2nd win for Konica Minolta’s Cadillac at Sebring

The 65^th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida took place March 16^th – 18^th in the 3.74 mile long bumpy track. Florida hosts the first two races of the WeatherTech SportsCar Challenge which include The 24 Hour Race at Daytona and the 12 Hour Race at Sebring which also make up for two out of four races included in the Tequila Patron Endurance Championship.

As it was the case, without the controversy, Konica Minolta’s Cadillac Dpi-V.R won the prestigious race with the same car from Daytona in the 2^nd position, Mustang Sampling Racing’s No. 5. In Daytona, R. Taylor forced his way passed Barbosa’s Cadillac causing him to spin a couple of laps from the end of the race which was deemed as a racing incident by the officials. The story was similar in Sebring but different in the way it ended, Taylor managed to set a 13 second gap with solid pace over Fittipaldi who were the only two cars to finish in the lead lap with 348 laps completed over the course of the race itself. Third place went to Whelen Engineering Racing’s Cadillac No. 31 who had better luck than in Daytona where they finished 6^th in the P class 20 laps behind the winners. Fourth place went to the ORECA from JDC-Miller Motorsports with their No. 85 that have done very consistent races without mistakes and with good reliability even though they are lacking the pace of the Cadillacs for sure.

Several teams ran into mechanical problems and lost a lot of time in pits and in some cases had to retire, the Ligier of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, the two Mazda Dpi, especially No. 70 that had to retire after brake failure and hitting the barriers, the No. 55 lost over 25 laps too. Rebellion Racing’s Oreca also suffered from many mechanical issues and did finish but almost half the distance covered by the first place finisher. Tequila Patron entries had a terrible day as well, with the No. 2 retiring after 47 laps and the No. 22 retiring after completing 158 laps.

PC class is racing its last season in the series, Daytona saw 5 entries with the Starworks Team presenting 2 cars but for Sebring they presented only one car which reduced the race to 4 vehicles only. In any case, that does not demerit the effort from its competitors, specially the No. 38 from Team Performance Tech Motorsports that won in both races and finished 5^th overall at Sebring only 10 laps behind the winner, that’s a reflects really great work from the team and the strong commitment from the drivers. It’s important to mention also that the Starworks No. 8 also did an excellent race finishing 6^th overall and only 2 laps behind the No. 38. 3^rd place went to BAR 1 Motorsports No. 26, 8 laps further down with the sister car No. 20 completing 302 laps.

GTLM had 10 entries, 2 Corvettes, 3 Ford GTs, 2 BMW M6s, 2 Porsche 911 RSRs, and 1 Ferrari 488 GTE. How hard was the 12 hour race? 7 cars finished within the same lap! (Just as in Daytona after 24 Hours) This is simply exciting, 5 brands giving it all until the end but only one winner, the No. 3 Corvette C7.R 14 laps behind the overall winner and 4.5 seconds ahead of the No. 66 Ford GT with Risi Competizione’s No. 62 Ferrari another 9 seconds behind. Two cars hit trouble early in the race, the No. 4 Corvette C7.R that only managed to complete 42 laps and the No. 24 BMW M6 that completed 149 laps.

GTD was the most populated category with 21 cars, with the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3 from Riley Motorsports-Team AMG winning 1 lap ahead of the next 7 cars in the class but it was a matter of the leader of the race lapping the rest and receiving the checkered flag just behind the Mercedes, what I’m trying to say is that the difference was really not that big between 1^st and 2^nd place, not a lap, but the winning Cadillac lapped up to 2^nd place and received the flag so the 1^st place Mercedes had an extra lap to go before receiving the flag. A very tight race it was indeed, the 2^nd place went to Scuderia Corsa’s No. 63 Ferrari 488 GT3 with a nice bounce back in form from their difficult race at Daytona. 3^rd Place was for another Mercedes-AMG GT3, SunEnergy 1 Racing’s No. 75, also recovering from a difficult race at Daytona and finishing just over 3 seconds from the Ferrari and barely over one second ahead of Montaplast by Land-Motorsport’s Audi R8 LMS GT3 No. 29. 5^th place went to a different manufacturer, No. 48 Paul Miller Racing’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3.

Full Results click here.