eRacing Magazine Vol 2. Issue 10 | Page 46

Marc Lieb seized the advantage into turn one, but swiftly slipped into the role as rear-gunner for the championship-leading number 17 Porsche. His timing however was slightly off as Andre Lotterer split the pair, making contact with Lieb and sending him out of contention.

As this transpired, Anthony Davidson made good use of the Toyota Hybrid’s prodigious wet-weather cornering to jump up to fourth ahead of the sister-Audi.

Disaster struck early for KCMG, with Nick Tandy losing the rear of his Oreca chasing down the leading in LMP2. He managed to remove himself from the gravel, but had a lot of ground to make while Alex Brundle began to hassle the G-Drive pair on his WEC return with Pegasus Racing.

As a dry-line began to appear, the LMP1’s intermediate tyre performance began to slip, with the Porsche’s able to handle the crossover better than the Audi’s. When Brendon Hartley eventually pitted, he was able to emerge without losing his lead in front of both Audi’s, with the #18 Porsche now back in contention in fourth position.

G-Drive were holding station in 1-2 for LMP2 and were pulling a gap on the number 30 Extreme Speed entry of Ryan Dalzeil. After Porsche Team Manthey made an early grab for the lead , Davide RIgon began to stamp his authority in the championship leading #71 AF Corse. All the while the AMR entry of Richie Stanaway began to settle into the damp conditions with the heavy Aston Martin Vantage V8.

Toyota chose to keep Anthony Davidson in for a double stint without changing tyres, showing that neither tyre would survive a double stint in either conditions. The roll of the dice for the Japanese squad not turning out as they’d hoped.

A spin for Danny Watts in the Strakka entry brought out a full course yellow, enabling those who fell down the order to regain a few positions, however as rain began to fall once again, a switch to full wets was required.

The big winner was Alex Brundle, who made the switch early and closing at a pace of six seconds a lap on the leading LMP2 #28 G-Drive entry. His run was cut short however, with an off for the number 13 Rebellion bringing out the safety car once more. In