Is it now game on at the front? Hour 21 saw the lead Hypercar battle liven up after a Full-Course Yellow caused the gap to close between the three Ferraris and the sole challenging Porsche.
Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 963 emerged from the pit lane after taking over from Kevin Estre with a 2.9-second gap to the #50 Ferrari.
At that point, the top three were all within 20 seconds of each other, as the #6’s 27th stop was shorter than the Ferraris and came just as said FCY came to an end.
It caused a stir at Ferrari, as Vanthoor began to close in on the two factory 499Ps ahead, getting within two seconds briefly. In response, the team opted to swap the two cars, letting the #50 of Nielsen pass the off-sequence #51 of James Calado.
The change created a slightly tense moment, with neither driver willing to give an inch, but it eventually occurred on the run down to Indianapolis.
The #50 and #51 are now seemingly working together to keep Vanthoor at arm’s length but also reel in the #83 of Robert Kubica who by the start of Hour 22 was just 11.5 seconds up the road. Can Porsche Penske find a way to claw itself into the top three and upset the Ferrari party? And will the #83 hang on?
Meanwhile, the bottom of the Hypercar classification is occupied by the No. 8 Toyota now, after a 17-minute trip to the garage for suspension repairs following the wheel nut failure to the front-left at the end of Hour 20, which forced Ryo Hirakawa to limp back to the pits. The car is now 19th and seven laps down, out of contention.
The aforementioned Full-Course Yellow was called when disaster struck the IDEC Sport camp in LMP2 for a second time. Job Van Uitert was left leaning over the front of the French team’s sole-remaining #28 ORECA in despair after a wheel came off on the run down through the Dunlop Esses, yet another wheel-nut failure sending a car into retirement.
That cost the team a potential podium, with the #28 relinquishing third place in LMP2 to the AO by TF Pro/Am-leading ORECA.
Adding to the drama in the class, the #22 United ORECA was then spotted running slowly later in the hour, Renger Van Der Zande dropping from fifth to ninth.
LMGT3 remained pretty static, with Richard Lietz holding the minute lead in the #92 1st Phorm Porsche over the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari of Simon Mann. TF Sport’s #81 Corvette runs third in the hands of Rui Andrade.
