For the first time in three years, the FIA World Endurance Championship returns to central Florida and the United States at Sebring International Raceway for the 1,000 Miles of Sebring. The last time the championship was in North America was at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, in February of 2020 before the global pandemic hit. Now, they are back in the United States, and we are ready to qualify. The Corvette is back in WEC for the whole championship as we are preparing for qualifying for the GTE Pro and GTE Am cars. This is the WEC pitlane at the exit of turn 16. The cars are getting ready to roll as GTE Am and GTE Pro cars go first. GTE Am will have the Am drivers going out first. Cold tires, in spite of the heat here in Sebring, Florida.
Ten minutes total, for each class to do their qualifying runs. The lap times come when the tires are brand new and not wheen the goody has been rubbed off of them. The tires will be stone cold into turn one on lap one. Lap two will be the flying lap. We could see a quicker lap still on lap three. We have Martin Haven, Graham Goodwin, Anthony Davidson, and Louise Beckett on commentary. Drivers are using their dark visors and will be driving the cars with their visors up, probably. Tomorrow, the race will end at 8PM just before dark. The final hour will go to dusk and into the darkness. It is time to qualify now and we will have a mix of drivers. 12 GTE Am cars are going to be out there and the five GTE Pro cars... two Porsche's, two Ferrari's, and a Corvette C8.R.
Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado are now trying to go for three championships in GTE Pro. LM GTE qualifying is now underway. We have four debutants and Christian Ried is back as Sebastian Priaulx and Harry Tincknell will share the car with him. David Pittard has his first drive in WEC. Paul Dalla Lana in the Aston Martin, and the Bronze drivers must qualify the car. That is the rule. They never used to be able to do that but now they must.
Sarah Bovy in the very pink #85 Iron Dames Ferrari 488 GTE. The #33 TF Sport Aston Martin is being driven by Ben Keating. We will keep track of the lap times. Ben Keating is racing in LMP2 in the 12 Hours of Sebring. Brendon Iribe is in the #56 Project 1 Porsche at this point in time. Minimum drive time tomorrow will be two hours and 20 minutes. All 17 GTE cars are on track now. James Calado and Antonio Fuoco at the wheel of each of the AF Corse Ferrari's as Nicky Leutwiler has spun the #46 Team Project 1 Porsche. We have a red flag and the sessions has stopped. But we will keep the clock at six minutes and 53 seconds as it is now.
Christoph Ulrich, a Swiss businessman, who went on a boys weekend to Le Mans, loved it, and decided to go racing. Ulrich is the GT2 Am European champion, with a KTM X-Bow managed by Marcel Fassler. We will have the red flag rescinded soon. All cars on track must pick up the pace. Green flag. Short call for pit exit being opened. So, the cars are headed back in. Thomas Flohr, from Switzerland for AF Corse, it is his birthday, sharing with Nick Cassidy and with Francesco Castellaci. Session will go green soon. That is the plan.
#46 is not going to continue in this session. Nicki Leutwiler sharing with Matteo Cairoli and Mikkel Pedersen. Everyone is on flying laps now. Nick Tandy has the wheel of the #64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R which will be in the WEC for a full season for the first time. Getting grip into a tire with a heat cycle is so different. There are tire marbles all over the place as well even though every series here is using Michelin tires. Tandy will have to bring the heat and pressure into the tires. Both factory Porsche's are late into the session here. We will wait for them.
The AF Corse Ferrari for Christoph Ulrich passes the D'station Aston Martin with a new driver lineup in that cr and we could get to that. We'll see. Satoshi Hoshino in the Aston. A lap has been wasted. Right now, Fred Poordad is also out there in another of the Porsche's. No worries of track limits here at Sebring. Brendon Iribe has been very quick in these last couple laps. Iribe, fastest of all at 2:01.203 as Gianmaria Bruni and Michael Christensen are out in the two factory Porsche 911 RSR-19's. 2:00.440 for Bruni. Nick Tandy will be 1.8 seconds quicker, sharing with Tommy Milner. His dad, Tom Milner ran BMW's in the 1990s and the early 2000s very successfully in the American Le Mans Series.
Calado, Fuoco, Bruni. Gianmaria Bruni is fastest in the first two sectors. James Calado has gone quicker but is p to second at 1:59.349. Gianmaria Bruni, former Ferrari, and current Porsche driver, here he comes. Bruni trips the timers and moves up to provisional pole at 1:57.383. Ferrari, Porsche, Ferrari, Porsche. The two Porsche's have now moved up to first and second, in a blink of an eye. Yikes!
Antonio Fuoco, the new driver for the Ferrari factory as Ben Keating goes fourth overall in the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin. Corvette are split, one car in World Endurance and one in IMSA. Ben Keating runs 16 major car dealers in Victoria/Austin, Texas. Michael Christensen is right on the limit. He is pushing and trying to catch Bruni. He knows he is bang on the money. Will he beat the sister Porsche? He does it. He passes the sister Porsche as Nick Tandy has lifted and might settle for his current lap as this part of the GTE session is done and dusted. Ben Keating is fourth overall in the combined order ahead of the factory Ferrari's.
Paul Dalla Lana and Brendon Iribe both have great runs followed by Sara Bovy in the Iron Dames Ferrari followed by Satoshi Hoshino. Have to check out the order as the sun is setting. Ah. Porsche, Porsche, Corvette, RF Sport Aston, AF Corse, AF Corse, Noethwest AMR, and so on down the order with a GTE field of 17 split between five Pro cars and a dozen Am cars. Kevin Estre has full confidence in his co-driver.
Pole position for the factory Porsche #92. Now it is time for the Hypercar and the LMP2 cars to come out and qualifying. Garage 56 at Le Mans will feature a NASCAR entry for next year. Francois Perrodo, GTE-Am World Champion, he is now in LMP2 with the same team. Glickenhaus Racing have one car for the 1,000 Miles of Sebring, in their first American race. We will have to see how they do against the Alpine and the Toyota's. The Glickenhaus and the Alpine have been ahead of the factory Toyota's. So, we can see Sean Gelael qualifying the #31 WRT LMP2 car. We have five debuting teams in WEC this year.
Robert Kubica for Prema Orlen Team, Matthieu Lahaye for Ultimate, and Olivier Pla in the Glickenhaus Hypercar, they are all scrapping for sector times. Olivier Pla at the wheel of the Glickenhaus. The Glickenhaus nearly lost it at Sunset Bend! Yikes! That car is very twitchy. It looks wonderfully retro, but the handling is sketchy. Nicolas Lapierre has the Alpine. Brendon Hartley and Jose Maria Lopez, are in the Toyota's. Kamui Kobayashi and Kazuki Nakajima are now in team management at Toyota. United and Jota are scrapping for LMP2 honors. Alpine and Nico Lapierre, fastest of all with Olivier Pla in the second spot.
Pla dips a wheel through turn one and backs off. This car, (the Glickenhaus), has lots of retro styling cues... Ferrari 512, Lola T70, Chevron B16. A few cars have ducked into the pit lane and here comes Jose Maria Lopez on a flyer. Lopez, fifth. Nico Lapierre runs purple in sectors one and two. How will his third sector come out? Toyota does not have the qualifying pace of the Alpine. Alpine will now have a break on their fuel tank to make it larger than it was in 2021. It is a marginal change. Nico Muller in the new Vector Sport LMP2 car. Audi factory driver, but he is hitting the bumps like crazy. Brand new team, and it is baptism of fire. Their setup sheet was a blank sheet of A4 paper.
Nicklas Nielsen in the #83 LMP2 car, goes to third ahead of the other Toyota! Holy smokes! Nicklas Nielsen, a Ferrari factory driver. Paul di Resta and Filipe Albuquerque in the two United Autosports cars are pushing. Prema and AF Corse want to run the Ferrari Hypercar as Fabio Scherer in for Alex Brundle, in the #34 Inter Europol LMP2, he ahs spun out wide and slammed the barrier. Red flag. This session is over. This was a rapid fire deal. Turn one bites if you get it wrong, but you can find loads of lap time if you get it right. The Glickenhaus kicked up some dust earlier. On pole will be Nico Lapierre and company in the #36 Alpine ahead of the #708 Glickenhaus. LMP2 Am on row two with AF Corse and the #8 Toyota will roll off fourth.
So, Alpine and Nico Lapierre are on pole with the session ending earlier than we expected it to. A gorgeous sunset here at Sebring. Last year, LMP2's were closest to the Hypercars at the 8 Hours of Portimao. Portimao and Sebring are similar in terms of the lap times generated by the cars. Portimao is undulating and diving, while the legendary runways here at Sebring are flat as a pancake. Toyota will have work to do for the race tomorrow. Iron Dames Ferrari, Project 1 Porsche, and TF Sport Aston Martin are the top runners in GTE Am.
In GTE Pro, it was the #64 Corvette, the #91 Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz, and on pole the sister #92 Porsche, of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre. In the prototype classes... LMP2 sees United Autosport third and second while AF Corse is on pole in the division. In Hypercar, Brendon Hartley third in the #8 Toyota, Olivier Pla second in the #708 Glickenhaus, and on the pole, the #36 Alpine for Nicolas Lapierre and company. A wild and wooly qualifying session for FIA WEC! Qualifying is now done. We will recap the stories shortly. But, more importantly, we will see you tomorrow, for an epic race at the 1,000 Miles of Sebring. Can't wait! For now, good night, and take care, everybody.
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