Sebring Standings after 9 Hours

The 2014 12 Hours of Sebring is heating up, with the ninth hour going by without major incident in the second TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race.

At the 3/4 mark (9 hours) of the 12 Hours of Sebring the Barbosa/Fittipaldi/Bourdais Action Express Corvette DP has moved back into the lead ahead of the Morgan Nissan of Pla/Brundle/Yacaman.

It was the Prototype class which gave the most action, with Alex Brundle in the OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan who quickly dispatched Scott Sharp in the Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD and set his sights on the leaders.

For a while the man to beat was in the sister ESM car in the shape of Johannes van Overbeek. He was going great guns for a long period before being caught out by the setting sun on the Ulmann Straight and tangled with the Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 knocking the Honda out of the lead.

Corvette leads GTLM at 8-hour mark

In GT Le Mans it was very much the Corvette show with the #4 leading for the majority of the hour in the hands of both Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner who were both fighting off challenges from the #93 Viper and the #912 Porsche.

GT Daytona brought out the only Full Course Caution of the hour after the brake disc in The Racer’s Group #009 Aston Martin made a desperate bid for freedom and ground itself free through the wheel of the car before depositing itself on the racing line in the middle of turn seven.

That caution period featured the #3 Corvette go into the pits for an emergency fuel pump replacement which cost it even more laps.

In the action filled PC class there are only two runners remaining, the #09 at the hands of David Heinemeier Hansson and the #54 of James Gue.

Hour 8 Report

The No. 02 Ford EcoBoost/Riley DP and driver Sage Karam continued to lead the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring round, after eight hours, as Johannes van Overbeek led the race overall in the No. 2 Tequila Patron HPD ARX-03b.

Karam was running second at the eight-hour mark after leading at four hours to give him and the No. 02 team a total of nine points toward the season-ending $100,000 Patron Endurance Cup for the Prototype (P) class. Karam’s co-drivers are Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan. The competition encompasses the four TUDOR United SportsCar Championship endurance races at Daytona International Speedway, Sebring International Raceway, Watkins Glen International and Road Atlanta for a total of 52 hours of racing.

Meanwhile, van Overbeek and the No. 2 Extreme Speed Motorsports team vaulted themselves into a tie for second with seven points in the standings at eight hours by virtue of their race lead. Van Overbeek is sharing the ride with Ed Brown and IndyCar racer Simon Pagenaud.

The Rolex 24 At Daytona-winning No. 5 Corvette DP squad from Action Express Racing also had seven Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup points at the eight-hour mark. Christian Fittipaldi was third in the car he is sharing with Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais. The No. 5 was second after four hours.

Fourth in the Patron Endurance Cup race standings after eight hours, with five points, was the No. 1 ESM Patron HPD ARX-03b/Honda shared by Ryan Dalziel, Scott Sharp and David Brabham. All other P class cars had four points.

No. 09 RSR Racing Leads Patron Endurance Cup In PC, No. 54 CORE Team Leads Race

A number of incidents in the middle third of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring have pared down the Prototype Challenge (PC) field, but the No. 09 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 team and the No. 54 CORE autosport team have positioned themselves as the teams to beat.

While the No. 54 CORE team and drivers Colin Braun, James Gue and Jon Bennett held the PC class lead, the No. 9 RSR team parlayed a pair of strong segments into the Patron Endurance Cup lead at Sebring. The No. 09 RSR machine was second at both the four- and eight-hour marks, giving the team and drivers Duncan Ende, Bruno Junqueira and David Heinemeier Hansson a total of eight points from the race.

The five points for leading the race at eight hours moved the team into a tie for second place in the Patron Endurance Cup race with seven points. Also tied for second was the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09 team of Mike Guasch, Frankie Montecalvo and Gunnar Jeannette.

The No. 52 team led the first Patron Endurance Cup segment in the race at the four-hour mark. Shortly thereafter, though, Montecalvo and the No. 52 were eliminated from the race in an accident that also removed the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA FLM09 PC car driven at the time by David Ostella.

Fourth in the PC Patron Endurance Cup race standings with five points was the No. 25 8Star Motorsports machine of Tom Kimber-Smith, Mike Marsal, Eric Lux and Sean Rayhall. All others in class had four points.

Hour 9 Standings