The #04 CrowdStrike LMP2 car does an unbelievable wheelie into turn one! Toby Sowery going motocross motorcycle style over the curbs! The #25 BMW has been in and out of the pit lane. Routine service, as we are whittling down to the final rounds of pit stops. The fuel mileage, the tire life, those strategies are getting tight. The fuel window for a GTP car was forecasted by IMSA to be 49-57 minutes of clock time. Split this final hour and 55 minutes in half as Colton Herta hits the lane with a 67 second buffer to the fourth place Porsche #7 of Matty Campbell. Gianmaria Bruni may be the erstwhile leader but only for a wee while. This was a strong stint for Colton Herta. Jordan Taylor will get into the car to take it to the end.
Fuel saving will be on their side. The sister #10 Acura pitted a moment ago. Taylor will do a double stint. Taylor released with the #7 headed down the front straightaway and Matt Campbell gains track position. Herta on cold tires. Wouldn't it be wild if Campbell and company could win? Now, we have seen Matt Campbell winning a bunch of endurance races. Daytona, Bathurst, podium at Qatar. He is in the sweet spot of his career. Third place runner in GT Daytona, Spaniard Albert Costa, or Albert Costa Balboa to give him his full name, has a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Meanwhile, we are also looking at the LMP2 leader, Nico Pino in the #2 car for United Autosports.
The battle is raging in earnest in LMP2. Pino vs. Hunter McElrea vs. Toby Sowery. There is nothing in it. Hunter McElrea sends it in deep through turn one! LMP2 is a barnburner. Hunter McElrea has fallen in love with sports car racing as Sowery is lifting and coasting to save fuel. Sowery ran with this team when he clinched the title in the Asian Le Mans Series in February. I do hope to find time to bring you the final Asian Le Mans Series races either in complete or highlighted form. We shall see. Sowery is a former open wheel racer in Indy Next just like Hunter McElrea.
Young drivers who have an eye on IndyCar or Formula 1 and cannot get there, they know they have an avenue in sports car racing as well. Oh wow! It is go time for the lead in LMP2! What a move! McElrea and Sowery split a GT Daytona Pro Lexus! This is through Sunset Bend in full darkness! Can you believe it?! They tucked Jack Hawksworth like a kipper! That was scintillating! McElrea with the fire in his belly! Holy mackerel! McElrea born in California, raised in Australia to Kiwi parents from New Zealand.
Poor old Hawksworth is like a little shaver who is lost and wants his mom to come and rescue him. Mommy! Where are you?! Pino had no grip on the outside in the marbles, the clag, on the outside of the circuit! Sowery is now right on Pino's six! Colton Herta tells us, after his double stint, it is still hot and he is pretty tired and that Jordan Taylor will take the #40 to the end. They came from last to third. He is aware that the top two, Bourdais in the Cadillac and Campbell in the Porsche are on a split strategy. There could be a yellow that benefits the #40 team, or that is what they hope for.
Nick Yelloly after his double stint in the #25 BMW, they are struggling with understeer in the cooling temperatures. Yelloly handed off to Connor De Philippi to take the car to the end and De Philippi knows what to do to adjust the handling of the car from the cockpit with the anti-rollbars and depending on their energy situation and their tires. Yelloly says he almost had a massive accident when trying to make a move on Romain Grosjean in the #63 Lamborghini SC63. He says he ruined his set of tires by being forced to scrap with Grosjean. These drivers are absolutely drained. Understandable.
The top two will need two stops before the end of the race and need a yellow. Last year in this race we saw four yellows in the final two hours including the massive accident at the very end that allowed my buddies at Action Express Racing and Cadillac to squeak through for the victory. What will this year provide? We'll have to find out. We are racing the 72nd edition of the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. The first race on this 3.74 mile, 17 turn track was held on New Years Eve of 1950. The 12 hours itself has been run every single year since 1952 with the exception of 1974 during the gas crisis.
The track is the same as it always has been since the 1940s when this place was a WW. II. bomber plane training base. Everything about this place needs to be a time capsule. It needs to be preserved so it stays rough and challenging. Repaving it at this point would be unthinkable. The drivers love this track. It is perfect. The new Grand Prix tracks worldwide look cool, they have great amenities. They are comfortable places to go racing. But they do not have the character and cannot hope to have it the way Sebring does. Laurin Heinrich is second in GTD Pro aboard "Rexy" in the #77 Porsche.
The layout of the course is very challenging and we are so glad it is. We are waiting for Laurin Heinrich to make a pass and called it "The Heinrich Maneuver". Oh dear! Things only get more spectacular in the darkness. What a gorgeous sunset and orange tinge to the Saturday evening sky. Heinrich coasting to hit a fuel number. The sound of the cars is so much more vivid at night. Right now in the GT Daytona class, Phillip Ellis is flexing his muscles in the lead of the class by 7.2 seconds over the sole remaining McLaren 720S GT3 in the race, the #70 Inception Racing entry in the hands of Ollie Milroy.
Third place is the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 of Robby Foley. Behind him in fourth spot it is the #44 Magnus Racing Flex Box Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo with Spencer Pumpelly at the controls. In fifth, the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 being steered by the Italian, Loris Spinelli. Winward Racing bought the HTP team in Europe. They are running efforts in IMSA, in DTM which is now a GT3 championship, and in SRO Europe. This is Winward's third trip to Sebring. They have won two Rolex 24's in the last four years. They have a new shop in Houston, Texas, a 40,000 square foot shop.
They have never lost confidence through the challenges they've dealt with. Russell Ward said the car is set up for the nighttime. Colin Braun says this is the most important time of the race and are beginning to push to the end in LMP2. He knows everything is on the line. He might finish. Rumor is their pit board sign is so bright that airplanes are using it as a landing beacon! Colin Braun started in go karts, came to NASCAR, is a sports car champion, and is now an IndyCar rookie. Just over an hour and a half of racing remaining.
Sebastien Bourdais just turned a 1:51.89 and has six seconds in hand over the Porsche of Matt Campbell. Bourdais and Ganassi are the lead Cadillac after the woes for the Action Express team and Pipo Derani. Looking at pit strategy to the end, the #01 team needs a splash and a dash and need a yellow. #01 and #7 jumped to the lane right within their window. They have 15-20 minutes before a final stop and you cannot stretch the fuel tank, or the energy tank, that far. Meanwhile, Jack Hawksworth has 1.2 seconds over Laurin Heinrich in GTD Pro.
Still a long way to go in an hour and a half. The Lexus team has been so successful over the years. Of course, they had that huge shunt at the Rolex 24 in the opening hour. Laurin Heinrich is slightly quicker than Jack Hawksworth. Meantime, Matt Campbell is in the lane in the #7 Porsche, splitting the two stints to the end. The driver change is taking place and Felipe Nasr will be the closer in Porsche #7. #01 will need two more stops. The #40 Acura team may be in the drivers' seat or the catbird seat, or however you wish to put it, because they need just a single stop to get to the finish.
Jordan Taylor says "keep an eye on the lap times, if I am not quickest, put someone else in." There is a possibility that Taylor could stay in the car to the end, or the team has the option on the table of putting Louis Deletraz, the rapid Swiss driver in to the finish. Renger van der Zande says he has finished his race, but is on standby if needed. There was more grip on a Daytona Prototype International. The slow speeds in the corners with a GTP car are very slow and the high speeds are slower. Keep in mind that these new prototypes are much heavier than a Daytona Prototype International, accounting for the hybrid unit and all the technology on the cars which the Daytona Prototype International machines did not have.
Stay behind and poke your nose out on the straightaway. Renger van der Zande loves Sebring. The first time he didn't get it because he thought it was a crumby, old place. But now that he has raced here, he respects the roughness of the place and how special it is. van der Zande is a fascinating bloke. He is a coffee afficionado who owns an insurance company as his daily life business and races a factory Cadillac sports car. Your body eventually gets used to this place and all the bumps. We are far from finished with this race. Stay tuned as we are within the last 90 minutes.
Sebastien Bourdais in pit lane from the lead, doing a double stint. Bourdais waiting for a fuel top off and the car has four fresh new tires. The bump start between the electric motor and the internal combustion motor on the Cadillac is unbelievable. There's lots of racing left. At the Acura #40 team, it is hard to say if they can make it to the end on one more stop. The Porsche team is getting a massage from the physios. Wow. Lucky guys. The drivers get that as well. Next year, I may need a massage in the middle of this race if things get too intense!
This scenario is going to be squeaky, squeaky, and super tight towards the end. Right now. Connor De Philippi in BMW #25 is turning it on and is only 8/10ths of a second down on Jordan Taylor. Historically there are yellows possible in the final hour. This is not the closest battle overall in GTD Pro, but we continue to be fixated on the scrap between Heinrich in the Porsche and Hawksworth in the Lexus. This is an awesome arm wrestle we have seen all day and night so far. With full darkness, what is the ambient temperature?
It is not cooling too much. It is still humid and warm. The air is sticky. Speaking of humid and moisture, there could be water being chucked out the overflow pipe on the #40 Acura. Oh boy. This is another twist in the tale. We saw this earlier with the sister #10 Acura and the problem had to be resolved on a pit stop putting them a lap behind. Now, Connor De Philippi can see this happening right in front of him, aboard the #25 BMW. There was a leaking O ring on the #10. Is that now befalling the #40? This is a serious scrap for the lead. Jordan Taylor has had to save fuel as well.
Look at the big picture. Don't blow your strategy by burning too much energy. There is fluid being forced out the back of the #40 that could be all over Connor De Philippi's windscreen. Could the engine go bang? Hours ago, onboard with the #40 we saw the windscreen littered and smeared with oil and switching on the windscreen wiper makes it even worse, smudging it all over the screen. De Philippi steps out and will be screaming on the radio. Full Course Yellow number ten on the speedway. Oh my goddness! Debris in turn 16 before the Ulmann straightaway. In the dark, there is a piece of debris out there. Hard to tell what it is.
If everyone strategizes to top up on fuel to the end, I will venture a guess to say the #7 and the #01 will have stops that are 12-15 seconds quicker than their rivals. That said, giving up the track position would be a living nightmare. We have just run for an hour and a half under green before this late race Full Course Yellow. There's more of the story yet to tell. What a great aerial shot with the nighttime serpentine through this temporary miniature city in central Florida. I think everyone will come to the lane and of course we could just see the #01 and the #7 come to the front ahead of the #40 and the #25 with a 20 second quicker refueling time.
But do not fumble a wheel nut if you go for four tires. A good tire change is equivalent to a half fuel load on the stopwatch. Believe you me, this is not our final Full Course Yellow, as the teams are ready and so are the drivers. Louis Deletraz will take over from Jordan Taylor in the #40 car. We have seen some competitive running but still early days for the new Multimatic Ford Mustang GT3 program led by Larry Holt. They ran, Multimatic did, the Ford GT program and the Mazda DPi program in 2019 and 2020. Ford Motor Company definitely in learning mode being back in endurance sports car racing.
Another puff of smoke emanates from the #40 Acura and now, pit road is like Grand Central Station. Philipp Eng in BMW #24 and Sebastien Bourdais in Cadillac #01 have presumably stayed out on course. It is game time at Ganassi Racing. Fuel only. Both BMW's are in for a tire change and packing the tanks full of fuel. Four green tires for the #40 WTR Andretti Acura. BMW to the top of the shop. No. Not the case. Cadillac #01 and Porsche #7 leapfrog while the #10 Acura, the sister #6 Porsche, and the #63 Lamborghini all stay on course to get their laps back.
The field has been cycled at the front and we are ready to go back to green flag racing this time. Wow. A traffic jam for last pit stops between GTD Pro and GTD! Maybe there will be one more. Jack Hawksworth has the GTD Pro advantage. In GTD, it is Ellis and Thompson still at the top of the tree. All we can see is headlamps piercing the gloom. We still have over an hour to go. A quick race summarybefore we go back to green.
Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac leads the motor race as we have had 31 lead changes among nine leading cars. We have had ten Full Course cautions for a total of 44 laps, and of the 58 cars that started this race, ten have officially retired leaving 48 remaining on track. Sebastien Bourdais accelerates and hard brakes, to build tire temperature through the suspension and the brakes. The trouble with revving the motor to clean the tires is that with each throttle blip, you are burning fuel. Vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom. Each time Bourdais puts those RPMs through the motor, he is burning petrol. There's clag, dust, carbon fiber shards, all over the tires that is being cleaned up.
Some key changes in the leaderboards before we go back to green. Dani Juncadella has now moved ahead of Jack Hawksworth in GTD Pro. Corvette racing ahead of Lexus. Here are the runners and riders in the top five of each class. In GTP it is Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac, Felipe Nasr in Porsche #7, Louis Deletraz in Acura #40, Connor De Philippi in BMW #25, and Philipp Eng in BMW #24. In LMP2, leading is the #81 DragonSpeed Oreca of Malthe Jakobsen, the Danish racer. Second is fellow Dane Mikkel Jensen at the wheel of the #11 TDS Racing Oreca. Third, Colin Braun in the #04 CrowdStrike by APR Oreca. Fourth spot belongs to Ben Hanley who is in the #2 United Autosports USA Oreca. Fifth is Tom Dillmann, the Frenchman, in the Inter Europol by PR1/Mathiasen car.
Again, Dani Juncadella leads in GTD Pro in the #3 Corvette Racing by Pratt & Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Second is Jack Hawksworth in the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Thrid spot is Mirko Bortolotti in the #19 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. Fourth place held by Laurin Heinrich in "Rexy", the #77 dinosaur liveried Porsche 911 GT3R for AO Racing. In fifth place, it is the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Brazilian Daniel Serra.
The GTD order looks like this. In the class lead, the #44 Magnus Racing Flex Box Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Andy Lally. Second spot belongs to the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Phillip Ellis. Elliott Skeer in third in the #120 dark green and yellow Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. Antonio Fuoco is fourth in the #47 blue and lime green Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3. In fifth place, it is Roman De Angelis in the #27 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
There is a short amount of time before we go green. When we launch, the fight will be on! Stay tuned. The final hour of the 12 Hours of Sebring is next! Mobil 1 has been the title sponsor of the 12 Hours of Sebring now for 30 years, since 1994. That was the year the Clayton Cunningham GTS Nissan 300ZX won it with the #75 Nissan 300ZX Turbo, driven by endurance racing legends John Morton, Johnny O'Connell (who is still active in sports car racing today), and New Zealander Steve Millen, all three who are true heroes of sports car endurance racing. An hour does not seem like very long, but a ton can happen in 60 minutes. A restart at night at Sebring is nerve racking for a driver.
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