72nd Annual 12 Hours of Sebring

Phenomenal, phenomenal finish. Starring drives from Louis Deletraz and Jack Hawksworth to pull off late race-winning passes. Acura finally wins Sebring for the first time ever.
 
Two races in and Caddy has been barely nipped twice. Assuredly they will all hit a few tracks where they have the advantage, but right now everyone seems fairly evenly matched. Acura was slow at Daytona but they are surely in the fight now. BMW looked really good. Penske's Porsches were really quick too, though their customers need to pick it up a little. Right now the BOP seems reasonable because everyone is competitive.

Almost unnoticed was how well BMW ran all race long. They led the race on merit for a while, were always in the top three, and got the final podium place, so it was a good run for them. This is how they did it last year, sneaking in good points finishes and climbing the charts by stealth. Now they have the speed to challenge, and I expect they will get better. Last year they were enroute to a championship until they crashed twice at RA on the parade lap, so they just need to keep it together and eventually the wins will come.

Durani's crash was a shock. He was streaking away with 12 second lead and there was no need to push it so hard. I only saw the crash on a stream that was not a good view, so it is hard to tell who moved on who, but Pipo is experienced enough to stay out of those kind of scraps. Pipo seems to get into the red mist more often than most top drivers, but the speed is clearly there.

Seeing how Caddy was right there with Porsche, I have high hopes the LMDh cars will be more competitive with the LMH cars at the next WEC race. In all, a very encouraging race.
 
Worth noting is that Durani's car held up extremely well in the crash. He wasn't even shaken up, and that was a mighty hit. The FIA rules regarding the safety of these cars is right on. They have the strength of the car and the speed matched pretty well. Doesn't mean you can't get hurt, but I'de take my chances in a GTP over anything else right now.
 
Worth noting is that Grosgean unlapped himself with about two hours to go, and went on to finish 7th, on the lead lap. This is only the Lamborghini's second race, but they have reliability and pace already. They are close enough to pull off a surprise.
 
Was wondering what happened to the 3 Corvette that took it from the final class podium spot to the tire barrier in the closing laps - got dumped by Rexy battling for that place. Juncadella was struggling with the car at that point. Laurin Heinrich got a drive-through pen. Driving standards get crazy when the sun goes down.

(Happens shortly after 19:00 if the clip doesn’t work properly)

 
Doc Austin said:
Two races in and Caddy has been barely nipped twice. Assuredly they will all hit a few tracks where they have the advantage, but right now everyone seems fairly evenly matched. Acura was slow at Daytona but they are surely in the fight now. BMW looked really good. Penske's Porsches were really quick too, though their customers need to pick it up a little. Right now the BOP seems reasonable because everyone is competitive.

Almost unnoticed was how well BMW ran all race long. They led the race on merit for a while, were always in the top three, and got the final podium place, so it was a good run for them. This is how they did it last year, sneaking in good points finishes and climbing the charts by stealth. Now they have the speed to challenge, and I expect they will get better. Last year they were enroute to a championship until they crashed twice at RA on the parade lap, so they just need to keep it together and eventually the wins will come.

Durani's crash was a shock. He was streaking away with 12 second lead and there was no need to push it so hard. I only saw the crash on a stream that was not a good view, so it is hard to tell who moved on who, but Pipo is experienced enough to stay out of those kind of scraps. Pipo seems to get into the red mist more often than most top drivers, but the speed is clearly there.

Seeing how Caddy was right there with Porsche, I have high hopes the LMDh cars will be more competitive with the LMH cars at the next WEC race. In all, a very encouraging race.
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I’m still trying to catch up on the most of the second half of the race, but Lambo finishing pretty cleanly has to be really encouraging. 12 hours at Sebring is harder than 24 hours at some other places. Reliability that early on is great, because they can start to focus on pace now.

Porsche seemed to struggle more than I anticipated, but the Proton 5 did look pretty good in the hands of Julien Andlauer, and he was going for a podium spot on the final restart until Deletraz crowded him off track in turn 3. I think Porsche’s weakness is still when it gets hot and greasy.
 
Unnoticed is that the Sean Creech Ligier finished 4th on the lead lap of the class. If they can keep this up it would sure make LMP2 more interesting.
 
Hawksworth threw down the gauntlet in the final hour. He’s gonna fit right in at the COTA Truck race this weekend.

 
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