The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring left the sportscar world buzzing with excitement as Jack Aitken, Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims and the #31 Whelen Racing Cadillac team took the top step on the podium after a chaotic final two hours of racing and a messy race overall.
Pipo Derani led the field to green in his #31 Action Express Cadillac V.Series-R and almost immediately Rickey Taylor in the #12 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 began pushing to the front. Taylor got around Sebastian Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R to secure P2, and then began to apply heavy pressure to Derani at the front.
Further down the field in the LMP3 ranks, Lance Willsey got turned around in his #33 Sean Creech Motorsport Ligier JS P320, near the back of the first half of the split start. With the thundering threat of the GT ranks about to reach turn 1, Willsey sat helpless as the GTD Pro and GTD classes passed around him.
In nothing short of a miracle, Willsey came out unscathed and was able to continue at the back of the field with the only damage being sustained coming from the initial impact that spun him. The debris on the track drew out the first yellow of the day.
A short full course yellow bunched up the already tight field and when the green flag flew again, the fight at the top got back underway. Taylor continued to apply pressure on Derani while Bourdais waited to pounce from P3. Bourdais was able to make a move on Taylor for P2 stick near the end of the first hour right as the second yellow of the day came out.
The #04 Crowdstrike Racing APR Oreca 07-Gibson machine spun and was beached with George Kurtz behind the wheel. The yellow came out to allow the car to be recovered. During the yellow flag period the #17 AWA LMP3 machine with Anthony Mantella in control slowed and stopped on track. It was able to get a tow and continued to run.
When the green flag dropped once again, Ricky Taylor, who had dropped to P5 waited no time climbing his way back to the top of GTP. He got around Matt Campbell in fourth in the #6 Porsche 963 entry, and then set his sights on the other Acura, the #60 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06, which had Tom Blomqvist at the wheel.
The Briton was taking looks at Derani in P2 while Taylor was taking look at him. Blomqvist made a move on Derani and Derani let it happen and accepted the P3, but it wasn’t over yet as Taylor made his move as well and Derani found himself in P4 in the blink of an eye.
A few blinks of the eye later and Derani found himself up the back of an LMP3 car and the main character of the third full course yellow of the day. The #38 Performance Tech LMP3 entry spun on its own in front of Derani and the #31 made heavy contact. He was able to get back to the pits for repairs and would make more than one visit for repairs over the next few laps.
This full course yellow kicked off the first driver change pit cycle of the race and saw Scott Dixon take control of the #01, Helio Castroneves jump in the #60, and Alexander Sims in the #31. New drivers, they may be but the fight at the top of GTP didn’t stop when the green flag flew once more.
Dixon took the position Bourdais gave him and got Taylor for the lead early on. Not once did Dixon let up during his stint in the factory Cadillac, building a massive gap for the #01. Behind him Taylor continued what would shape up to be almost a triple stint in the #10, staying in the mix throughout despite consistent pressure from Phillip Eng in the #24 BMW M team RLL entry.
As we transitioned to the middle third of the race, some debris from the #66 Gradient racing GTD car laid dormant on track until it was hit and exploded carbon fiber all over the track a few minutes later. The debris was shed when the #66 was squeezed by Nick Tandy in the #6 Porsche, causing a left rear puncture for Tandy and leaving the #66 with one less headlight and a massive hole in the front of the car.
The next pit cycle came and went and on the other end, Louis Deletraz found himself in the #10, Acura, and Ricky Taylor was treated to a much-needed break. After the cycle, Dixon continued to build his lead to almost 27 seconds at its peak this stint. The problems then continued for the #6 Porsche as the cockpit began to fill with smoke forcing Tandy to open his door for ventilation as he found his way to the pits.
The #01 Cadillac got back into the pits for a driver change and Renger van der Zande got behind the wheel for the first time. Van der Zande continued the work of Dixon and Bourdais and found himself 58 seconds ahead of Jack Aitken in the #31 at one point.
The next full course yellow came out at the end of the fifth hour when Francois Heriau lost it out of the final turn and made friends with a wall. Heriau was okay, but his car was not. He was able to get it moving, but the damage was heavy and that spelled the end for the #35 TDS Racing entry at Sebring.
The #10 ducked into the pits before the closed and Filipe Albuquerque got his first stint of the day going into the sixth hour in the lead. Albuquerque took the field to green with the #01 and the #31 in tow, but Albuquerque held firm and maintained the lead for quite a while going forward.
Down in the GT ranks, Jack Hawksworth blew open what was a somewhat quiet day for the typically eclectic GTD and GTD Pro classes. With what could be put up as the move of the day, Hawksworth took his #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus broke the ankles of, and got around the #63 Iron Lynx machine who put up an egregious block on the Englishmen. The #63 was handed a rare penalty for blocking and Hawksworth continued his fight to the top of the GT ranks.
Back at the front van der Zande began setting up some moves on the #10, and it looked like he was going to make one stick more than once. But the #10 held firm and maintained the lead through the immense pressure. The #01 then had to fend off a few jabs from Jack Aitken and Albuquerque capitalized, rebuilding his gap from van Der Zande and scurrying off into the distance.
Aitken eventually made the move stick around the #01, and it seemed as though the #01 slowed up to let it happen. This was the first of a handful of odd performance issues the #01 would display over the next few hours before their eventual trip behind the wall.
The next stop cycle saw Albuquerque and van Der Zande strap in for one more stint as Aitken got out to make room for Derani in the #31. Derani would snatch P2 from van Der Zande as the #10 continued to be inconsistent in its performance.
The fight would pause once more as the #8 Tower Motorsport LMP2 machine had a massive shunt at the exit of turn one and at first glance seemingly bricked the car. But the young Kyffin Simpson found the reverse and got it moving again despite heavy damage.
The yellow came out and during the full course yellow, the BMW #24 slowed to a stop on track after Augusto Farfus was ordered back to the garage for repairs. The car was retired once recovery teams brought it behind the wall. The #10 led the field to yet another restart as the sun began to set and the issues for the #01 got worse.
The green flag period didn’t last long however, the yellow flew once more when debris from a mysterious incident involving the GTD Pole sitting #93 Racers Edge Acura left debris strewn across the track and the #93 crew left packing after retiring the car.
During the yellow period, the #38 Performance Edge LMP3 machine seemingly drove into the back of the #6 Porsche entry out of know where and subsequently extended the yellow to clean up the debris left from the contact. The #6 pitted for repairs and got going once more, as did the #38.
The yellow party wasn’t done yet however, shortly after the next restart the #16 Wright Motorsport Porsche and the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes made contact and sent both cars off as the yellow flew.
When the race got going the field seemed to have settled into a holding pattern as they awaited the setting sun and adjusted to the changing track conditions. The persistent issues for the #01 caught up to them and as the car pitted in the waning minutes of the ninth hour a fire broke out in the rear and the day was done for the #01.
Throughout the 10th hour, the #10 continued to lead with Deletraz behind the wheel and when the sun finally set, the party really started. Teams made their final driver changes to ring in the last few hours of the race and the fresh tires, cooling temperatures, and low visibility made it almost inevitable that at least one more yellow was going to blow these strategy plays up and turn this race on its head.
It’s almost too poetic that the incident that blew this race up involved the #60 Meyer Shank team and tire problems after the news of the last few weeks, but that is exactly what happened. As he got settled behind the wheel to close out the race Tom Blomqvist found himself with an empty wheel well and beached at turn 16, he had lost a tire and was not able to limp back to the pits. The yellow flew and this race was officially poised for chaos.
A large majority of the field dipped into the pits to set themselves up for the final hour of the race, fresh tires galore and fuel tanks filled just right. The race to the finish was on and at the head was Filipe Albuquerque in the #10 Wayne Taylor Acura.
The green flag flew and Mathieu Jamiet in the #7 Porsche got around Aitken for P3 and set his sights on the #10. But the yellow flags came out again for the #51 Rick Ware Racing LMP2 entry with Pietro Fittipaldi behind the wheel. The #51 lost a wheel suddenly on the entry to T1 and sent that wheel right into the LMP3 leading #30 Jr III Racing, ending both their days to no fault of their own.
When the lights were green once more, Albuquerque had a mirror full of Porsche with the #6 and #7 both in the mix for the lead. The #7 was naturalized by a penalty handed down for a pit box infraction so it was the #10 vs #6 with less than an hour to run.
Jaminet made moves, but Albuquerque always had the answer. The #10 was saved by the 11th yellow of the day, this time due to a beached #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini. The race got going again, and some last-minute pit stops put the #31 at the front with Albuquerque and Jaminet right behind.
Three different marques, three different teams, and three world-class drivers ran three wide, fighting tooth and nail for the lead. The tensions finally boiled over in traffic and small contact with Jaminet’s #6 Porsche sent the Albuquerque bowling through both Porsches and a handful of GT cars, bringing out the final yellow of the day and leaving two GTP cars left.
12 hours of racing came down to one corner, and at the end of the day, 12 hours of racing came down to one misjudgment made simultaneously by different two drivers in two different cars. That mistake boiled 12 hours of racing down to a simple DNF for three top-class teams all with a chance to leave Sebring Florida with a win.
Jack Aiken crossed the line in the #31 and secured the victory after a final three laps of green flag running to close it out. Not far back ran the #25 BMW with Nick Yelloly at the wheel, taking second.
Behind Yelloly ran Scott McLaughlin in the #Tower Motorsport LMP2 car to round out the overall podium — the very same car that limped away from the wall, shedding parts, not 4 hours ago.
LMP3 was won decisively by Filipe Fraga by a full lap in the #74 Riley machine. The GT ranks were topped by Patrick Pilet and the #9 Pfaff Motorsport Porsche entry taking the GTD Pro crown and Madison Snow finishing it out for the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW outfit in GTD.
