By the end of a thrilling 72nd running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s 12 Hours of Sebring, Connor Zilisch claimed LMP2 victory for the #18 Era Motorsport crew.
It was an entertaining yet unsurprisingly competitive fight for the win from the beginning, if not separated closely on their respective lead lap for most of the race.
The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 which won the opening round at Daytona, earned a consecutive LMP2 victory after an intense fight to the end.
Twelve cautions meant this edition of the historic race was interrupted but nevertheless gripping as several changes for the LMP2 lead were made across the 12-hour duration.
The race began with drama before the green flag, after pole-sitter #99 AO Racing Oreca 07, also known as ‘Spike the Dragon’, was spun on the formation lap by PJ Hyett whilst warming up their tyres.
Instead, Dan Goldburg held the lead in the #22 United Autosports USA Oreca as he fought with the #52 Inter Europol by PR1 Oreca of Nick Boulle, side-by-side in their duel.
Boulle made a move to the lead ahead of the two United Orecas – #2 of Ben Keating and the #22 of Dan Goldburg.
The #52’s efforts, however, were briefly hampered with a drive-through penalty for conducting a pit stop with too many mechanics over the wall, although their pursuit for the lead was far from over.
During the course of the second hour, after his mistake before the race start, PJ Hyett asserted tremendous pace all the way to the LMP2 lead with an opportunistic overtake landing him the top spot past Goldburg.
It was a tense and difficult beginning for the #88 Richard Mille AF Corse when first Luis Perez Companc got away with slipping on the Turn 2 exit curb and suffered rear and side aero damage, and thus went behind the wall.
Later on after three hours of racing, they became the third confirmed retirement after Lilou Wadoux stopped at the Turn 7 run-off.
The single #33 Ligier JS P217 of Sean Creech Motorsport struggled to assert competitive pace, although only encountered a noticeably smoother race in comparison their 24 Hours of Daytona season-opener.
A drive-through penalty from improperly serving a set them back as an outlier compared to the other 12 Oreca 07-Gibson entries.
Another comeback story during the first half of the race was on the #04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR car, after George Kurtz suffered a left-rear puncture at the start, then was forced to serve a drive-through after too many pit crew members were over the wall for that pit stop.
After the five hour point, the #04 was amidst the lead fight against the likes of #74 Riley, the #11 TDS Racing, the #81 DragonSpeed and the #52 protagonists.
This emerged after United Autosports seemingly controlled the lead as the only team fielding two Oreca 07s.
MX-5 Cup star Connor Zilisch brought out his speed after the halfway point – as most characterised by Pipo Derani’s incident – as the second-youngest Daytona 24 winner put a move for second place on two fellow veteran competitors, Colin Braun (#04 Crowdstrike Racing) and Felipe Fraga (#74 Riley).
He spun briefly afterwards when he got the slight bump of an exit curb, setting his #18 Oreca into a spin. Fortunately, he sorted it out with his momentum and damage-free status intact, and continued in third position.
As the race headed into the final 2 hours and 45 minutes, Ryan Dalziel was in the #18 Era Oreca as he snatched the lead on a restart, after the ninth caution period of the race.
The Scotsman took the lead off Hunter McElrea in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca, as #2 United driver Nico Pino hung around behind the fighting pair.
Dalziel pitted and Pino took the opportunity to claim the class lead, fighting fiercely with McElrea who was adamantly on the tail of the Chilean’s purple and orange Oreca.
The pair headed into GTD traffic as the sunset painted the sky with a yellow aura, and headlights blared all around indicating nighttime approached the 12 LMP2s running at this point.
Not far afterwards, an intense lead fight broke with #2 Pino at the front and McElrea still behind, now joined by the #04 of Toby Sowery who was being chased by #22 United driver Paul di Resta.
Eventually, di Resta made a move past the #04 Crowdstrike Oreca into third.
This lead fight continued with Pino still tasked to defend from McElrea until no more following a timely manoeuvre by the #11 TDS driver as they went side-by-side into the famed Sunset Bend, the final turn [17].
They did so with a GTD Porsche in-between them and so McElrea found more grip and speed being on the right of the trio, which was the inside line into Turn 17.
McElrea built up a lead gap whilst Pino was caught and subsequently passed by #04 driver Sowery.
Into the final hour, the 10th caution period ended and the #81 DragonSpeed of Malthe Jakobsen was awarded a stop and 3 minute-and-44-second penalty for an improper final wave-by procedure, which harmed DragonSpeed’s chances of staying within the lead group.
The tension was up and high with a 23 minute sprint to the end, and the lead fight tasked Zilisch with defending his lead from Fraga’s #74 Riley Oreca.
He managed the gap at one second and the 17-year-old endurance novice kept Fraga at bay until the end, having gone from P8 to P1 during course of their final pit stop.
Fraga instead dropped the pace from the lead towards the final minutes.
The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca ended up victorious in the hands of Connor Zilisch, Dwight Merriman, and Ryan Dalziel.
Second place was taken by Mikkel Jensen, Hunter McElrea, and Steven Thomas in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca and the podium was rounded off by the #22 United Autosports USA crew of Dan Goldburg, Paul di Resta and Bjoy Garg.
In fourth place was the sole Ligier in the field – the #33 Sean Creech Motorsport entrant – driven by Lance Wilsey, Joao Barbosa and Jonny Edgar.
Fifth place was taken by the #74 Riley Oreca outfit of Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and Josh Burdon.
Only two LMP2 cars were part of the 11 retirees: #88 Richard Mille AF Corse and the #8 Tower Motorsports teams.
