Bourdais does the overcut. Derani stays on his original tires as the #10 changed tires and the #60 MSR Acura's takes new tires and the #7 Penske Motorsports Porsche is also in the lane. Penske raced two cars in the World Endurance race yesterday on an option Michelin tire. Porsche and Cadillac ran yesterday. Acura and BMW did not. The #10 Acura is behind and George Kurtz has spun off. He has not performed the penalty yet. Second Full Course Yellow. Francois Heriau gets a double whammy speeding in the lane off his drive through penalty. No joker. No fudge factor. How is the fuel flow rate going to work to not run afoul of the rules?
Kurtz lost it all by his lonesome in the Collier curves, clutching the car instead of dragging it across. In night practice he spun and Sheena Monk in the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 of Sheena Monk gave him a whack. Chandler Hull has taken over from Bill Auberlen in the #96 BMW M4 GT3. You are bouncing and hopping all over the place. BMW wants more so they can compete with the other GT3 cars. If you wreck, you are out of the game. Auberlen last won in class here, 25 years ago in 1998. I remember that race well, with the #30 Momo Ferrari 333-SP winning having also won the Rolex 24 that same year in the hands of the late, great Italian racer and owner of the Momo performance company, Gianpiero Moretti.
Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mario Andretti. Cunningham, Maserati, Ferrari, Mercedes. The legendary drivers and cars. Today, the track is reconfigured. The old concrete is still here and the rough and tough character. College kids drinking beer by the gallon, hot days and nights, the runways stretching off into nothing. If you win, you will know how it felt for everyone else who has won here. That's a paraphrase of the renaissance man, the legend, Sam Posey. One of my heroes. Sam Posey won the first major BMW victory here at Sebring in the BMW 3.0 CSL with Brian Redman, Hans Stuck, and Canadian Australian Allan Moffat. Wow. BMW also won here in 1999 and they want to do it again but so does Cadillac, Acura, and Porsche.
This race is so popular. It is all sold out. Lexis #14 and Aston Martin #23 had to come in for emergency service under the Full Course Yellow and the #3 Corvette also plummeted down the order. Corvette also have to take their regular petrol stop. One of the BMW's pitting to top up on fuel and the AWA LMP3 car of Anthony Mantella is out of petrol, the #17 car that won the LMP3 class at the Rolex 24. Mantella sharing with Wayne Boyd and Nico Varrone. Next time out we are going to Long Beach, California, and the street course, for the first sprint race of the year at 100 minutes.
Pit stop time for the GT Daytona Pro and GT Daytona cars. The Risi Competizione Ferrari 296, the Racer's Edge Acura NSX GT3, and many more. Cadillac, Cadillac, Acura, Porsche, Acura, the top five in GTP. We remain under yellow here at Sebring, with almost an hour and a half of racing on the board. Green flag! We are back after it with Bourdais leading Derani, barely, and Blomqvist and ATaylor going after the two Cadillac's up front. The Porsche's and the BMW's remain in close proximity. Single file formation right now as we are almost halfway through the second hour of this motor race. Ricky Taylr is all over Tom Blomqvist, the fellow Acura. The Cadillacs are close and now Derani is being harried by Blomqvist!
Oh boy. This is a scrap and it is allowing Bourdais to pull away from everyone else. Derani off and on but he continues with no drama. Now, Bolqvist is going to be right on his six as we have a couple GT3 cars coming to the pit lane. It looks like a couple of the Lambroghini's. Cannot tell which ones from the picture. Traffic all over n the GTD Pro and GTD classes as we ride onboard with Antonio Garcia trying to pass and a car is off the road! Another LMP3 car off, the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry. That is the car of Robert Mau sharing with Christopher Allen and Tristan Nunez. Nunez back in an LMP3 car after racing DPi and LMP2 in recent years in stints with Mazda Motorsports, Win Autosport, and my friends at Action Express Racing, as well as with another LMP2 team I cannot remember.
Blomqvist in the #60 Acura hounding Pipo Derani at the present time dives inside and makes the pass. Ricky Taylor also right there. It looks like Derani might also get mugged by Taylor if he is not careful, and Taylor goes by. So Acura's split the Cadillac's now as we continue in the second hour of the motor race. Action Express, it is early doors, and we will have to regroup. You know Pipo Derani is a fighter and he is going to keep doing everything he can to get back to the front as we watch this huge scrum for GTD Pro and GTD and a quick spin there for Francois Heriau in the #35 LMP2 car for TDS Racing. Heriau just loses it out of Sunset Bend.
An inocuous spin but other cars have to take evasive action. In replay, cars have been bounding over the curbs and that will continue. This place is so rugh with the old concrete as now we see a batlte in GTD Pro! Pfaff Motorsports Porsche vs. Corvette Racing, look. This is Antonio Garcia going after Klaus Bachler for third in class as Daniel Juncadella in the Mercedes continues to lead over the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Davide Rigon, the Risi Competizione car he is sharing with Brazilian's Daniel Serra and Gabriel Cassagrande. Alan Metni in the GTD Kelly Moss Racing Porsche was also in that tussle. Metni sharing the car with Kay van Berlo and Jaxon Evans.
Garcia still beng chased down hard by Bachler. Jarett Andretti is the leader in LMP3. Kenton Koch leads GTD. That is the #36 Andretti Autosport Ligier Jarett Andretti is sharing with Glenn van Berlo and Gabby Chaves while the #32 Korthoff Motorsports car is the Mercedes AMG GT3 in the hands of Kenton Koch right now sharing with Mike Skeen and Mikael Grenier. Trust other drivers as a prototype driver and know they see you. A light touch as a Ferrari ran into Bourdais. In GT Daytona, Ashton Harrison is moving up in the #93 Racer's Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3. Kyle Marcelli is the co-driver along with third driver Danny Formal. It is 90 degrees ambient and hotter than a pistol out there.
Kenton Koch in GTD has a six plus second lead on the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 currently in the hands of Bryan Sellers. Sellers sharing with Madison Snow and Corey Lewis. Ashton Harrison is taking it very seriously as a racing driver in an association with Wayne Taylor Racing and their GTP Acura drivers like Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor for instance. The order is shuffling in GTP as Bourdais leads the motor race and we watch the lead battle in LMP2 with Ben Keating being monsterednby Steven Thomas. The TDS cars are going for it. Minimum drive time is three hours for Pro-Am classes.
Do not over tire your professional drivers. The Bronze and Silver rated drivers have to have an allotted amount of time. No more than four hours in a six hour period. A triple stint at the end almost for three hours wears you out. You go through the sunset transition and get a driver in who knows and is comfortable with the nighttime. Look out too for Eric Lux and John Farano. Farano sharing the #8 Tower Motorsports LMP2 with Scott McLaughlin from Australia, the IndyCar star and Kyffin Simpson, the young driver from Barbados. #51 is in the lane for routine service.
Ben Keating in the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Oreca with Wynn's lubricants liveries. Matt Campbell in the #7 Porsche 963 and Connor De Philippi in the #25 BMW M Hybrid. Great names, legends, in GTP like Chip Ganassi, Bobby Rahal, Roger Penske, and of course Action Express under team boss Bob Johnson and team manager, Gary Nelson. Ben Keating has just made a pit stop. Tight action, look, between the AWA LMP3 and TDS LMP2 car. Steven Thomas has his hands full. Keating is doing a triple stint in the daytime in 84 degree ambient heat with 100+ degree cockpit temperatures after running the WEC race in the Corvette yesterday.
Connor De Philippi is right on top of Matthieu Jaminet. Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac leads the motor race but does not have the fuel I don;t think, the fuel mileage. Augusto Farfus now fourth in the sister BMW ahead of Pipo Derani in the Action Express Cadillac. Connor De Philippi is in a prototype for the first time. There are four full-time seats in the prototypes. Next year, BMW will expand into the World Endurance Championship and one of their other drivers, John Edwards wants opportunity and now, a P2 car has hit the Porsche of Jaminet! Wow! Connor de Philippi on the run to turn six, he took it deeper on the brakes into the hairpin.
Porsche's are seventh and eighth. Pipo Derani has Connor De Philippi right on his six. Derani the minnow, De Philippi, the shark. Derani needs patience and has to take the pain. De Philippi forces Derani wide and maybe Derani missed his braking point and his tires are spent. Derani might pit now. His tires are toast but he does not pit now. He is going to regroup. Derani is payung the price on tires but everyone else is also going to have to take the pain. Pipo Derani gets into contact with an LMP3 car! Oh no! Full Course Yellow!
The car is stalled. Bourdais coming fast.
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