a long time and
25:08actually his full-time job is with them as an engineer rather than as a driver uh paul with a solid
25:15engineering background employed by it exports uh not just as i say for a skill behind the wheel but uh with a
25:22variety of um absolutely true absolutely looking at me saying what an engineer he is he's an engineer
25:28a bit like uh mark lieb correct yeah i didn't realize head of sport communications i think at
25:36porsche now mark lieb yeah but that's a revelation to me there graham you
25:42look at that knowledge walking in completely jaded having turned up apologies 25 minutes late
25:48you didn't watch all of last year's all access programs then did you oh no because they're so
25:55much better the full access this year so that's why i should be watching this year definitely what's
26:00that there was a there was a feature in uh in full access last year in the id export team so
26:09full access yeah the uh the series that's put together mini there's like documentary from uh
26:17fly on the wall isn't it uh after each race after a week or so goes by
26:24you see it on youtube just just youtube full access is absolutely brilliant the inside story
26:32from a from driver's point of view team's point of view all of the all of the the the juicy moments
26:40that happen from a human aspect in in racing throughout the weekend or a long race that
26:49we have here at le mans and it really gives you that insight the full access that we have within
26:55weck um a little bit like the drive to survive on on netflix it's a little bit like that but uh
27:02like i say a little bit more a little bit more human it tells the human side of the story and uh
27:08i i i find it i find it fascinating i've loved it this year their longer version is usually 30 35
27:15minutes long uh easy to digest and it really gives you uh such a good insight into what goes into the
27:24race an endurance race from yeah i i love them so uh yeah i'm sorry i didn't watch them uh much last
27:30year but uh yeah this year's i found them just easier to follow and the other thing to say is that
27:36those programs are longer why because the fans wanted them longer yeah and i think you're right it
27:43suits the format far far better and incidentally if you are a fan of sports car racing and if you
27:50weren't i think you may well be after you've watched a bit of le mans despite my witterings um
27:57the fia world endurance championship and the motorsport network have just launched this weekend
28:04the latest fan survey now they've done this with formula one before in the fia and they have in fact
28:10done it with world endurance in the fia before paulo shut down trying to nip a little inch on the
28:15corner there and nico pino right on the ragged edge as he got to the uh to the line uh clearly
28:22they're not going to need those tires again but yeah you can uh you can partake in the next few
28:27months in the fan survey and tell people what you'd like and and actually if you want more content if
28:33you want longer content if you want more explanation if you want more stuff about the teams and drivers
28:39they've demanded now this is a team effort right here so the two drivers been going at it the whole
28:46time desperate for the 10th era 10th there playing cat and mouse with the turbulence like uh like i
28:52mentioned before now the team effort comes into play who could turn these cars around faster and we often
29:00see a bit of separation between the lmp2 teams we're having a replay of this moment as they both came into the
29:06pits there is uh pino and uh behind him chatan just desperate to catch a little bit of extra distance
29:16but actually ended up losing because of it going off track momentarily or off pit lane uh just popping up
29:24by the way on something scoring 10 seconds added to the next pit stop of car 41 that is was the uh the
29:31leader lmp2 yeah causing a collision with car three and mp uh marshall's post 35 now that's the caddy
29:40don't think we saw that marshall's post 35 is the end of the ford chicane that is uh into the final
29:48element of it robert computer is on pit lane now or just actually off just left yeah so i suspect that
29:54penalty has not yet been served it will be next he took he took it over from robin primes so somewhere
30:01in that so robin's had a uh some kind of biff hasn't he well he hasn't had a biff he's biffed the number
30:07three caddy because obviously if any bad luck is going anyway it's going number three cadillacs way
30:14because they have had a tough time enough already but that car is in fifth place renger van der zander
30:18at the wheel you said that was the 41 car though yes 41 wright is the 31. i beg your pardon so yeah
30:27right yeah that's right no prices sorry robin uh yeah no price is still in the 31 so who was in the 41
30:35kubitz is in there now but uh he's just taken over
30:41to the lead by the way back to the lead and i don't want to miss this moment because it's quite
30:45been quite an astonishing day for the 34 inter-europol competition car yet again
30:51consistency and speed and fabio sharer who which is a name i seem to have been saying quite a lot this
30:58season um into europe hole 11th place overall um and have been circling around first and second place
31:08for where are we now uh this is well i'd say seven or eight hours we'll get not we're getting close to
31:15uh 14 hours 15 hours into the race um it was new deletras who handed over to robert kubitzer
31:24in the 41 car so deletras too had an instant with somebody i don't think we saw it well
31:29it was you did well done we didn't it was well if it was the caddy
31:34it was number three car was the one that we were told he'd made contact with well that uh ten extra
31:40ten seconds to the next pit stop cycle will not drop it from its second position in class but what
31:46it is going to do is to very much hurt it what is basically a battle around strategy
31:55with the inter-europol car which is on pit lane now
32:00so they're pretty much but within a lap on the same fuel strategy at the moment we'll see what the gap is
32:06going to be this is going to cycle back to the 41 being in the lead in lmb2 quick check of all the
32:13tires there you see the uh one of the tire engineers from goodyear with a torch out studying all four of
32:21them yeah the thumbs up at the back of the car there as he walks off fuel going in new tires are sitting
32:30there ready and uh they were there just as a precaution so uh yeah that's why that's why you
32:36saw the uh the guy from goodyear walking around just check in before you send the car back out there
32:42on the same set of tires through the rfid and back out onto the racetrack so yeah really strong effort so
32:52far from inter-europol you know this is particularly fabio sharers he's driving with a broken ankle
32:57you're kidding me broken foot oh you don't know either no his foot was run over by the corvette
33:03we saw him hopping around the car in the driver change i cannot imagine oh by the way that 10 seconds
33:11is going to hand the lead back to inter-europol if positions are retained the gap as the 34
33:17car leaves pit lane and crosses the first timing beam is about three and a half seconds so that 10
33:23seconds could cost them and i'm on so the irony the irony here is swiss driver fabio scherer in the
33:30polish sponsored and entered car is chasing polish driver robert kubitzer in the in the belgian entered
33:38car for the need of this race no scherer i'm sure they said his foot is broken
33:45and it probably feels like it has been run over by a racing car well i saw him hobbling to the car
33:49graham and i thought yeah what's he done just hobbling around a little bit of a joke with martin he said
33:55oh no he's he's broken his foot i said oh it must have been an old injury then and he's carried through
34:00le mans but you know that must be uncomfortable driving the car like that he couldn't bear
34:04any weight on his left foot and i said yeah he apparently it happened during this event how on earth
34:11is he functioning at this level uh the other quick thing to say by the way uh the thought that's
34:16going to just occurred to me if you're polish what the heck do you back here in lmp2 and absolutely
34:23without question he's an absolutely massive star in poland but boy oh boy these guys need to turn
34:28their attention to what's going on here with this team that is based uh in their homeland the fan base
34:35around robert committee's is phenomenal it's honestly it's huge uh but yeah great that uh that the polish
34:44team is uh doing the business and they've had they've been here a long time in lmp2 plodding away
34:51uh trying to perfect things and they come here with a great driver lineup and uh and a car that seems
35:00to be right on the pace all the time so yeah share up at the wheel at the moment clearly it's phenomenal
35:09dry i'm sure he's having to right foot brake i was saying to martin earlier on i'm sure he's a left foot
35:13breaker naturally but i'm i'm convinced there's no way he'll be there but uh oh big shot for the
35:21number 18. oh no another one we've just seen jonas reed about half an hour ago wrecked the car in
35:28indianapolis that's why the barrier repairs are going on and this is the number 80 af course a car
35:34there's a pro-am leader and that is well it says ben bonica that's not ben's helmet
35:42bent's got a yellow helmet did something break there
35:45it's not the first and won't be the last accident that we see that it's not beginning of the porsche
35:53curves that was a high speed off and that car is unlikely to go much further it is i'm sure it's
36:01ben barnacote well that's well that's francois perodo so it ain't francois that's for sure i swear ben
36:07bonica it's got a yellow helmet there is some yellow on it has he got a tribute livery on it of some kind
36:18oh if that was driver aero men would be absolutely gutted with himself
36:24i need to see another shot of it but it looked like the car just didn't respond very well over
36:29the bumper tool and the rear almost as if something on the right rear broke it was it snapped around that
36:34quickly and it happened very early on in the corner as well there's a lot of spark under the car as
36:39well that is ben barnacote's helmet we have got quite substantial slow zone now from mulsanne corner
36:47all the way to our nage and through the porsche curves there was a brief one at the exit of the
36:52first chicane as well on the mulsanne but that is being withdrawn but as you could see from the power
36:58the energy remaining number eight toyota is due in 51 ferrari is due in cadillac will be due in a lap
37:05later and that is ben barnacote and that is the end of the race for the number 80 af course at lmp2 car
37:15high speed impact with the barriers you can see how much the barriers are there to protect drivers and
37:21their cars from the concrete walls that part of the track has been a graveyard let's look oh came in
37:29sideways he was losing it all the way in there i don't know you know what's it again
37:40oh he has a look down the
37:42hit the curb hit the curb and back oh he was in the traffic wasn't he and he had a look to the inside
37:49and that put him off line but he wasn't on his usual racing line as he committed
37:54to that second left oh ben
38:00so easily done just yeah he's just wrong line that was the problem yeah he had a look
38:06and you feel you just you feel that responsibility right there and then you know you've got the the
38:12the paying driver of perodo who you're driving for you feel that responsibility and you've just you've
38:19you've let you've let them down and it happens to it can happen to the best drivers out there ben is a
38:27he's a remarkably good racing driver and uh he's driven a great race today but um
38:35um is one just it goes to show one moment we get it wrong and the whole race is thrown away
38:44well i mean you know ben has been a winner francois perot has been a winner a championship
38:48one of four times as the uh total by the way comes uh into the pit lane but
38:53francois too knows what one moment can do to ambition here for himself and with corvette of course
39:00uh last year he'll know that feeling it won't make him any less less disappointed leaders are
39:06both in you saw brendan hartley in the number eight toyota and into comes alessandro pierre guidi
39:13there's quite a lot of cars coming in in fact because you can see the garage 56 entry the 24 chevy camaro
39:22and uh one of the clicking houses in 708 the 93 purge of jean-eric van is in as well
39:30fresh tires going on we've got the new i would imagine still gonna be a soft it's not that warm
39:39outside has that camaro had a single major don't even start oh why would you say don't even start
39:49there you go we're in the in the back something like that not what i've been on there have we seen
39:54clearly actually is the pit stop everywhere else the door opens the drivers change in the camaro
40:01there is no opening door they climb in and out the window like the dukes of hazard yep burglar style
40:13why am i really struggling to see the the the graphic on that that tire i'm sure i'm assuming it's just in
40:19the wrong place there's only one little tab it's only a couple of inches wide and if it's not
40:23if the tire's gone on with it at the bottom and we're not seeing it in the shot we're just not
40:27seeing in the shot five seconds added to the next pit stop time for the number six porsche
40:33that will be was a pit stop infringement one would presume in the pit stop they've just had yeah
40:39and it tends to be the last one we found out about for uh one of the cars was that all of their
40:46mechanics were not back behind the white line before the engine was started and it will be some
40:51relatively trivial thing change of lead for well it's not the lead yet for lmp2 but oh no it is
40:57it is the lead this is it is the lead fabio scherer no it's not change is it because robert kubitzer was
41:02ahead of fabio scherer was in the lead uh show was in the lead before the pit stop cycle uh the 41 car
41:10uh took the lead through that pit stop cycle but has gone but it's got a 10 second fabio scherer was
41:17chasing robert kubitzer unless he passed him no unless he literally a lap ago unless he passed him
41:23and then he's been re-passed he was chasing kubitzer 41 led yes pitted shearer then led for a lap
41:32ah okay uh we've then had the two pit stops which we didn't really lead the 40 which is waiting for
41:38the stop the 41 was then dealt a 10 second penalty at its next stop yeah and sharer uh emerged in the
41:45pit something like four seconds back so in very short order he's pulled back almost four seconds on the
41:52formula one race winner and is putting the nose up the inside there just to remind him he's there and to
42:00remind everybody watching uh this the driver chasing has done that with a broken foot putting
42:06the nose up the exhaust pipe of robert kubitz's wrt car as much as we're you know been singing his
42:12praises what he did did there in the in karting i don't think that's in the spirit of being in a slow
42:18zone i'm not sure i mean it's by the book nothing wrong but that's not the spirit of the slow zone almost
42:24making contact why is the slow zone there exactly it is it's the use one thing you absolutely do not
42:31want the slow zone is another incident and he almost hit him there yes you're not allowed to put your car
42:37alongside in the slow zone but don't forget that they are on a limiter button they are not doing it
42:43with their foot so some teams and we've talked about this before will go closer to the limit and if the limit
42:51is 80ks some cars some teams will try and set it at exactly 80 some will give themselves maybe a
42:58kilometer an hour or maybe two of leeway just so they don't incur a huge penalty for a tiny advantage or
43:08lack of disadvantage in the slow zone so if one's doing 79 and one's doing 80 behind it and they're only
43:16a quarter of a car length apart anyway then you are going to see that gap close because they're so
43:22dramatically tight yeah you'll see the gap close definitely and uh it's frustrating when uh 101 laps
43:30have they not been able to get the rear tire off that car
43:35that can't be right but the right rear is shown as to having done 101 laps compared to the 50 on robert
43:43kubitz's car seven hours 101 laps around an eight and a half mile circuit has he got a broken foot
43:53and a left rear wheel that won't come on a right rear wheel that won't come off i'd love to know if that
43:59that can't again to do now make him drive blindfold so what eight stints is what 14 12 laps 13 laps
44:07yeah it seems unlikely that he's done 101 laps bearing in mind that the leader has only done 196 laps
44:28that's literally half the race yeah let's ignore that we're going back to that slow zone bit you know yes
44:35okay there would be some discrepancy between speed to cars but it still doesn't mean you could make
44:41contact with another car or shove it down the inside just because another team's being a little bit more
44:46conservative with their speed limiter you're in a double waved yellow safety zone safety zone and
44:53you're nearly making contact the problem is the danger in removing the limiter is the car immediately
44:59lunges forward because you've still got your foot on the throttle no but they release the limiter
45:04after karting but if he's closing on him and he's worried about that what does he do if he takes his
45:09foot off the throttle you lift off the throttle does it make enough difference yes it does you lift off the
45:15throttle so many times it happens so yeah here we go this is for third this has been a long time coming yeah
45:23well nicky opinion has done a great job in holding up portlux shut down young chilian driver yes chili
45:30and uh why has he got the uk flag gb flag who big big on the graphic that would be incorrect it would
45:40be incorrect yeah yeah not chichester but chr yeah or or uh finally gets the job done can't think of
45:49anywhere else that starts with ch in the uk briefly off the top of my head but no he's from chile not
45:54from the uk he is came so achingly close to the lmp3 title oddly enough with into europon last year
46:01and had contact from another car in the last 15 minutes of the season the cost of the title
46:07took some character to come back from that he was absolutely gutted i'd like to know how he got that run
46:13on him down into the second chicane because uh there was no way he was doing that earlier on
46:19i wonder if there's a small mistake there or whatever but yeah you can see so you know sharer
46:24has caught up to the back of kibitzer putting under a lot of pressure but because of the the turbulent
46:30wake coming off the car in front it is really hard to overtake an np2 so i want to know how uh how
46:37shatan was able to uh get that run coming out of the first chicane towards second one things have
46:46calmed down just a little through the uh the latter part of the darkness hours you went and said that
46:54did i did and we can say that because we're not on the darkness hours anymore it hasn't really calmed down
47:00in mp2 or in gcm or in the overall battle there that we haven't seen a lot of passing but there are
47:08some very very tiny gaps in the battles good morning everyone and good morning to you jensen you've just
47:19jumped out of the number 20 the number 24 how was that simp for you you look happy it was good yeah
47:26um it's been uh it's been a fun race for us it's new for most of the team you know doing an endurance
47:32race uh and obviously we've been trying to play as safe as we can with when it rained and not getting
47:38off the rain tours too soon so we we put ourselves a lap down compared to not really our competition
47:43but the gtes um and i think we're either second or first i think i ever took the leader and we were
47:49leading for a lap or so so i mean we're not competing but we kind of are um and i think we were 28 overall so
47:57i think that's pretty good um you know for us it's it's about being consistent giving the feedback
48:03to the drivers and uh yeah the car's really fun to drive it's it's really good fun and you're in a
48:08class of your own but as you said it's still a competition to you guys isn't it as racing drivers
48:12yeah and also you know the gt category you know outright pace over one lap they're probably not quite
48:17as quick but it's very close once they've turned their engines up in the race um but it's the consistency
48:22it's a lot more difficult with this car um and also our pit stops are a bit longer um so yeah it's a
48:29lot of things that hurt us but then there's certain things that help us a lot and it's such a great
48:34job by the whole crew you know it's this is a big deal for them and um as you can see most of them
48:39have taken a rest behind us so we won't talk too loud but uh yeah it's the first thing that had to
48:43do a 24-hour race and it is an incredible one to be at you know the centenary of le mans and how
48:49how much has it been to you yeah it's great you know i think uh for everyone involved it's a little
48:54more special anyway but to be the 100th year and we've got a nascar stock car here which is just
48:59hilarious really but it's definitely a fan's favorite it's definitely my favorite um but no it's a great
49:06atmosphere it's been a manic race the weather's been so random and uh it's made for definitely
49:12a classic as if from a driver's point of view it's it's tough out there there's a lot of incidents
49:18changing conditions it makes it really difficult and it was hard earlier on with the changing
49:21conditions but we know as fans how good you are in the wet weather are you maybe hoping for a little
49:26bit of rain later or are you hoping for it to stay dry no you know nascals don't drive in the wet so
49:32you know we've developed a tie for the wet but we haven't done anywhere near as much
49:35testing as we would apply it um and i think we're five ten seconds off uh the gt cars uh with our
49:41wet tire and it's just uh yeah fine in the grip but this car is quite difficult it's got a lot of
49:46body rolls so in the dry as we know where we are wet is a little tricky all right well i think you
49:50deserve rest just like you were cunning thank you thank you uh thank you steph thank you jensen button
49:56lots going on during that let's just catch up with some of it into your polls pavye ashera took the lead in
50:01lmp2 from team body rt's robert kubitzer and this is lead battle uh big palm battle for fourth place
50:08in gte am with ort's amad el harti just hanging on ahead of gr racing's ricardo perra very strong run
50:18here for the 86 and the 25 great pass by the way and putting away uh the interior port car that lmp2 battle
50:25is coming together beautifully ricardo perra put the car off the road early in the race making up for
50:30that with a nice move down the inside into fourth place uh indebted to adam weller who has dug around
50:38in the interweb inbox for hashtag footloose fabio news the official word from uh fabio i'll read it
50:47out i'm lucky the foot is in one piece it could have been worse it's okay for normal driving but i
50:52feel it in slow zones i don't want to know if it's broken or not now i just want to drive and win this
50:58thing so far so good the pace is good and we all do a good job we're in the fight for the win says hop
51:04along there's there's uh there's some there's some big stuff going on in that car and and to be
51:11perfectly healthy and to be driving the way he is against a driver of the caliber of robert kubitz uh
51:17is entirely admirable and to be doing it with one foot tied behind your back and the caliber of the
51:23team as well exactly wrt i mean it's uh there are no slouches when it comes to the speed of setting up
51:31an lmp2 car and uh both the driver and team fabio shira into eurovol fantastic effort i mean they've been in
51:40the mix in the mix throughout the season in the wc this is where these are both full season wc cars
51:46this is a double points wc race less we forget and this is not just important because it's a
51:53it's for a race win not just important not just important because it's the win at le mans but this
51:58is double world championship points and as things stand at the moment uh the inter-europort competition
52:05team do not have a route through to the world championship in 2024 they don't have a hypercar
52:11program they're not a gt team lmp2 will be leaving the wc uh for next season because frankly there is
52:17not room for it and this is a massive result uh in the build here for the racing makers
52:24looking at rio hirokawa our race leader in hypercar that gap to pierre guidi behind him seems to be
52:34coming down it's now at 13.9 seconds
52:40what a magnificent race this has been i just wanted to refer back by the way guys to uh
52:47that uh interview steph with uh jensen button just the edge of fatigue in jensen's voice coming um but
52:54uh the i thought the most hilarious thing there was it's like you're standing in the doorway of the
53:00garage at the le mans 24 hours um now i know how apocalyptically loud it can be on that pit straight
53:08and he's sort of saying we better keep our voices down because the guys are sleeping it's like basically
53:15asking it's like putting a rag around the drumstick when you're sitting inside the drum
53:19can i just point out also that the loudest noise at le mans is their own literally their own car as it
53:25goes by every lap and pulls into the pit so yeah i mean those guys have beat jimmy johnson's actually
53:31done the the majority of the drive or more driving in that car than than the others have so he must be
53:37feeling pretty tired as well all sorts of entertaining stuff going on rio hirokawa uh is not now 19
53:44seconds he is not a great deal uh inside or outside 10 seconds ahead of the chasing ferrari of alessandro
53:53pierre guini here's the delayed 94 car had a big crash just as dart was starting to turn to light
54:00gustavo mes was putting it hard into the barriers in the first chicane after the rain had cleared away
54:06but it was still a bit wet offline hence the repeated uh assertations from the number eight toyota team to
54:13the incoming driver to stay on the racing line especially in the first chicane anthony and uh so
54:19far that has served them well yeah i mean like jensen was saying as well really tough conditions so
54:26many incidents out there and uh it has been a game of survival if you could get through unscathed and it's
54:34often the case here at le mans if you as a driver if you just back it off sometimes although it goes
54:41against every grain in your body every instinct you have as a racing driver if you back it off you
54:47you get to the end of this race more often than not you think i could have just driven at nine tenths or
54:53even eight tenths of my effort and i would have been guaranteed a podium i just stayed on the track but
54:59when you're out there doing it you you feel like you have to be pushing like everyone else is and
55:05and when you see it all unfold and you see that picture at the end of it all and you go yeah oh i
55:11shouldn't have been racing flat out at that moment in the race against so and so because look where they
55:16are now they ended up having a car problem they ended up throwing off the track you know and it's
55:21you see it at the end you go it just it just wasn't worth it i could have just ended in a much better
55:27position if we weren't the ones that people were saying oh you know they had a bad bad time at some
55:32point in the race but hindsight's a wonderful thing and actually part of the reason that other people
55:36throw us off the track is because you are going at 11 tenths and putting the pressure on them and that's
55:41what motor racing is it's not the slowest who wins it's the first to the flag it has been a proper
55:48race of attrition and jensen summed it up beautifully well there didn't he just you know it is tough for us
55:52particularly in the rain in that car because it's not designed to to drive in the rain and uh
55:57as well on top of that saying because of the lack of body roll yes the car has that it becomes
56:03mechanically very unstable and uh you rely on that as a driver you you feel the car moving around it's
56:10one of the cues that you rely on as a driver to know where the edge of grip is and him saying that
56:15it's so stiffly sprung that when it's in on the wet tires that i've lost that feeling so it makes it
56:21w r particularly for jensen who's who's you know every spidey sense twitches in those conditions
56:27so well just a little quick mention for uh an artist called jason fong who you will find on the
56:36internets uh jason is again uh creating one new painting every hour of the 24 hours of le mans race
56:45and he is uh selling those off to uh for race against dementia to receive a proportion of the sales
56:52so uh go and have a look for that online and see if you can help contribute again looking at this
56:59battle we are just approaching seven o'clock in the morning we are getting down to the nine hours to go
57:05mark and we are fast approaching at the end of lap 199 and uh so i beg your pardon now lap 200 as
57:14toyota still lead from ferrari they lead but that gap is coming down thick and fast it was two seconds
57:21last time around it's been a second faster in alessandro pierre guidi's favor for the last four or
57:27five laps that i've been watching and pierre guidi is bringing that number 51 car back to the front of
57:34this race after that initial moment that he had in this very chicane coming up here in wet conditions
57:40a car spun in front of him he's kind of spun in sympathy ended up in the gravel momentarily
57:46he's now redeeming him redeem redeeming himself put my tongue back in
57:52very much so because the gap's now down to 10.3 seconds it's coming down quickly isn't it
57:58it is michelle gatting on pit lane in the iron dames car that's uh bringing in second place in gte am
58:04and that will be another place gained in the overall order by the number 24 uh camaro uh cl1 that was the
58:12final uh really interesting part of the mindset i i got from uh steph's interview with jensen by the way
58:18is they're measuring themselves against the gtm field they were talking he was talking about we're
58:23third in the order now uh so that's that well that's what's motivating them yeah yeah and we
58:28if you remember guys we had this conversation very early in the races what what what are you doing what
58:33are you measuring yourself against second in the order it is absolutely absolutely right and you know
58:39that that for me the way i watch a race at this stage things are tending to happen quite slowly you're
58:46tended to see people working a gap and i'm sure that must be motivational for the uh the garage 56
58:54you've always got to be you've always got to be racing someone absolutely wear something and uh you
59:00know to to to motivate so to make it fun as well yeah gaps front and rear that it's that kind of thing
59:06it's how am i doing against my perceived competition and even though they're not in the same category
59:12doesn't matter it's just your closest it's what's in comparison what about here what about next what's
59:17next what's next what's next what's next what's the gap i'm attacking and you know you're measuring your
59:22own performance but it's a lot easier i'm sure a lot more fun if you're measuring your performance
59:28against somebody else i mean unless you know let's not kid ourselves that car should be way faster than
59:34the gt's because it's so heavily restricted that barn door it's got strapped to the rear of it it's
59:40it's not a wing it's a gurney flap so it's basically it's a drag it's it's their sole purpose is to
59:48slow it down yes it's not there to create downforce so it's just a losing situation is is there to uh to
59:56make sure they're not
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