Cadillac wins chaotic 12 Hours of Sebring!

As often in IMSA and at the 12 Hours of Sebring (USA), we had to wait until the very last moments of an extremely lively race punctuated by numerous interruptions to find out the victorious crew.

Accidents have in fact multiplied and many contenders for victory in the general classification have disappeared as events have happened. This was particularly the case for Sébastien’s No. 01 Cadillac Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon. While the Frenchman had finished the ninth hour in the lead, he was forced to return to the pits due to a smoking engine. End of hopes of success for Manceau.

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With just over an hour and a half remaining, Meyer Shank Racing saw its chances disappear at the same time as Tom Blomqvist's left rear wheel came off the No. 06 Acura ARX-60. . BMW, which has made great progress since the 24 Hours of Daytona despite an early retirement of the No. 24, then hoped to hit the jackpot by recovering the lead of the race under Full Course Yellow, but the No. 25 of the German manufacturer was overtaken by problems when passing through the pit lane. 

Final sprint for victory

Cadillac with the No. 31 of Whelen Engineering (Aitken, Derani, Sims), Acura with the No. 10 of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport (Albuquerque, Taylor, Delétraz) and Porsche with its n°6 (Jaminet, Tandy, Cameron) and n°7 (Nasr, Campbell, Christensen) could all hope to win at the start of the last half hour, while the Florida night had fallen.

During yet another race restart, it was Jack Aitken who opened the road ahead of Mathieu Jaminet and Filipe Albuquerque. The Briton gave in to the attacks of the French and then the Portuguese. Felipe Nasr in turn overtook the former reserve driver Williams F1 after a magnificent three-front battle in the start-finish straight. 

Acura and Porsche eliminate each other, Cadillac wins

It was then that this edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring entered another dimension. Filipe Albuquerque tried to go all out on Jaminet in traffic, but the two drivers touched and the Portuguese found himself in the grass. The Acura crossed the track to collide with the leading Porsche. Nasr, in the front row, could not avoid the WTRAndretti and the first three remained on the floor!

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The No. 31 Cadillac of Jack Aitken, Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims, which started from pole, took first place ahead of the No. 25 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde, Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillippi. It was an LM P2 which found itself in third place overall with the Tower Motorsport of John Farano, Scott McLaughlin and Kyffin Simpson!

The race restarted for the last five minutes, but the first three positions overall no longer changed. In LM P3, Riley's #320 Ligier JS P74 won with Robinson, Fraga and Burdon. Frenchman Patrick Pilet triumphed in GTD Pro with his Pfaff Motorsports teammates, Klaus Bachler and Laurens Vanthoor. In GTD, it was the No. 4 BMW M3 GT1 of Paul Miller Racing (Sellers, Snow, Lewis) which crossed the line as winner.