First success for the R15

Like the R8 in 2000 and the R10 in 2006 before it, the R15 established itself from the start. The two Audi crews did not encounter the slightest technical problem during the entire 12 hours of racing, on the contrary, they even took advantage of the numerous problems with Peugeot who had nevertheless led a good part of the ordeal.

Indeed, even before the start of these 12 Hours of Sebring, the No. 8 (Bourdais/Montagny/Sarrazin) was forced to have a faulty hydraulic pump replaced, which forced him to start from the pits and lose a good twenty seconds from the start. A little later, Sébastien Bourdais lost around fifteen seconds in a spin before suffering a puncture three hours from the finish and shortly before night fell, definitively costing him the victory.

Worse still for the No. 7 (Klien/Lamy/Minassian) because she had already lost any chance of winning following a stubborn air conditioning problem, having caused her to lose a whopping 8 laps after only 3h30 of racing. She will never see the finish in the end, since Pedro Lamy was forced to park in the escape route at turn no. 7, half an hour from the checkered flag.

The end of the race was, however, very close between the Audi no. 2 and the Peugeot no. 8. Two hours from the finish, the 908 managed to take second place occupied by the Audi no. 1, thanks to an offbeat strategy, a consequence of the puncture suffered by Bourdais, preventing her from having to briefly return to the pits at the end of the race like the German.

The two leading cars will exchange first place in turn during the last two hours then, again due to staggered strategies.

Franck Montagny will make the last refueling 42 minutes from the finish, leaving command of the race to Allan McNish with a 36??5 lead. From then on, the Scot absolutely had to increase his lead to 50??0 to be able to refuel and come out on top. He therefore chained fast laps and managed to widen the gap, lap after lap, to finally find himself with a 64??0 lead during his last refueling, 14 minutes from the end.

The No. 2 Audi returned to the track with a 24??5 lead over the 908 from Montagny and McNish crossed the finish line as the winner a few minutes later. The No. 1 Audi finished third.

Acura did not really shine in LMP1 at Sebring. The ARX-02As had a difficult start, since after being dropped by the diesel prototypes they both ultimately had to abandon. The No. 9 of Highcroft (Brabham/Franchitti/Sharp) following a transmission problem and the No. 66 of De Ferran (de Ferran/Dixon/Pagenaud) following a suspension failure.

In LMP2, the spectacle was not up to par as one might expect, the No. 15 Fernandez Racing Acura (Fernandez/Diaz) being the only car to reach the finish. The two Dyson Racing Lola Mazda B09/80s were indeed very quickly plagued by reliability issues, forcing them both to retire before halfway. This “slight detail” will not, however, prevent them from getting on the podium, alongside Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez, without even having been officially classified?

Everything was decided very early in GT1 and the duel between the two Corvette C6.Rs. was won by No. 3 (Magnussen/O?Connel/Garcia) which is ahead of No. 4 (Beretta/Gavin/Fassler) by 23?? on arrival, after having driven wheel to wheel for a very long time.

The many problems of Porsche from the start of the race allowed the crew of the Ferrari n° 62 of Risi Competizione, author of a perfect and worry-free race like the victorious Audi, to easily win in GT2. Mika Salo and Jaime Melo were two laps ahead of another Ferrari, the No. 95 of Advanced Engineering and the Panoz Esperante of Team PGT. The big disappointment in this category came from the BMW M3s, both prematurely withdrawn from the race following mechanical problems, even though the No. 92 had held second place for a long time at the start of the race.

This 57th edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring will therefore be marked by the ninth victory for Audi Sport in the ALMS, a story which could well be repeated next June, on the occasion of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the Ingolstadt firm will also have the possibility of achieving its ninth success and equaling the track record of a certain prancing horse manufacturer.