Following his coming-together and position losses at the end of the first hour, Wolfgang Reip pitted the #23 Nissan immediately from fourth to hand over to Katsumasa Chiyo. Delays in the stop effectively did away with any remaining chance of a strong result for this entry, but the Japanese driver eventually got back out on track, albeit down in 19th once the order shuffled out after the stops.
“I was catching backmarkers, a Mercedes let me through, then a Ferrari first opened the door and then turned into me,” said Reip after getting out. “I’m really disappointed. Everything was going as planned, the car felt good, it’s terrible.”
Reip’s troubles promoted Seefried, Vernay and Bortolotti into the top three – all yet to make their first stop. Frank Stippler in the #3 WRT Audi was the next of the leading bunch to come in, pulling out from sixth to hand over to Stephane Richelmi. Marco Seefried was next in to hand the #333 Ferrari to Rinat Salikhov. Also in was Maxime Soulet, who’d had a storming opening stint to move from 18th to seventh in the #8 Bentley, handing the car to Max Buhk.
Along with Guy Smith in the #7 Bentley, Bortolotti was the last of the leading group to make his first stop, coming in on lap 31 to hand the #63 Lamborghini over to Giovanni Venturini. But Von Ryan’s decision to pit the #58 650S under the earlier full-course yellow paid off, and it was Van Gisbergen at the wheel of that car who emerged in the lead once the order shook out.
Behind him (42 seconds behind to be precise) was Robin Frijns in the #1 WRT Audi started by Vernay. Third at this point was the Pro-Am-leading #888 BMW – started by Osborne and now driven by Ratcliffe – which had also pitted under the yellow.
The #59 McLaren of Adrian Quaife-Hobbs sat fourth, ahead of Venturini, Richelmi and Salikhov in fifth, sixth and seventh. The #7 Bentley was undone by a broken wheel nut, dropping the car to 23rd with Meyrick now driving. However, the #8 Bentley had no such drama and was now circulating ninth, behind the #75 ISR Audi and ahead of the #6 Phoenix Audi.
Buhk wasn’t long about mounting an attack on Salaquarda in the #75 for eighth, but couldn’t get past straight away. Further up the field, Ratcliffe conceded third overall to Quaife-Hobbs’ McLaren but retained the lead of Pro-Am (the next car in the class was the #22 Nissan, down in 15th). The young Welshman then moved down to sixth overall as the #63 Lamborghini and #3 Audi Pro Cup entries also got ahead.
At the front, Van Gisbergen was keeping the gap to Frijns in second pegged at around 40 seconds as the halfway point of the race was reached, while at the other end of the top 20, Meyrick was pressing on with a recovery drive following the slow Bentley pitstop, getting up to 16th by lap 44. Unseen by the cameras, Buhk had not only got past the #75 Audi, but also the #333 Ferrari to move into seventh overall.
Venturini appeared to be struggling for pace in the #63 Lamborghini and was coming under intense pressure from Richelmi behind. The team therefore decided to put third driver Zaugg in as soon as possible. Elsewhere, Buhk’s next target was Ratcliffe and he was into sixth by lap 46. Also having a strong stint was Stef Dusseldorp in the #99 ROWE Mercedes, who’d started his time behind the wheel outside the top 10 but was up to seventh by lap 48.
Vanthoor, who’d started the #1 Audi now in second place, indicated that the race would now hinge on whether the early-stopping McLaren of Bell, Van Gisbergen and Estre would have to make a splash-and-dash stop near the end, but the team were remaining understandably tight-lipped for now.
Andy Meyrick took the #7 Bentley into the pits on lap 53 to kick off the final round of stops, followed shortly by the #59 McLaren of Quaife-Hobbs and the leading sister car of Van Gisbergen – which now looked easily capable of making the remaining just over an hour of the race on a single tank of fuel.
Stephen Errity
