Porsche Penske Motorsport kept up their momentum from Daytona as Felipe Nasr assumed control Saturday (March 15) as the sun set. From there, he was able to hold on to win the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring with teammates Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor. It is the team’s second straight victory after winning the Rolex 24 at Daytona overall in January.
For Tandy, the victory gives him overall victories in five of the biggest endurance races in the world. Back in January, he became the first driver to win overall in the 24-hour races at Daytona, Le Mans, the Nurburgring and Spa.
“Just mega job again. A one-two finish!,” Tandy said after the race. “We can look down on our pit stand and see all the people down there that made the effort. It was a Porsche Penske perfect run. Just like Daytona again. We’re just in that right situation. Exactly, first overall win here. It’s mega, but it’s teamwork.”
The No. 7 Porsche’s margin of victory was 2.239 seconds over teammates Matt Campbell, Kevin Estre and Mathieu Jaminet. Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Alex Palou, Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly were third in their Acura, then Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti. BMW M Team RLL’s Robin Frijns, Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann were fifth.
BMW M Team RLL’s Dries Vanthoor started from the pole and immediately ran into trouble. He led the opening laps, but was penalized less than 10 minutes into the race for changing lanes on the initial start of the race.
Before he could serve the penalty, the race’s first full course caution came out for a collision between Era Motorsports’ Tobias Lutke and AF Corse/Pecom Racing’s Luis Perez Companc. As penalties can only be served under green, Vanthoor was forced to charge from the rear of the field.
When Vanthoor stopped, Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr inherited the lead with teammate Mathieu Jaminet giving chase. Tom Blomqvist was right there as well.
Further back, Wayne Taylor Racing’s Ricky Taylor struggled early on with a stuck throttle that dropped the No. 10 Cadillac back to 12th. 55 minutes into the race, the issue cropped up again. This time, it resulted in Taylor getting into the back of Triarsi Competizione’s Charlie Scardina, something that Taylor ultimately denied.
Scardina spun his Ferrari in turn 9 and went hard into an unprotected concrete wall. He was ok, but out of the race. Taylor was assessed a stop-and-60-second hold for the contact.
Confusion in regards to the opening of pit road resulted in a split strategy that eventually gave Aitken the overall lead. On Friday, the team had electrical issues that prevented them from setting a time in qualifying. As a result, the team effectively had an extra set of fresh tires for the race.
For the rest of the daylight hours from there, the race was between Action Express Racing and Penske Porsche Motorsport’s No. 7. Action Express Racing had the better of the Penske Porsches for most of that time.
Under yellow at the end of the ninth hour, trouble struck in the pits. A regular round of stops saw Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Tom Blomqvist collide with BMW M Team RLL’s Philipp Eng. The result was damage to the suspension on the pole sitting BMW and steering damage to Blomqvist’s Acura.
Eng ended up going behind the wall for repairs, eventually returning 31 laps down. Blomqvist was able to get his steering fixed on pit road and lost only one lap before resuming.
Once the sun set, Nasr was able to pull away from Jaminet and Bamber. A 12-second lead was wiped out by a full course caution due to a tire casing on the Uhlmann Straight with 45 minutes to go.
The yellow put Jaminet right on his rear wing with Yelloly in third. However, Nasr was able to open up a substantial gap on the restart on Jaminet. From there, Nasr held on to take the win.
For The Heart of Racing’s new Valkyrie, Sebring went way better than their WEC debut in Qatar. The team was much closer to the overall leaders and stayed out of the garage for the whole race. Roman De Angelis, Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas brought the car home in ninth, two laps down to the overall winners.
In LMP2, TDS Racing’s Steven Thomas started from pole and slowly opened up a decent advantage over AO Racing’s PJ Hyett. While Thomas led early and often, a number of the other teams had issues.
Lutke’s time at Sebring didn’t last long. Not only he crash with Perez Companc, but he had another incident in Sunset Bend where he clouted a tire barrier and heavily damaged the left front corner of the car. That put the team out.
Hyett continued to run well until he had contact with PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Rodrigo Sales entering turn 1. Both drivers spun and Hyett ended up backing into the tires.
“Spike” ended up with significant damage that required a new tail section. Despite that, the team only lost a lap to the class leaders.
Pit strategy and a mid-race spin for Hunter McAlrea in Sunset Bend ultimately moved TDS Racing down the order and brought CrowdStrike Racing by APR into contention. The No. 04 took the lead in the fifth hour and held onto it outside of pit sequences into the final hour of the race.
The race was decided with 13 minutes to go when Malthe Jakobsen got into the Andrew Wojteczko Autosport Corvette of Matt Bell in Sunset Bend and spun him out. That resulted in a drive-through penalty for Jakobsen. That dropped the CrowdStrike squad back to a sixth-place finish.
When Jakobsen served his penalty, it gave the class lead to Tom Dillmann in the Inter Europol Competition No. 43. From there, Dillmann was able to hold on to take the win with Jeremy Clarke and Bijoy Garg.
Inter Europol Competition’s margin of victory was 1.117 seconds over Tower Motorsports’ Sebastian Alvarez, Sebastien Bourdais and John Farano. TDS Racing’s McAlrea, Thomas and Mikkel Jensen were third, then Riley Motorsports’ Josh Burdon, Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson. United Autosports’ No. 2 for Nick Boulle, Juan Manuel Correa and Ben Hanley were fifth.
DragonSpeed’s Albert Costa started from pole in his Ferrari in GTD Pro. The first hour of the race saw Costa and AO Racing’s Laurin Heinrich pull away from the rest of the pack.
As the race went on, the DragonSpeed Ferrari dropped down the order, allowing “Rexy” to assume control. The two Paul Miller Racing BMWs gave chase for much of the race.
Once darkness came, Heinrich was able to run Max Hesse down. With 72 minutes to go, he was able to take the lead. From there, he was able to pull away and hold on to take the class win with Klaus Bachler and Alessio Picariello.
AO Racing’s margin of victory was 4.371 seconds over Paul Miller Racing’s No. 48 for Hesse, Dan Harper and Jesse Krohn. The No. 1 BMW of Connor de Phillippi, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen were third, then Costa, Giacomo Altoe and Davide Rigon. Ford Multimatic Motorsports’ No. 64 for Ben Barker, Sebastian Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller were fifth.
In GTD, AF Corse’s Alessandro Pier Guidi started from pole in his Ferrari and battled early on with Winward Racing’s Philip Ellis. The battle ended up being short-lived as Pier Guidi spun on his own in turn 10 20 minutes into the race.
Pier Guidi’s spin was due to a braking issue that forced him to pit. That gave the lead to Korthoff Competition Motors’ Kenton Koch.
The Korthoff Mercedes was one of the main contenders in GTD until the seventh hour. Koch was leading the class by 12 seconds when he suddenly ended up with a box of neutrals. With no forward gears, Koch was forced to pull off the track in a safe spot, ending his day.
AF Corse’s No. 21 Ferrari was able to recover from the early braking issues to challenge for the class lead. However, Lilou Wadoux ended up having similar issues to Koch and pulled off at the same place on the track. She would be unable to continue.
The Heart of Racing’s No. 27 Aston Martin assumed the lead after Koch’s retirement. However, Casper Stevenson drew a full course caution after he spun in Sunset Bend and stalled in the middle of the track.
That left a couple of contending teams. Winward Racing, the defending GTD champions from last year, Conquest Racing with their Ferrari and Vasser Sullivan’s No. 12.
The race came down to a duel between Ellis and Vasser Sullivan’s Jack Hawksworth. Hawksworth was able to jump over Ellis into the lead during the final round of stops.
After the final restart, the two fought hard for the lead. Contact was made multiple times between the two veterans.
With 15 minutes to go, Ellis executed a bump-and-run on Hawksworth in turn 5 to take the lead away. From there, Ellis pulled away to successfully defend his victory from last year with Indy Dontje and Russell Ward.
Winward Racing’s margin of victory was 3.265 seconds over Hawksworth, Frankie Montecalvo and Parker Thompson. Stevenson, Tom Gamble and Zacharie Robichon were third in their Aston Martin, then Inception Racing’s Ferrari for Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy and Frederik Schandorff. Wright Motorsports’ Adam Adelson, Tom Sargent and Elliott Skeer were fifth.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring Unofficial Results
The schedule from here depends on the class. The GTP and GTD classes will race next in Long Beach on the undercard of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. That race will air live April 12 at 5 p.m. ET on USA Network. The next GTD Pro race will be at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, while the LMP2 class will not return until the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen on June 22.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.