Sebring Hour 6: Peugeot and Audi battle at halfway

The battle between Audi, Peugeot and Acura was living up to expectations halfway through the 57th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida. Peugeot’s Franck Montagny moved ahead of Audi’s Allan McNish under a pit stop near the six-hour mark at America’s greatest sports car race.

McNish was leading by a half-second in the new Audi R15 TDI when the two cars pitted. The Peugeot 908 HDi took only fuel while the Audi took diesel and tires. That put Montagny up by 14 seconds.

Mike Rockenfeller was third in the second Audi with Gil de Ferran’s Acura ARX-02a still in contention and barely a lap down.

Lowe’s Fernandez Racing seemed well on its way to an LMP2 victory with a flawless run in the Acura ARX-01b for Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz. They were several laps in front of Dyson Racing’s two Mazda-powered Lola B09/86 coupes that had mechanical issues.

Corvette Racing’s two Corvette C6.Rs were on the same lap with Jan Magnussen holding a 1.118-second advantage over Oliver Gavin in GT1. This year’s Sebring race is the last in the class for the team, which is moving to GT2 in August.

Jaime Melo led a Ferrari F430 GT 1-2 in the GT2 class. Melo in Risi Competizione’s Ferrari was two laps ahead of Gianmaria Bruni in the Advanced Engineering Pecom Racing entry. The two drivers were part of Risi’s winning lineup at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last season.

Dominik Farnbacher sat third in GT2 in the Panoz Esperante GTLM of Panoz Team PTG. He was a lap down to Bruni.

6:15 Hour Standings (3rd place not really lap down – had not crossed line yet)