Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr took a dominant victory at the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring on Saturday, taking pole position and leading almost the entire way.
It was the team’s first win since October 2019, when Derani, Nasr and Eric Curran took victory at Petit Le Mans. The win is Derani’s fourth in five years after taking the chequered flag at the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
“I think this place likes me,” Derani said. “It was a fantastic day for us.
‘We had our last win last year at Petit Le Mans. This team is so used to winning, and not having the two races at Daytona go our way wasn’t what the team expected.
“I love this place. We had a dominant car the whole way.
It’s fantastic when you can roll off the truck with a setup that is as good as we had today.”
Derani’s team-mate, Felipe Nasr, returned to the cockpit of the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-VR for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of the previous round at Daytona.
Nasr, who was replaced at Daytona by Gabby Chaves, took an emotional win upon his return to the team after recovering from the virus.
“I really went through a lot the last days,” he said. “I was frustrated, but it was something I couldn’t control.
My first intention was to protect the team. It was hard to miss Daytona.”
Nasr took over the car from Derani in the second half of the way and was briefly challenged by the #10 Konica Minolta Cadillac of Ryan Briscoe, but Nasr kept his lead and brought the bright red prototype home for the win.
“I couldn’t think of a better race to come back to IMSA,” Nasr concluded.
“I love this series. I love this track. Sebring is just amazing, and I think Sebring loves us back. It’s such a gift. I can’t describe it.”
