This is a great race! One hour to go and it looks like there will be a race among top 4 to the finish. And that's 4 different manufacturers: Nissan (Nismo), Bentley, McLaren and Audi. Good stuff!
I thought it was because someone died at the end of the straight but according to the Mt Panorama website...
"The Chase
Added in 1987, the Chase was added in preparation for the World Touring Car Championship to adhere to FIA rules. The length of Conrod Straight exceeded the maximum length allowed on a WTCC track, and therefore was built to standard."
Yup, I'm sure van Gisbergren (McLaren) was just managing those last few laps. It was exciting to watch the gap shrink when Chiyo (Nissan) turned up the wick but vG's fastest race lap was a full second quicker than the best lap Chiyo could manage in his frantic run at the end so I figure he could have kept him behind.
Endurance racing has gotten more interesting over the years due to reliability. Like one of the announcers said (more or less, I'm paraphrasing from memory) "In the past these races would end with the lead car 5 or 10 laps ahead and we'd spend the last hours trying to think of something to say."
Now the cars are so much much more reliable that no one can assume anyone else will retire and it's like a long sprint race with all sorts of fascinating strategy going on in the background. There's almost always more than one car on the lead lap at the end so there's drama all the way to the end and, thanks to multi-class racing, there's usually more than one race going on.
It's hard to watch a 12-hour race, though. Damn. I would say I'll wait for the highlights reel but I've yet to see a good one. And that's a good sign! When I watch a highlight video after a race like this one (perfect example below) I know it's confusing and even boring because there was way too much good stuff they had to leave out...and that's why I try to watch the races.
