The 72nd annual Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring boiled down to just a few short minutes of incredibly tense racing and one decisive overtake from Louis Deletraz that gave Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti and Acura the victory in the famous endurance race.
Deletraz, Jordan Taylor, and Colton Herta steered the black and red #40 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 to the win, completing 12 hours of racing in 333 laps – but the final margin of victory was less than a second, from Deletraz to the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R of Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais, and Scott Dixon.
And that was because of the spectacular show that Deletraz and Bourdais gave the tens of thousands of fans at Sebring International Raceway in the final minutes of the race. The gold Cadillac of Bourdais had practically gotten out of jail twice. It had overcome intermittent electrical problems, then worked its way out of a compromised pit strategy once the first of three Full Course Yellows came out in the last 90 minutes of action.
Bourdais was able to hold the initial lead on the restarts but Deletraz would always find a way to reel in the French veteran. But every time he began to catch up, another FCY was around the corner to stunt the Swiss’ progress.
But once the final restart happened with just under 24 minutes left, Deletraz found his rhythm – and began catching Bourdais again. He thought his move would come through traffic at Sunset Bend with nine minutes left – but Bourdais’ defence was firm and unyielding. Deletraz recomposed himself, and with six minutes left, he used traffic to his advantage, made a great run on Bourdais into the Hairpin, then dove down the inside and drew level with his rival.
Incredibly, that wasn’t the end of the fight – Bourdais would keep Deletraz in striking distance, but the Acura wouldn’t be denied in the end, boosted by a set of fresh Michelin tyres and the spirited driving of its young international superstar who earned his first overall win at Sebring.
It was a perfectly-managed race from the #40 crew. Even if they weren’t always at the front – they were never in danger either. Jordan Taylor got his second overall win at the Sebring 12 Hours with his father’s team – with a second different manufacturer – and the ever-adaptable Herta got his first Sebring win too. His father Bryan won LMP2 in 2007, fittingly driving an Acura prototype owned by Michael Andretti.
“We stayed out of trouble all day,” said Taylor. “Didn’t have big issues.
“I think once we were in the top three, a little off sequence with the 01 and the 7, the race was becoming a little bit more clear. But the yellows were falling in funny places. Where we were leading at one point, the yellow reset us to be P3. We knew Louis was going to have to fight for it because we lost the track position.
“Everyone seemed to struggle a little bit to make a move on pure pace. Louis and Ricky kind of showed today – Colton had a bunch of passes, too, if you kind of time it right with some traffic, you can make some moves.
“Louis’ closing stint is what made the difference today. The team did a good job to keep us in the fight. He really fought for that win and got it for us.”
Cadillac’s run of recent dominance at Sebring – three wins in a row dating back to 2021 – ended, but only just, with a second-place finish that makes up for a disappointing retirement at Daytona for the Chip Ganassi Racing team.
“I think the whole Cadillac and Ganassi team did a great job, but it was maybe not as straightforward as we would have liked,” said Bourdais. “We had some electrical gremlins at some point. You saw the car slowing down – I was really worried this was going to happen again.
“I gave it all I had. The 40 car was out of sync and they put new tires on at the last stop and we didn’t because we didn’t have time for that and they just came like a rocket at the end. I’m a little disappointed that it turned into a bumper car contest at the end. I’m glad we got out of it because we could have picked up four or five punctures along the way.
“Obviously disappointed for the whole group and Cadillac because we had a really strong day. It was not as straightforward as we wanted, but up front most of it. It always hurts to get done like this in the closing laps. But it’s racing.”
It’s a much-needed morale boost for everyone at Ganassi and Cadillac on a week when the news of their split at the end of 2024 was confirmed. No one knows what the future holds for both parties when they go their separate ways but Sebring was another reminder of the quality that they individually possess.
Of course, the most shocking image of the day came with four hours and 35 minutes to go, when Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Cadillac collided with the GTD #21 AF Corse Ferrari of Miguel Molina. A slight touch was enough to send the red Cadillac into the tyre barriers, up and over and on its roof.
It was a relief, above all, that everyone – both drivers and the fans standing nearby – was unhurt. But this was a huge missed opportunity for the Action Express Racing team of Derani, Jack Aitken, and Tom Blomqvist – a unit that had the pace to win it all, convincingly, given how Derani was pulling away from the pack with ease before the crash.
Porsche Penske Motorsports’ undefeated streak in 2024 has finally come to an end after the #7 Porsche 963 of Felipe Nasr, Matt Campbell, and Dane Cameron came home third. The #7 crew didn’t make the most of the #01’s strategy and didn’t have the horses to run with the two leaders in those final sprints – in fact, the #7 car spent more of the race fending off challengers from behind than in front.
But it says a lot that third place is now a disappointment after the struggles that this team had to start with in 2023 – combined with a needless incident for the #6 car that took Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy, and Fred Makowiecki out of contention. It’s a sign that the old Porsche standard of excellence is back.
While we’re on the subject of teams that could have had more, the #10 WTRAndretti Acura, the sister car to the winner, was flying before sunset, but the car had internal fluid leaks that needed enough care to knock Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and Brendon Hartley out of contention for the win just as it had risen to the top of the board.
The #10 Acura was sandwiched by the #25 and #24 BMW M Team RLL cars. Connor de Phillippi, Nick Yelloly, and Maxime Martin drove the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 to a solid fourth-place effort, led significant laps, and showed that there is still performance to be found out of the one LMDh that has so far yet to have its great breakthrough.
And the #63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 (Matteo Cairoli/Andrea Caldarelli/Romain Grosjean) finished seventh and on the lead lap in its IMSA debut, which is nothing short of a victory after the car’s troubled debut just a few weeks earlier on the smooth-as-glass surface of Qatar. If it was struggling to cope with that, what would Sebring inflict?
Yes, the car never had the outright pace to win – but it was far from an embarrassment in its American debut. If the worst that could have happened was the door popping open while Romain Grosjean was at the wheel, that’s a high bar that a lot of great prototypes didn’t clear in their first races.
It’s just a shame that the American fans who’ve come out to see the SC63’s first race will now have to wait three months for its return at Watkins Glen – but at the very least, there are more WEC rounds for Lamborghini and Iron Lynx to learn and grow in the meantime.
The finish was even closer and just as dramatic in GTD Pro, where a mad dash from third to first on the final restart from Jack Hawksworth powered the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 to the class win, punctuated with a superb pass into turn one.
Hawksworth’s job still wasn’t done, with the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Daniel Serra trying to claw back the place it had lost at the restart. Serra gave it one last push to the line but the #14 Lexus of Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood took the win by just 0.121 seconds over the Ferrari of Serra, Davide Rigon, and James Calado – the same car that spun across the GTD field on the opening lap!
Rounding out the GTD Pro podium was the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 (Franck Perera/Jordan Pepper/Mirko Bortolotti) which took the spot vacated after the #3 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R was spun out by the #77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R with four minutes left.
Daniel Juncadella was beside himself and Laurin Heinrich took a post-race time penalty for the trouble. The #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 (Madison Snow/Bryan Sellers/Neil Verhagen) would slide into fourth place.
Era Motorsport and Winward Racing completed the “36 Hours of Florida” in their respective classes – an incredible feat to win the two longest and most gruelling races in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
A well-timed final pit stop for the #18 Era Motorsport ORECA 07-Gibson of Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel, and Connor Zilisch gave Zilisch the advantage, and the 17-year-old would go on to take the chequered flag after a low-key drive where Era Motorsport emerged from seemingly nowhere to grab the LMP2 victory – again.
The #11 TDS Racing ORECA (Steven Thomas/Mikkel Jensen/Hunter McElrea) finished second – but not before McElrea’s extraordinary move to take the lead earlier in the race – while the #22 United Autosports USA ORECA (Dan Goldburg/Paul di Resta/Bijoy Garg) completed the LMP2 podium.
Huge kudos are also due to the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier JS P217 (Lance Willsey/Joao Barbosa/Jonny Edgar) which not only survived but finished an incredible fourth place in class!
From the back of the GTD grid after the car failed post-qualifying scrutineering, the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje drove on to the GTD win at Sebring.
It was close at the end here as well, but the #57 Mercedes of Ellis held off the #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 (Roberto Lacorte/Giorgio Sernagiotto/Antonio Fuoco) by 0.646 seconds to take the top spot.
After getting collected in a first-lap incident, the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche (Adam Adelson/Elliott Skeer/Jan Heylen) finished third in GTD, ahead of the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Roman de Angelis/Zacharie Robichon/Ian James).
More to follow…
Feature image © Jake Galstad / IMSA; additional images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com
