It only took two races into Manthey’s first season of IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup competition to add its name to the list of teams that have won in the series, but it was always a matter of when the German super team would first find success in IMSA.
Manthey’s GTD Pro class win at Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring adds to an ever-growing list of major endurance race wins and championships, from the FIA World Endurance Championship and DTM, to the 24-hour races at Le Mans and the Nürburgring. A lot of that success came with a bright green-and-yellow Porsche of some variety, a car now known in the sportscar racing community as “Grello”.
Two years ago, young Swiss driver Ricardo Feller won a fog-shortened 24 Hours of Nürburgring, driving for a rival team. In doing so, they had to go through Grello to win it, not an easy task when Grello has a record-tying seven overall wins at the ‘Ring.
At Sebring, Feller became part of the car’s legend. “It makes me very, very proud,” he remarked, about giving Manthey and Grello its first IMSA victory. “Grello is something special among all the Porsche cars. Every Porsche driver wants to drive it. Of course, if you win a race with it, it’s already great.”
IMSA fans know all about AO Racing’s dinosaur siblings, Rexy and Roxy, who’ve collectively won races, championships, and the hearts of fans young and old in just three years since they first hatched onto the scene. Fittingly, Roxy was Grello’s closest challenger all race, and the two Porsche GTD Pro teams finished 1-2 in class.
“And now this is the beginning of a new chapter for the Grello in the U.S. That’s the first victory. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last one,” Feller proclaimed.
“It’s not so easy for a German team to get all the people here, to get all the equipment here, to compete against teams that know the structure in IMSA, which is kind of very different to what we’re used in Europe. It’s not so easy to compete against them. I think the team did a great job with that.”
Along with the strong crew of engineers and mechanics, it also helps to have an experienced co-driver like Klaus Bachler, who, all of a sudden, has become a contemporary maestro of Sebring’s notoriously harsh and jagged roads. With his victory, Bachler has now won the Twelve Hours of Sebring the last three times he’s entered it, and with three different Porsche teams – first Pfaff Motorsports in 2023, then AO Racing last year, and now Manthey.
Bachler, who also won the inaugural WEC LMGT3 championship for Manthey in 2024, said: “I mean, I’m really speechless. I really hoped we can win this race after a tough Daytona, I have to say.
“I had such a good feeling going into this week. In the end, it worked out: We were fast when it counted. We had the car, we had zero problems. I mean, really reliable everything. Perfect stops. Perfect strategy. Both of my teammates drove really brilliantly, zero mistakes.”
This was the first win for the newest 992.2-generation Porsche 911 GT3 R in IMSA, and it echoed the original 992 GT3 R’s first IMSA win at Sebring in some ways, mainly as an antidote to a difficult first outing in Daytona for both versions of the GT3 R. Though, while Pfaff’s 2023 Sebring victory was the result of a miracle fuel save aided by several full course yellows, Manthey (and AO Racing, for that matter) had exceptional race pace all throughout the day.
It looked for a while as if the win might go to Roxy and AO Racing, until Manthey’s 2023 DTM champion Thomas Preining stepped forward in the closing hours of the race.
With 90 minutes to go, Preining – who’s made a reputation for daring overtakes in his DTM heyday – overtook AO Racing’s Harry King around the outside of turn one, just seconds before Jenson Altzman’s mighty crash at the exit of the same corner brought out another yellow.
“I got him at the restart with one and a half hours to go in Turn 1,” Preining recalled. “After that, I knew we had a fuel or energy disadvantage. I had to go all in. Every lap was a quali lap until the last pit stop.” He then went on to reset the fastest lap of the race in class multiple times, quickly opening a seven-second gap before the final round of pit stops.
As great as Manthey’s win was in GTD Pro, it could have been a double victory. Manthey’s #912 Porsche in GTD had a car capable of winning the race, but was taken out due to a collision with the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW with 30 minutes to go. That alone was a painful blow for Manthey, and the ensuing yellow that came out put Preining at risk of being overtaken when the race got back underway.
“I think the safety car would have been quite painful then, but everything happened in the right way for us at the end,” said Preining. “We were able to play our cards really well. We needed a quick car, which we had.”
In the end, Manthey left Sebring tied for first in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro standings, though the team won’t be running at the sprint rounds. Instead, the #911 crew’s focus is on the Endurance Cup – where they’re now second in points with a three-month gap to the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen.
The 1st Phorm-sponsored GTD entry will also be hungry to bounce back from the disappointing end at Sebring, as well. The rest of the field in IMSA’s GT categories has been put on notice: Manthey is here, not just to make up the numbers, but to conquer the biggest endurance races in America as well.
Images courtesy of Jack Webster & IMSA
