2023 12 Hours of Sebring Preview
The IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship moves from its most prestigious endurance race, to arguably its most demanding this week, with the 71st annual Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. There’s certainly been no shortage of intrigue going into this second round of the IMSA season.
After 12 gruelling hours of racing along the jagged bumps and dangerous curves of Sebring International Raceway, there will be many more stories to follow.
GTP
No story has dominated the headlines within the past week like the tyre pressure manipulation scandal that erupted out of Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian.
The performance advantage of the #60 Acura ARX-06 prototype, particularly after Safety Car restarts, was head-turning at the time – and now we know one of the reasons why. MSR has accepted the penalties given to them: Fines, points deductions, and the expulsion of a prominent race engineer among them. What’s been more difficult for its rivals to accept was the penalty it didn’t receive.
Fair or not, the #60 Acura of Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Hélio Castroneves, and Simon Pagenaud will keep the victory, and the drivers will keep their wristwatches. Blomqvist, Braun, and Castroneves return for Sebring here, with the aim of rebuilding the team’s racing reputation.
The 200-point deduction they received has put them at the bottom of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship standings in GTP. It has now given the points lead to the #10 Konica Minolta (Wayne Taylor) Racing Acura (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque/Louis Delétraz), the car that many feel should have been the rightful winner at Daytona.
The #10 Acura heads into Sebring with a 22-point lead over the yellow #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R (Sebastien Bourdais/Renger van der Zande/Scott Dixon), which finished third at Daytona.
The Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac team will be down to just one car with the #02 now dispatched to the FIA World Endurance Championship. However, the #31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac (Pipo Derani/Alexander Sims/Jack Aitken) will ensure that every LMDh marque will have multiple entries, including Cadillac – who’ve won the last three Sebring 12 Hours in succession, and will be eager to keep their winning streak intact.
Action Express Racing’s #31 Cadillac sits fourth in the points, 65 points out of first place – just ahead of the #24 BMW M Team RLL Hybrid V8 (Philipp Eng/Augusto Farfus/Marco Wittmann), and the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 (Matt Campbell/Felipe Nasr/Michael Christensen). BMW and Porsche will be eager to improve on troubled first outings for their new prototypes at Daytona.
IMSA’s GTP class will have a few drivers pulling the second leg of ‘double duty’ after they’ve run the WEC 1000 Miles of Sebring on Friday – Blomqvist, Albuquerque, Delétraz, Christensen, and Dane Cameron in the #6 Porsche 963 (with Nick Tandy/Mathieu Jaminet).
LMP2
After the extraordinary photo finish in LMP2 at Daytona, it may come to some disappointment that the #55 Proton Competition car won’t be back at Sebring with its Oreca LMP2 07. (Though happily, the team is set to return later in the season with a GTP-class Porsche.) AF Corse’s #88 Oreca that finished third in class is also absent.
But the eight LMP2 entries that are here still have a great mix of professional and amateur drivers within them. And while they may have lost out on a Daytona victory by centimetres, the #04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR crew should be the favourites to get revenge at Sebring. George Kurtz and Ben Hanley return from the team’s Daytona line-up, and they’ve added the rapidly-rising Nolan Siegel to their crew, fresh off his promising run in the Asian Le Mans Series.
Of the returning teams, CrowdStrike/APR leads the #35 TDS Racing Oreca (Francois Heriau/Giedo van der Garde/Josh Pierson) by 34 points, and the #8 Tower Motorsports Oreca (John Farano/Scott McLaughlin/Kyffin Simpson) by 64 points. McLaughlin in particular received rave reviews for his attacking style in his first LMP2 drive at Daytona.
The #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca (Ben Keating/Paul-Loup Chatin/Alex Quinn) is the defending LMP2 class winner at Sebring, but has a new pair of pros to support Keating. That’s because Mikkel Jensen and Scott Huffaker went to TDS Racing this off-season to join Steven Thomas in the #11 Oreca.
LMP3
In LMP3, there are two new entries for the 2023 season making their first appearances at Sebring. Ave Motorsports has entered the #4 Ligier JS P320, driven by Champ Car World Series cult hero Tonis Kasemets, joined by young prospects Trenton Estep and Seth Lucas. Also making a return is Jr III Motorsports, with the #30 Ligier of Ari Balogh, Garett Grist, and Dakota Dickerson.
Ligier may be the chassis of choice for most LMP3 teams, but the winner at Daytona was Duquiene – specifically, the green and black #17 AWA Duquiene D08 of Anthony Mantella, Wayne Boyd, and Nico Varrone.
They won after mechanical troubles took the #33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier (Lance Willsey/João Barbosa/Nico Pino) out of contention and spoiled a promising fight for the lead at Daytona. Sean Creech Motorsports is the defending LMP3 class winner at Sebring, and comes into this race just 17 points behind the #17 AWA Duquiene. The #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier (Robert Mau/Christopher Allen/Tristan Nuñez) isn’t far behind, 42 points out of the championship lead.
GTD
Before the storm in GTP, the buzz in the paddock was in the GTD classes – surrounding the precarious Balance of Performance settings and driveability of the new 992-spec Porsche 911 GT3 Rs. One Porsche customer team has pulled out of Sebring, another has gone from full-time to Endurance Cup only.
The Porsches received help in the form of a big power increase, and the new Ferrari 296 GT3s and Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2s also received a bump in power after lacklustre Daytona debuts. Will it be enough to render them competitive once more?
The #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 won GTD Pro and took the class championship lead. Cooper MacNeil has hung up his helmet, entrusting Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, and Maro Engel to carry on for the next round at Sebring.
With a perfect score of 385 points from Daytona, the #79 WeatherTech Mercedes leads GTD Pro by 37 points over the #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R (Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor/Tommy Milner) in second, and the #14 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3 (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat/Kyle Kirkwood) in third. Corvette Racing won GTD Pro last season, the first IMSA victory for the C8.R in its GTD spec.
Kirkwood takes Mike Conway’s place aboard the #14 Lexus, with Conway fulfilling his usual role with Toyota Gazoo Racing in WEC. The #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini has brought Franck Perera on board to partner Jordan Pepper and Romain Grosjean at Sebring, and Risi Competizione has recruited Brazilian Stock Car champion Gabriel Casagrande to join Daniel Serra and Davide Rigon in their #62 Ferrari.
Can a GTD ‘Pro-Am’ winner finish ahead of a GTD Pro winner once again? That prospect certainly isn’t off the table.
The Heart of Racing Team is riding high after its GTD class victory at Daytona, and returns to Sebring with Ian James, Marco Sorensen, and Roman de Angelis aboard the reigning GTD series champions’ #27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3. They have a 35-point gap to the #44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin (John Potter/Andy Lally/Spencer Pumpelly) in second, leading an Aston Martin 1-2 in the standings.
Last year’s GTD winner, Cetilar Racing, will hope for a better outing for its new #47 Ferrari 296 GT3. The Ferraris’ power increases were offset by a minor weight increase; only the stopwatch will tell if the added power will prove more important.
A team to watch for with its eye on Daytona redemption is Winward Racing, back with its #57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 driven by Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje. They went through an emotional roller coaster in their last IMSA appearance and will try to avenge their final-hour misfortunes.
Inception Racing, ranked third in the standings, will debut the upgraded McLaren 720S GT3 EVO this weekend at Sebring. If the enhancements meet their stated goal, expect the #70 McLaren of Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff, and Ollie Millroy to be a contender.
Kellymoss with Riley has made one change of drivers in their #91 Porsche 911 GT3 R, adding Julien Andlauer to the mix alongside David Brule and Alec Udell. While a bit smaller than it was at Daytona, GTD’s 20-car grid still promises great competition between customers from multiple makes.
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