Derani runs a 1:44.1 in sector two. 44.1 actually. Watch for the wet offline. A purple sector two, look, for Derani. Adventurous but productive. Pit stop time again, for Lexus and AVS (AIM Vasser Sullivan). Whoops! A spin in the esses for someone. Hard to tell who it is. More action in the pit lane as well. Conditions are actually getting better. Pipo Derani is flying at the moment. He is on a mission, as teams are in the lane, changing to slick tires as we mentioned. Juan Pablo Montoya wants to stay on rain tires, as he still believes it is wet. However, the rain tires move around overheat as the track dries out. Sebastien Bourdais is headed out with slicks in the #66 Ford GT. Pipo Derani has really gained. A margin now for Derani, has ballooned to 17.5 seconds! Juan Pablo spins the #38 Perfornance Tech car, but Montoya was the one who had the door slammed in his face.
Richard Westbrook is pulling a triple stint. Slick tires are faster. Action Express are setting a torrid pace. To get laps back, people need yellow flags. Pipo Derani is running well as the #8 Starworks Audi R8 of Parker Chase goes off the road. This is Parker Chase's first time racing at Sebring after coming out of another sports car racing championship. Justin Marks pits the #86 Acura NSX GT3, and Marks has a passion for climbing mountains. Richard Westbrook is back in the race, sharing with Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon. Albuquerque gets roughed up trying to pass Parker Chase, look. The #29 Montaplast Land Audi is off the road another time. Colton Herta now at the wheel of the #25 BMW Team RLL BMW M8 GT. Herta is chasing Sebastien Bourdais.
Pfaff Motorsports, and the #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini is in the lane. Madison Snow is still with PMR. He isn't racing, but he is on the pit box. For Corvette, Jan Magnussen is going for his sixth 12 Hours of Sebring, Oliver Gavin is going for his seventh, while Corvette is going for their 99th IMSA win. AIM Vasser Sullivan is in the lane, and Jack Hawksworth is getting into the car. Pipo Derani leads his team mate Filipe Albuquerque by 19 seconds. Again, Cadillac is leading this motor race. Mazda has been running a good pace, but #77 is in trouble, with smoke coming out of the engine. Timo Bernhard is having trouble. He wants a fire extinguisher. The same thing happened at Daytona.
There are flames licking away inside the cockpit. Bernhard sprays the car with the fire extinguisher. This is the second fire for Mazda. They had one just like this with the #77 at Daytona. The snatch vehicle is there, the medical car. This will be a full course yellow. Mazda's race has gone pear shaped. Jordan Taylor resets fast lap at 1:51.270. Harry Tincknell in the #55 car was running ahead, along with the Taylor driven Cadillac, the #10 car. This yellow will help one of the JDC-Miller cars. No GTLM or GTD cars are going to pit. The fire is out on the #77 Mazda. 57 laps, 213 miles, now completed.
There was a battery issue, an electrical fire, on the Mazda. Both Action Express Cadillac's are in the pit lane. #31 and #5. There is a driver change going on, and Felipe Nasr will be at the wheel of the Whelen Cadillac. Tristan Vautier is in the lane as well. #31 beats out #5 on these latest pit stops. Pit stop time as well, for the GTLM and GTD cars. Top the cars up with fuel. Westbrook, Philipp Eng, Colton Herta, and others, stayed out, and Nick Tandy also gets a free pit stop. Acura #6 of Juan Pablo Montoya hits the pit lane. The regulations are different in IMSA than they are in the WEC race we saw yesterday.
When the leaders pit under yellow, they form up behind lapped cars, moving four lapped cars back onto the lead lap, unlapping them. Any cars in the queue between the safety car and the class leader, they are pointed by the safety car and allowed to pit. Cadillac #10 is in the lane. There is the #912 Porsche as well, with Earl Bamber at the wheel of it. Matthieu Vaxiviere will be getting into the #10 Cadillac for the first time in this motor race. The WTR Cadillac needs to get back into sequence. Porsche and Penske had to change tires because they got their tire pressures wrong. Green flag again as Felipe Nasr jumps out from everyone, and Brendon Hartley almost gets chopped by Tristan Vautier! Harry Tincknell, he is going like the clappers in the Mazda as well. Rene Binder is at the controls of the #50 Juncos Racing Cadillac that he shares with Will Owen and Augustin Canapino.
Anders Fjordbach and Cameron Cassels are scrapping in LMP2. Cut tire for one of the GTD Lamborghini's in some kind of shemozzle at the green flag. Deary me. The #54 CORE Autosport Nissan DPi is a lap down, with Romain Dumas at the wheel of it, and he's trying hard to hang on in the DPi battle. Spencer Pumpelly has hit the pit lane at the wheel of the #44 Magnus Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3. The curbs still have water in them. Be careful so you don't kill your lap time. Don't go wide in the fast lane of the pit lane, because in the wet it is like ice, but it is still really slippery even though the track is drying out. Quick laps galore, look, as the new fastest lap is in by Tristan Vautier.
Broken suspension for one of the LMP2 cars. Cadillac #10 is back on the lead lap. Matthieu Vaxiviere is bridging a 22 second gap back to the leading half dozen cars. Jeepers! Terrible luck for Anders Fjordbach as the rear wheel and suspension are definite askew. New fast lap as 1:49.131 is set by Felipe Nasr in the #31 Cadillac. GTD cars are in turn seven with the Corvette's. That's Dillon Machavern in the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3. Machavern shares with Robby Foley and Bill Auberlen. Pit lane is almost dry, but not quite. #52 has to go all the way around the 3.74 miles of Sebring. Dear, dear, dear... Anders Fjordbach is in real strife now, before he puts the PR1/Mathiasen car behind the wall.
The backstretch is truly dried out now. Sunset Bend, turn 17 still has puddles. New lap record for Felipe Nasr at 1:48.693 compared to last year's record by Oliver Jarvis at 1:49.002, and he improves to 1:48.14. The track is totally green now, after all the rain. It's a while new ballgame for these blokes and ladies racing out there. Rene Binder has been running well as we have seen pit stops for Harry Tincknell in the sole remaining #55 Mazda, and a stop for the #4 Corvette that is being worked on. They might be having an engine problem. They are in the back of the car by the differential, and there could be some kind of a belt that has come adrift on the car.
We have a spin at Sunset Bend for the #86 Acura NSX GT3. Phillip Eng and Sebastien Bourdais have been battling in GTLM. Ford vs. BMW. The BMW M8 is a lovely car, but it is much higher off the ground than the low slung, sleek, swoopy Ford GT. That pit stop by the Mazda, they didn't pit during the most recent Full Course Yellow.
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