Sebring 12 Hours preview: Bump Day and Evening
Sebring Worldwide Raceway is able to take a look at the fortitude of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers and the integrity of their equipment for the 71st time this weekend. The legendarily tough 3.74-mile, 17-turn former airfield circuit in Central Florida performs host to the second spherical of the championship, the second spherical of the Michelin Endurance Cup and begins the complete championship season for 2 of the lessons, LMP2 and LMP3, for which Daytona was a non-points race.
Cadillac — simply named the official luxurious automobile of Sebring Worldwide Raceway and celebrating 20 years of the V-Sequence — has been scorching on the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring lately, taking the final three victories to shut out the DPi period, it’s Dallara-based chassis seeming to deal with the bumps significantly better. However Cadillac Racing’s freshly renamed V-Sequence.Rs within the fingers of defending winner Chip Ganassi Racing and Motion Categorical Racing, like the opposite GTP automobiles, are all-new, so we’ll have to attend to see if the brand new automobile nonetheless has an edge on the historic circuit.
“Excited to be going again to Sebring after two optimistic days of testing in February,” stated Pipo Derani, driver of the No. 31 AXR Cadillac. “The automobiles are nonetheless new however displaying robust potential, particularly on reliability like we noticed at Daytona. It’s nonetheless early days and Sebring is one other incredible alternative for us to proceed to study extra about our race automobile. And, as regular, with Sebring being a really tough race on man and machine, it will likely be one other nice problem for us to undergo earlier than Le Mans. On a private observe, after all I might like to win my fourth Sebring however a race win on the Twelve Hours isn’t a simple factor to realize. Onerous work and resilience shall be key to get to the tip with an opportunity of victory.”
Acura, and notably Meyer Shank Racing, dominated at Daytona, however MSR involves Sebring seeking to redeem itself after the crew was handed a raft of penalties for messing with the tire strain knowledge despatched through telemetry to IMSA. Fellow Acura crew Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport, which completed second to MSR at Daytona, was on high of the official IMSA Sebring take a look at final month.
Porsche and BMW, alternatively, are hoping to rebound from the mechanical points each suffered at Daytona. Each BMW M Workforce RLL and Porsche Penske Motorsports had issues with their MGUs and batteries, whereas neither Cadillac nor Acura skilled related failures, maybe indicating the problems have been associated to how every producer costs and deploys {the electrical} power. Sebring may very properly present if that’s the case or not.
Drivers and groups to look at
Ben Keating and PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports, No. 52 ORECA-GIbson LMP2: PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports has gained LMP2 on this race the final three years, Keating wheeling the automobile within the final two. The crew has what it takes to win at Sebring and will definitely be robust. Nonetheless … PR1 defectors Mikkel Jensen and Scott Huffaker at the moment are partnered with Steven Thomas at TDS Racing, so it will likely be attention-grabbing to see how a lot of PR1s total tempo at Sebring went with them.
Antonio Garcia and Corvette Racing: Corvette gained the Twelve Hours final yr, it’s solely GTD PRO victory of the yr, with Garcia, Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg. 2023 marks Corvette Racing’s twenty fifth try at Sebring, the place it’s gained its class 13 occasions. Garcia shall be going for his fifth victory, alongside Taylor and Tommy Milner within the No. 3.
Double dipping
Among the many 54 entries for the Twelve Hours of Sebring and WEC 1000 Miles of Sebring are greater than two dozen drivers who will pull double obligation in the course of the weekend. The overwhelming majority of these shall be driving totally different automobiles and totally different lessons, with a number of exceptions. Dane Cameron and Michel Christensen will compete for Porsche Penske Motorsports in each races within the Porsche 963, and Josh Pierson will race LMP2 in each occasions.
A number of extra drivers shall be switching between the GTD and GTE automobiles from their respective producers, together with Daniel Serra, Davide Rigon, Simon Mann and Alessio Rivera for Ferrari; and PJ Hyett, Gunnar Jeannette, Ryan Hardwick, Zacharie Robichon and Julien Andlauer for Porsche. Laurens Vanthoor (Porsche), together with Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco (Ferrari) shall be switching from their producers’ Hypercar in WEC to a GT automobile in IMSA.
Then there are a number of drivers who shall be making an entire change as they transfer from one pit lane to a different, competing in totally totally different lessons or in numerous makes, together with Mikkel Jensen, Tom Blomqvist, Scott Huffaker, Louis Deletraz, Ben Keating, Michael Dinan, Nico Varrone and the Iron Dames – Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Sarah Bovy.
Qualifying information for Sebring Worldwide Raceway
GTP: New class in 2023 (DPi monitor document: Sebastien Bourdais, Cadillac DPi-V.R, 1m45.025s / 128.025mph, 2022
LMP2: Giedo van der Garde, ORECA LMP2, 1m48.311s / 124.308mph, 2022
LMP3: Rasmus Lindh, Ligier JS P320, 1m56.001s / 116.067mph, 2021
GTD PRO: Daniel Serra, Ferrari 488 GT3, 1m59.414s / 112.750mph, 2022
GTD: Daniel Serra, Ferrari 488 GT3, 1m58.710s / 113.420 mph, 2018
The best way to watch
Flag-to-flag protection of the 2023 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, which begins at 10:10 a.m. ET on Saturday, shall be streamed on Peacock, with tv protection on USA Community starting at 4:30 p.m. Qualifying may be watched on IMSA.television, starting at 9:10 a.m. on Friday. Choose follow classes, qualifying and race shall be broadcast by IMSA radio, on IMSA.com and RadioLeMans.com, and SiriusXM will carry the race on channels 216 (Sirius) and 207 (XM).
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