Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor have won the 12 Hours of Sebring, the second round of the IMSA Sportscar Championship in 2025, completing a 1-2 for Porsche.
The three, in the #7 Porsche, fought off a fierce, race-long challenge from the #31 Cadillac and their teammates in the sister #6 machine.
Dries Vanthoor started the #24 BMW on pole but very quickly got a drive through penalty for a start procedure infringement. With the Porsche second and third, after Mathieu Jaminet passed Tom Blomqvist’s #60 MSR Acura shortly after the start, they were promoted to a 1-2 — which, ironically, was how they’d finish — with Blomqvist third.
With D. Vanthoor now having dropped back to amid the LMP2 field after serving the penalty, Nasr now led from Jaminet.
While the Brazilian was able to eek out a small gap over his teammate, it was only up top 1.5 seconds by the time the second full course yellow of the race was called, at a couple of minutes before an hour had elapsed.
Cautions dominate early hours
The first full course caution was just a few minutes in, to recover two LMP2 cars, the #18 Era Motorsport Oreca of Tobi Lutke and the #88 AF Corse Oreca of Luis Perez Companc, who had gone into the barriers together at turn 3.
Whereas the first was just a ‘short yellow’, with the pits not opening, the second was a longer caution period with the pit lane opening.
It had been caused by Ricky Taylor, in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, making contact with the #023 Triarsi Ferrari 296 GT3 of Charles Scardina. The Ferrari went off track and hit the barriers front-on, with enough force to move the concrete block back a metre or so.
Regardless, most GTPs pitted under the caution. But the leading Porsches and Acuras did not, pitting a few laps later and losing track position as the cars had been bunched up behind the safety car. It later transpired that a mistake by race control meant the pits had not been open when they first passed it under caution, despite opening moments later for the cars behind them. This dropped all four cars to mid-way down through the GTP field.
At the restart, the #63 Lamborghini SC63 of Romain Grosjean led, but would drop back at the restart as they had taken a wave through when they weren’t supposed to have done. This put Jack Aitken, in the #31 Cadillac, into the lead, with Louis Deletraz in the #40 WTR Cadillac second and Renger van der Zande third in the #93 Acura.
Nasr moved up quickly to fourth, but it wasn’t long before another caution was called, with Lutke in the #18 Era car crashing heavily at Sunset Bend, the final corner.
Immediately after the restart another caution was called, this time for the #99 AO Racing Oreca LMP2 of PJ Hyett, who had crashed at turn 1.
Rookie Vesti leads at Sebring
The GTPs pitted at this point, two hours into the race, with Frederik Vesti now in the leading #31 Cadillac, Alex Palou second in the #93 Acura, and Laurens Vanthoor taking over from Felipe Nasr in the #6 Porsche.
Vesti, an endurance racing and sportscar rookie in his first competitive outing at Sebring, fended Palou, a three-time Indycar champion and general motorsport star, and L. Vanthoor, a sportscar veteran, off admirably. The Dane led the race maintaining a gap to the cars behind for the next hour and a half.
“That was honestly one of the most fun races that I’ve ever done; obviously, it’s not done yet,” he said after his stint.
“The stints were really good and we’re really pleased with the car as well. I knew we had a good car and this gives us a lot of confidence the rest of the race. Now it’s time to chill and my great teammates will do the job and I’ll be back in the car later. Good job by all.”
Earl Bamber replaced Vesti at the wheel, but as is common at Sebring, the fifth FCY of the race, in under five hours, was called. This time it was a GTP in trouble — Brendon Hartley had crashed the #40 WTR Cadillac at Sunset, similar to what Lutke did a couple of hours previously.
The rest of the GTP field pitted, with Colin Braun in the #60 Acura jumping the Cadillac in the pits to take the lead, with Tandy in the #7 Porsche third.
Porsche take control
Braun retained the lead for a short while after the restart, but Bamber soon overhauled him to take it back, shortly before the end of the fifth hour. Braun then dropped back through the top end of the field, with Yelloly, in the sister #93 Acura, second, having jumped his countryman Tandy earlier on. Tandy now sat third behind Yelloly, almost four seconds behind Bamber and two off Yelloly.
This is the way the order stayed until the next pitstops, when Tandy handed back over to Nasr. Van der Zande, who had replaced Yelloly in the #93 Acura, then got a penalty for a pitstop infringement, dropping him back to sixth and promoting Nasr to second.
Nasr gradually closed the six second gap to Bamber, and almost bang on the half way mark, overtook the Kiwi for the lead.
For the next three hours, this was the way the order stayed, with the #7 Porsche out in front and the #31 chasing. Bamber was replaced by Aitken mid way through the sixth hour, but the Briton-Korean wasn’t able to catch Nasr out in front, who gradually grew the lead from six second to 12 by the end of the hour.
Behind these two was the sister #6 Porsche, initially with Jaminet behind the wheel, then Kevin Estre. The challenge from the Acuras and the BMWs was rapidly fading, with Robin Frijns fourth in the #25 BMW and Scott Dixon fifth in the #60, mid way through the seventh hour.
They were, however, dropping off the back of the two Porsches sandwiching the Cadillac. Laurens Vanthoor now led, with Aitken having closed the gap to just over two seconds as the sun began its descent in the sky over Sunset Bend.
Vanthoor subsequently responded to Aitken catching him and re-extended the gap, up to eight seconds by the end of the hour, with four left to run.
At the next stops, though, Action Express and Cadillac were quicker than Penske and Porsche, with Vesti now back in the car and under a second back from L. Vanthoor.
The race’s next caution, the sixth of the race, then neutralised proceedings; the #23 Aston Martin Valkyrie had spun at Sunset Bend. Ross Gunn, behind the wheel of the Heart of Racing-run car, was able to get it going again, but not before race control called a caution.
Crunch time at Sebring
At the restart, there were now under three hours left to run — crunch time.
Vesti now lead from Tandy, having taken the lead at the pitstops under caution. Tandy passed him, and was scored as the leader, for one lap, but Vesti got back by, and was able to extend a short but manageable gap, around two seconds, amid the constant slower traffic around the old airfield.
Near the top of the 10th hour of the race, with two to go, Tandy passed Vesti. The Dane would pit shortly after, to be replaced by Earl Bamber.
However, the Kiwi’s former teammate at Porsche, Mathieu Jaminet, passed the Cadillac at turn 7, solidifying Porsche’s 1-2.
However, this was where Porsche’s strategy brilliance would come into play. The German manufacturer had realised earlier that they’d need to save fuel, with both cars, or risk having to make a splash and dash for fuel in the final hour.
Thus, the drivers were instructed to save, while maintaining track position. This they did, eliminating the need for a final stop, making their last stops of the race with just under an hour to go.
However, the #31 Cadillac, and the Action Express team, had chosen a different strategy, which would require a fuel stop late on, after the Porsches had stopped for the final time.
This, arguably, cost Cadillac the race. Bamber pitted under the final caution, with the team refueling the car to the end and also fitting new rubber. The #25 BMW of Robin Frijns also did the same thing.
But, the Porsches did not, having saved fuel earlier. Likewise, the #93 Acura, with Meyer Shank Racing also having noticed this need to save fuel earlier on, did not stop, and moved up to third at the expense of Bamber and Frijns.
Bamber and Frijns exited the pits under caution in fifth and sixth, behind the #5 Proton Porsche of Neel Jani in fourth, who also had not stopped. Bamber passed Jani with 12 minutes to go, but Frijns was gifted fifth when Jani, who had been trying to make his fuel last, pitted with just minutes to go, dropping him to sixth.
And that was the way the race finished, with Nasr taking the flag, 2.2 seconds ahead of his teammate Mathieu Jaminet in the #6 Porsche. Nick Yelloly was third in the #93 Acura, while Bamber took fourth. Frijns was fifth, and Jani the last car on the lead lap in sixth.
Inter Europol claim victory in LMP2
In LMP2, the #43 Inter Europol Oreca of Tom Dillmann, Jeremy Clarke, and Bijoy Garg took the victory, prevailing after a fierce, race-long fight with the #8 Tower Motorsport Oreca, #11 TDS Racing Oreca, and #04 Crowdstrike by APR Oreca to prevail.
In some ways they were gifted the win by young Malthe Jakobsen, a Peugeot factory driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship, making an error and punting a GTD car late on in the race with just 10- minutes remaining.
As always in IMSA, he copped an incident responsibility penalty for his trouble, and dropped from the lead to sixth, where he’d finish.
Second behind Dillmann, who crossed the line to take the flag in the #43 Inter Europol car, was Sebastien Bourdais in the #8 Tower machine.
They fought hard all race, leading for significant periods, but in the end Bourdais was not able to overcome Dillmann, finishing just over a second behind his countryman.
Third was Mikkel Jensen in the #11 TDS Oreca. Steven Thomas started the car on pole but over the race distance, didn’t quite have the pace to challenge for victory, along with Jensen and Thomas’ teammate Hunter McElrea.
Jensen crossed the line four and a half seconds behind Dillmann, after pushing hard in the final stint.
