Just like last year, everyone else in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has left the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring asking one of two questions: Can anyone stop Porsche Penske Motorsport? Can anyone stop Felipe Nasr?
Nasr, Julien Andlauer, and Laurin Heinrich followed up their victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona win two months ago with a victory at this year’s 74th annual edition of the fabled Twelve Hours, replicating what Porsche, Penske, and Nasr achieved last year when they last swept the so-called “36 Hours of Florida.”
It’s Porsche’s 20th overall win at Sebring, a milestone which extends the German brand’s record of Sebring success, and it came with Roger Penske serving as the race’s grand marshal.
Only in the first couple of hours did their chances of victory seem as if they were at risk; Nasr picked up an early drive-through penalty for an incident with the privateer #5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche. Mired down in last place after an hour and 30 minutes, it only took one spark to turn things around.
That spark was a spirited charge from Heinrich – in only his second IMSA GTP start for Porsche Penske – to go from ninth on a restart to the lead in less than 20 minutes. Nasr, Heinrich, and Andlauer would then go on to lead 241 out of the race’s 343 laps.
The #6 car of Kévin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor, and Matt Campbell was never far behind and even took the lead late, finishing a close second to complete a 1-2 finish for Porsche Penske. Both factory cars wore special liveries in homage to the 1996 Porsche 911 GT1, a car that also brought about the first collaboration between Porsche factory sports car racing and Mobil 1.
With 65 minutes to go, Nasr and Estre had swapped the lead a few times in the final few hours, on track and in the pits – but it was a high-risk pass from Nasr up the inside of Sunset Bend (turn 17) that ultimately gave the #7 car the lead for good. He’d hold on after a final restart with 17 minutes left to secure the win by 1.515 seconds.
With Heinrich parting ways with the #7 Porsche until Motul Petit Le Mans in October, Nasr and Andlauer will carry a 100-point lead in the GTP Championship into the upcoming Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 17–18.
Once again, Cadillac would breach the podium – this time, after a gutting DNF at Daytona, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and Will Stevens would get third place after Taylor overtook Cadillac Whelen’s Jack Aitken with a little over ten minutes left.
(Update – The No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing V-Series.R has lost its podium finish at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring after failing post-race technical inspection).
Inspection revealed that the #10 Cadillac of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and Will Stevens had exceeded the maximum allowable camber angle permitted by the tyre pressure limits implemented for the event. As a consequence, their car has been moved to the rear of the 11-car GTP field, scored in 21st overall.
Cadillac will still get a car on the podium as the #31 Whelen Cadillac of Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Frederik Vesti has been moved up to third place. The #31 team remains second in the GTP championship standings, now 80 points behind the winning #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963.
In addition, the #912 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 R has been moved to the rear of GTD for a minimum drive time violation, now scored in 54th place overall and 19th in class.
Riccardo Pera drove two hours, 38 minutes, and 11.220 seconds fell short of the three-hour minimum drive time. This is despite the fact that the #912 car was not running at the finish, and Pera was in the car when it retired with around 35 minutes to go.
Aitken led the first hour, but the #31 Whelen Cadillac would take fourth place after spending most of the race as Porsche’s strongest challenger. Their early challenge was blighted by a pit-lane collision between Vanthoor and Bamber that left the Cadillac worse off than the Porsche.
Acura and BMW each had muted days; fifth and seventh-place finishes for the #60 and #93 Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06es, respectively, and a sixth-place finish for the #24 BMW M Team WRT Hybrid V8, despite a late spin into the tyre barrier. WRT’s second car, the #25, was taken out of contention after a sketchy rejoin from the GTD #70 Inception Racing Ferrari left Marco Wittmann with nowhere to go early on.
Aitken and Bamber sit second in GTP points, followed by Porsche’s Estre and Vanthoor (-101), and BMW’s Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde in the #24 car. But Bamber will have to miss Long Beach due to his WEC commitments in Imola, leaving Aitken to carry the Cadillac Whelen challenge in his absence.
How did United Autosports USA make up for the disappointment of Daytona? Finishing 1-2 at Sebring certainly helps.
The two United ORECA 07-Gibsons finished just half a second apart, as the white #2 car of Phil Fayer, Mikkel Jensen, and Hunter McElrea came through for the victory. This trio’s hopes of winning Daytona were crushed in a bizarre first-lap, first-corner collision between Fayer and TDS Racing’s Tobias Lütke.
After an early 60-second stop-and-go penalty for entering a closed pit and taking more than what was allowed under emergency service, Fayer, Jensen, and McElrea were able to get back on the lead lap and eventually into the top three.
Still, the #99 AO Racing “Spike” ORECA was the dominant LMP2 for most of the day. But when the #52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen car lost its right-rear wheel with two hours left, “Spike” was badly caught out due to the timing of the full course yellow and had to take an extra pit stop.
Jensen then overtook Tower Motorsports’ Tristan Vautier for the lead on a subsequent restart and held off teammate Paul di Resta in the final hour to secure his first win for United Autosports, along with McElrea, who came over in a package deal after years of endurance success with TDS Racing.
Di Resta, Daniel Goldburg, and Rasmus Lindh came home second in their blue #22. And Vautier, taking the place of his countryman Sébastien Bourdais, proved to be a more-than-capable replacement in the #8 alongside Tower Motorsports’ regulars John Farano and Sebastian Alvarez.
Goldburg and Di Resta’s runner-up finish gives them the LMP2 championship lead, a narrow three-point lead, but one they’ll hold until June – as the class doesn’t return until the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.
The #18 Era Motorsport car finished fourth, ahead of the Rolex 24-winning #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR car in fifth, and the #99 AO Racing car of PJ Hyett, Dane Cameron, and Jonny Edgar in a disappointing sixth. Kurtz and Quinn are second in the standings, ahead of Fayer and Jensen.
Porsche’s brilliant 1-2 overall finish was mirrored by a 1-2 finish in GTD Pro, led by the first-ever IMSA victory for world-class, world-travelled, world champion team Manthey and the famous “Grello” 911 GT3 R.
Thomas Preining, Ricardo Feller, and Klaus Bachler grabbed the GTD Pro win in the #911 Manthey Porsche, in only the team’s second IMSA enduro effort. “Grello” was strong throughout the day, taking the lead for the first time before the end of the first hour, and leading at the end thanks to a blistering final stint behind the wheel from the past DTM champion Preining.
A string of fastest race laps for Preining helped him break clear of the #77 AO Racing Porsche; ironically, a late retirement for Manthey’s GTD #912 car erased the margin that was building, but on the ensuing restart, the Austrian kept the gap stable.
AO Racing’s Nick Tandy, Harry King, and Alessio Picariello finished a close second in the “Roxy” colours. It makes up for a disappointing Daytona debut for the new 992.2-spec 911 GT3 R, where neither team had strong pace. At Sebring, the two teams combined to lead 257 laps – 130 for “Roxy”, 127 for “Grello”.
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, carrying special liveries to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, finished third and fourth – with the #4 Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg, and Nico Varrone ahead of the #3. That’s not a bad return in Milner’s 20th Twelve Hours of Sebring start.
The #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO followed up its Rolex 24 win with a fifth-place finish for Connor De Phillippi, Neil Verhagen, and Max Hesse. That top-five was enough for the #1 BMW to retain its championship lead.
De Phillippi and Verhagen will be back in action at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, defending what will be a 30-point lead over Corvette’s Milner and Catsburg. Manthey’s crew has the same number of points as Paul Miller, but they won’t be back until Watkins Glen.
Sebring promised much for the #14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3, but a puncture and a loose left-front wheel took the pole-winning Lexus out of contention.
And after taking on three drive-through penalties, including one with 40 minutes to go, the will of Antonio Fuoco would not be denied as he took a thrilling GTD victory, alongside Simon Mann and Lilou Wadoux, with a last-lap pass for the win.
Fuoco, Wadoux, and Mann had the pace to dominate the race, and their path to victory was cleared, but with three and a half hours to go, Fuoco collided with Ben Barker’s #64 Ford Racing Mustang GT3, not in its class, and actually received stacking drive-throughs with the second coming for having too many crew members over the wall.
The #21 Ferrari fought its way back to the lead, but another cross-class collision between Fuoco and his WEC Hypercar co-driver Miguel Molina gave Fuoco another penalty, which surely seemed like a death blow to his hopes of victory.
Instead, the final full course yellow handed Fuoco a lifeline. He went from sixth to second and closed right on Tom Gamble’s #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, keeping the pressure on until Gamble lost control for just a moment in turns 11 and 12, enough to open the door for Fuoco to drive through on the final lap.
It’s the second IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup win for AF Corse’s trio in three races. Gamble, Eduardo Barrichello, and Zacharie Robichon finished second in their Aston Martin, salvaging a good result for Heart of Racing after the #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie in GTP had its race compromised by mechanical trouble.
In the last two laps, the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche went from fifth to third to take a podium finish, a good way for Adam Adelson, Callum Ilott, and Tom Sargeant to bounce back after Adelson’s violent crash at Daytona. The #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO finished fourth, while the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari fell from third to seventh on the last lap.
Because AF Corse and Lone Star Racing have committed only to the Michelin Endurance Cup, Heart of Racing and Barrichello’s leads in the GTD standings are effectively 131 points over the next-highest full-time car, the 13 Autosport Corvette, which finished sixth in class.
Behind them, the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG was taken out in a three-car accident in the first quarter of the race, which also took out the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari. Russell Ward and Philip Ellis fell to sixth in the standings, but will have time to regain ground starting with the next GTD round at Long Beach.
More to follow…
Featured image courtesy of Porsche
