12 Hours of Sebring Hour 1: Penske Porsches run 1-2 in GTP
In front of tens of thousands of spectators on a bright and sunny day in central Florida, the 73rd Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring began with early brain fades.
Polesitter Dries Vanthoor in the #24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 led the 56-car field to the green flag, but before he actually crossed the start/finish line, he blocked the #60 MSR Acura of Tom Blomqvist.
Vanthoor received a drive-through penalty for his false start, that put him down the order in GTP. It handed the lead to Porsche Penske Motorsport’s #7 963.
That came after some early incidents in the first three laps. The #18 Era Motorsport and #88 AF Corse ORECAs collided at turn three, The stranded #18 of Tobi Lutke, and debris from the #88 of Luis Perez Companc, brought out the first Full Course Yellow of the Sebring race.
Bob Akin Award contenders Brendon Iribe and Orey Fidani collided on the first lap – leading to a drive-through penalty for the #70 Inception Racing Ferrari for punting the #13 AWA Corvette.
Pfaff Motorsports’ #9 Lamborghini has been trying to fix issues with its torque sensor. Andrea Caldarelli dropped off the lead lap initially after having to serve a mechanical black flag, and the car has since been given a warning for not adhering to its powertrain parameters. That’s took Caldarelli from fighting for third, to two laps down.
20 minutes in of the 12 Hours of Sebring, while leading GTD, polesitter Alessandro Pier Guidi spun off at turn 10 at very high speed, dropping the #21 AF Corse Ferrari out of the lead and leading to additional work in the pits to fix the left-front brake – similar to the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini, the first car in GTD to pit for a left-rear brake issue of its own.
Ricky Taylor dropped down the order due to a throttle problem that seemed to resolve itself, putting the blue No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac in 12th behind the Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, which is running a solid pace early on relative to expectations.
In LMP2, Sebring polesitter Steven Thomas has set the pace among his Bronze peers and the #11 TDS Racing ORECA 07 leads from the #22 United Autosports USA machine of Daniel Goldburg.
DragonSpeed’s Ferrari and AO Racing’s ‘Rexy’ Porsche have been the class of GTD PRO in the first hour. Polesitter Albert Costa has led virtually since the start in the #81 296 GT3, with Laurin Heinrich running second in the #77 911 GT3 R. Tommy Milner is third in the #4 Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Philip Ellis and Winward Racing inherited the lead in GTD after Pier Guidi’s spin and brake issues, and the #57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 holds the advantage over the hard-charging Jack Hawksworth in the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3.