Whelen Cadillac Quickest, Multiple Incidents Disrupt Sebring Night Practice
Night Practice for the 71st annual 12 Hours of Sebring was disrupted by five red flag interruptions in total. The session finished with the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R of Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims, and Jack Aitken on top of the time sheets in Practice 3.
The sun had barely set over the west of Sebring International Raceway when Practice 3 began – and was almost immediately red-flagged. David Brule lost control of his #92 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R on his outlap and went off at turn three. Brule hit the tyre barriers, but not with enough force to inflict serious damage. So, once the car was recovered, the #92 Porsche continued its night practice.
Meyer Shank Racing’s strange day at Sebring continued: From a red flag and nagging electrical issues, to the fastest time in Practice 2 for their #60 Acura ARX-06, Colin Braun brought his car to a stop at pit exit after it lost power coming out of its box. He resumed, but was only able to make it to turn five before the #60 Acura stopped again.
The red flag came out for the stopped Acura LMDh, it was withdrawn, and then came out seconds later when the right front wheel came off of the #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 just as Marc Miller was trying to get his requisite nighttime refresher laps.
Acura’s woes in GTP continued with 35 minutes to go when Filipe Albuquerque ground to a halt at turn three. His #10 Konica Minolta Racing Acura was immobilized with what appeared to be a similar issue to what befell the #60. That caused a fourth red flag of the session, which was making it difficult for some drivers to get their required night practice.
Then, with about 15 minutes left, Kay van Berlo – who’d just set his fastest lap of the night – took a frightening spin through Sunset Bend when he lost control of the #91 Kellymoss/Riley Porsche, and hit head-on into the tyre barriers. Van Berlo was able to walk away from the spin and crash, but it was a hefty hit that could leave the #91 Porsche’s status questionable for the rest of the weekend.
The session did restart with three minutes left on the clock, enough time for two more laps. No one could match the 1’48.820 laid down by Sims earlier in the session in that time. Cadillac led their first session of the weekend.
Mathieu Jaminet went second-quickest in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963, which he shares with Nick Tandy and Dane Cameron. Jaminet’s time of 1’48.972 got the Porsches up into the top three for the first time today.
Despite losing power and bringing out a red flag, quick work from the crew at Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport helped the #10 Konica Minolta Acura (Ricky Taylor/Filipe Albuquerque/Louis Delétraz) take the final restart. The #10 Acura finished third with Delétraz setting a 1’49.034 – but surely, there are more pressing concerns within the Honda/Acura camp heading into tomorrow morning’s qualifying session.
A GTD Pro car had the fastest time across both GTD classes for the first time tonight. The #3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD of Antonio Garcia, Jordan Taylor, and Tommy Milner led their class for the second straight practice session.
Taylor’s best time of 2’01.290 was just 0.030 seconds away from the best time that Milner set in Practice 2 hours prior. The defending GTD Pro winners of the Sebring 12 Hours look like the class of the field, so far.
The VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3s continued to show good form in either of the two GTD classes. This time it was their all-pro #14 Lexus (Jack Hawksworth/Ben Barnicoat/Kyle Kirkwood) that went second-fastest, as Barnicoat clocked in with a 2’01.375.
Appearing inside the top three for the first time was the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon/Maro Engel). With a new chassis introduced this weekend for the Daytona 24 Hours class winners, Juncadella went third-fastest with a 2’01.407. This was the only car that set its best time of the day in this session.
Just 0.117 seconds covered the top three in GTD Pro, which made the gaps in a still-close GTD class look comically large.
The top two from Practice 2 were repeated in Practice 3. The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis/Indy Dontje) led from the #80 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (PJ Hyett/Seb Priaulx/Gunnar Jeannette).
After Ward led Practice 2, Dontje had the honours in Practice 3 with a best time of 2’01.360.
Priaulx again put “Rexy the GT3 Rawr” through its paces with a 2’01.646.
And the Daytona-winning #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Roman de Angelis/Marco Sørensen/Ian James) rounded out the top three, with De Angelis clocking in at a 2’01.771.
TDS Racing’s two Oreca 07s occupied the top three places in LMP2, led by the #35 of François Heriau, Giedo van der Garde, and Josh Pierson.
Pierson’s time of 1’51.543 was three-tenths quicker than the #18 Era Motorsports Oreca (Dwight Merriman/Ryan Dalziel/Christian Rasmussen) in second, with the other TDS Racing Oreca, the #11 (Steven Thomas/Mikkel Jensen/Scott Huffaker) in third.
Jr III Motorsports completed a sweep of all three Practice sessions as the #30 Ligier JS P320 of Ari Balogh, Garret Grist, and Dakota Dickerson set another top time. Whereas Dickerson led Practice 1 and 2, Grist had the best time at night, a 1’56.595.
Rounding out the top three in LMP3 were the #74 Riley Ligier (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga/Josh Burdon) followed by the #4 Ave Motorsports Ligier (Seth Lucas/Tonis Kasemets/Trenton Estep), the other of the two new-for-2023 entries in LMP3 this weekend.
Qualifying for the 71st annual Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring begins tomorrow morning at 9:15 AM EDT (local time).
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