Penske (Cameron) and Porsche (Pilet) on pole for the 12 Hours of Sebring

After a disappointing 2018 season in IndyCar, Team Penske magnificently raised the bar in St Petersburg (Florida) last week, with Josef Newgarden winning. Will it be the same in IMSA ? Still, riding on its convincing results in Supercars this weekend in Melbourne, the Mooresville team took pole position for the 12 Hours of Sebring.

At the wheel of the No. 05 Acura ARX-6 that he shares with Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagrnaud, the American completed a lap in 1'57"008. He beat Tristan Nunez (Mazda RT24-P n°77) by 0 and the other Acura, led by Helio Castroneves… also at 0 »146. The top five is completed by Pipo Derani (Cadillac DPi-VR n°31) at 0”489 and Jordan Taylor (Cadillac DPi-VR n°10), who concedes 0”665 to the reference mark.

In LM P2, Matt McMurry (Oreca 07 n°52 / PR1 Mathiasen) beat Kyle Masson (Oreca 07 n°38 Performance Tech).

Patrick Pilet made the powder speak in GTLM. The Frenchman, winner a year ago with Frédéric Makowiecki and Nick Tandy – the same trio as this year – took pole position in 1'55"899. He is 0”143 ahead of the 912 driven for the occasion by Laurens Vanthoor and by 0”259 the #7 Corvette C3.R entrusted this morning to Antonio Garcia. The best Ford, the No. 67 of Richard Westbrook, is fourth (+0 »290), just ahead of the fastest BMW, the No. 8 M24 GTLM of Jesse Krohn (+0 »587). The eight cars in the category are grouped into 0”8!

The GTD pole position goes to the Acura NSX GT3 of Meyer Shank Racing. On board, Trent Hindman completed a lap in 2'20"536 and beat Robby Foley (No. 6 Turner Motorsport BMW M3 GT96) and Zacharie Robichon (Porsche 911 GT3 R n°9). The leading fifth is completed by Rolf Ineichen (Lamborghini Huracan GT3 no. 47) and Brandon Gdovic, who precedes the Dane Christina Nielsen (Acura NSX GT3 no. 57).

The start of the 67th edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring will be given tomorrow, Saturday, at 15:40 p.m. French time and will be followed live on AUTOhebdo.fr