Antonio Fuoco with a damaged #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari, with damage, has just uncorked the fastest lap in GTD. Wow. He is running a red left side driver's door on that car after the team had to make repairs. Oh boy. Commentators' curse as the #96 spins off at turn three but fortunately continues. Bill Auberlen is back on his merry way. He is in front of the Gradient Motorsports #66 Acura and the #16 Wright Motorsports Porsche. Auberlen was tagged by the #47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari. That car hit everything at Daytona, but the Florida Lottery and Antonio Fuoco will be penalized for playing dodge 'em cars as the #54 CORE Autosport LMP3 car of Jon Bennett, he is stopped dead stick at pit out. DPi pit stops. The #5 JDC-Miller Cadillac is in the lane. #48 has pitted for Action Express and AXR is setting up for a pit stop as well. It appears the two Acura's for Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing will go longer, lifting and coasting, saving petrol.
Jon Bennett has no fuel pressure in the #54 CORE Autosport entry, the defending LMP3 champion at the 12 Hours of Sebring. Pit stop time as well for Ricky Taylor aboard the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Konica Minolta Acura. We have indeed gone Full Course Yellow. Will Stevens will be at the wheel of #10. For the #60 car, we may see a new driver aboard as well. Have to check on that situation. It was announced IMSA and NASCAR will join Hendrick Motorsports to race a Garage 56 entry at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a next generation NASCAR race car. In 1976, two NASCAR stock cars came to the 24 Hours of Le Mans and raced. Rick Hendrick, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, and Goodyear will cooperate putting together a road racing stock car to race endurance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That will be an interesting prospect.
Garage 56 is reserved for new concepts to experiment, but not necessarily to compete for a win. We wonder how the cars will handle and endure in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. What will the straightaway speeds be? The durability is a major question. The brakes will also have to be beefed up in a major way. We've crossed the threshold to cooling temperatures and they are five to eight degrees cooler. Sebring is going to change bigtime. No fewer than 21 different Michelin tire compounds run this weekend between the three championships for FIA WEC, IMPC, and WeatherTech. The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 had the battery die. Philip Ellis brought the car in but the power steering the antilock brakes both failed. Alegra Motorsports had battery and alternator issues at the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Speaking of Alegra Motorsports, Daniel Morad, Maximilian Goetz, and Michael de Quesada have inherited the lead in GT Daytona. 15,000 tires for Michelin between five championships here, and 4,500 wet weather treaded tires! So, that's 19,500 tires! Almost 20,000 tires! Holy mackerel. Technicians, mounting machines... egad! Bibendum, Monsieur Michelin, has a smile on his face. That is for dead sure. Car counts are up in many series. 53 in WeatherTech, 45 Michelin Pilot cars, 33 Porsche Cup cars, and 22 Michelin shod WEC cars. We are set for another restart and Will Stevens will bring the #10 Acura to the restart.
We have one more lap behind the safety car before the restart. We should be coming to the end of this Full Course Yellow as the sun is beginning to set. We will soon see darkness here at Sebring. We still have many cars in all classes on the lead lap. The sun is indeed about to set. Green flag once again. Will Stevens is being harried by Oliver Jarvis. Neel Jani, Richard Westbrook, and Tristan Nunez. It is go time and we have four and a half hours to go. The drivers know they must push harder and harder with time being of the essence. Neel Jani wants by Oliver Jarvis. Jani gets loose and nearly makes a move on Jarvis. Discretion the better part of valor. Jani was called up by Chip Ganassi after Kevin Magnussen was rehired by the Haas Formula 1 team where he will race in Bahrain tomorrow.
Three cars on the lead lap in LMP3. Kay van Berlo, Malthe Jakobsen, and Garrett Grist. Matt Campbell is up to the lead in GTD Pro in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche ahead of Nicky Catsburg in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. Porsche haven't shown their pace yet this weekend. But they might be laying their cards upon the table here. Catsburg squares off the exit at turn 16. The #70 GTD class leading McLaren of Jordan Pepper is coming and Catsburg wants past Campbell and he wants the pass, now. He does not have the track position and Matty Campbell stays in front, look.
GTD Pro and GTD are the exact same cars and here comes Yelloly on Catsburg and can't make the move into the carousel. Yelloly is going to try again throughn the esses. This is splendid racing! Nick Yelloly and Nicky Catsburg continue scrapping. Aaron Telitz is coming into the picture aboard the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 as well. They were off strategy but the Full Course Yellow's have helped them. Here comes Catsburg and there's an LMP3 in the way!. Campbell taps Catsburg! He is clear and to the lead. Blimey! That was a bugaboo. Fifth in line the #70 Inception Racing McLaren with Jordan Pepper at the wheel of it, the South African. Pepper sharing with Brendon Iribe and Ollie Milroy.
Corvette, Porsche, BMW, it is a seesaw battle! They're door to door. Some hip and shoulder there! Close but clean racing. Let's hope. It appears Corvette are beginning to eke out an advantage over the Porsche. Jordan Pepper through an opaque, bubbling windscreen, is chasing down the #14 Lexus in the hands of Aaron Telitz. Meantime, Will Stevens leads the motor race by a considerable margin. We see the #7 Forty7 Motorsports entry of Anthony Mantella coming to the pit lane after Mantella loses it and spins out in the kink! Yikes! He bounces over the curbs and slams the undertray! Mantella, the Canadian, sharing with Matt Bell and Mark Kvamme.
The #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin is starting to come to the fore after trouble, coming off the air jacks, breaking the driver assistant's foot. Spencer Pumpelly, the third driver, was called in, and he has a bruised foot after the car fell on him! Eek! Sean Heckman from the Dinner with Racer's podcast is calling the strategy. Scott Heckert from NASCAR, he is working with JR III. in LMP3 on the #30 team. That is the Ari Balogh, Garrett Grist, Dakota Dickerson car. Tristan Nunez in the #31 Whelen Cadillac is coming closer to Will Stevens, running second, three seconds behind. Richard Westbrook, Oliver Jarvis, and Neel Jani are coming fast as well.
Tristan Nunez and Richard Westbrook both topped off and have been told to run Harry Flatters to try and catch the #10. Harry Flatters = flat out. Kamui Kobayashi in the #48 Cadillac is fifth also for Action Express. The LMP3 scrum remains hot and heavy. Sebring is the oldest permanent road racing circuit in the United States. The first 12-hour race was in March 1952. This place is 81 years old, built in 1941. We have an hour and a half before dusk hits and then darkness. Sean Creech Motorsports and Malthe Jakobsen has passed the #74 Riley Motorsports car of Kay van Berlo. van Berlo, the 21-year-old Dutchman.
Stevens leads Nunez by 2.8 seconds. Westbrook and Jarvis next in the serial for the overall. Into turn one, you turn into the corner blind when you reach the end of the wall. Commitment to the corner at high speed. It tightens up the track falls away even though the surface is flat as a pancake around here. Be so careful you don't break a steering rack. The frontstretch is so wide and turn one narrows immensely. Nunez is reeling in Stevens, little by little. ECU and steering wheel woes for the #25 BMW Team RLL BMW M4 GT3. The #24 is making their last planned entry in the WeatherTech Championship as they focus on their LMDh/GTP program for next year. They will enter, likely, alongside Porsche, Acura, and Cadillac. We have heard that Audi might not make it to LMDh. It seems very unlikely the Le Mans Hypercar teams like Toyota and Glickenhaus will even try to get into IMSA. Different philosophies clashing with each other.
Yikes! From second spot, Tristan Nunez went off the road and now has to recover in his pursuit to catch Will Stevens. Hopefully he doesn't have square tires after that little miscue. Richard Westbrook aboard the #5 Mustang Sampling JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac is chasing Will Stevens for the lead. Nunez in fourth. Jarvis ahead in third place. Bamber and Kobayashi round out the DPi field. Four hours to go. As darkness falls, mechanical grip returns to the car. Tristan Nunez is now back on his way and beginning to move up.
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