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Cream Rises to the Top; Rebounds from Adversity; Glimpses of Hope
March 17, 2025
By David Phillips
IMSA Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – OK, so the outcomes in all four classes of competition were not seriously in doubt in the final moments of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. That said, less than 11 seconds (officially a combined 10.992, but who’s counting?) covered the total margins of victory in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD). What’s more, those margins came at the end of a dozen hours of fierce racing and shifting fortunes typical of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship which saw six competitors apiece finish on the lead lap in GTP, LMP2 and GTD PRO, with four GTD entries going the distance.
What to make of it all?
The Cream Also Rises
Although they compete with different cars in different categories, one common characteristic shared across all four class winners is a championship pedigree. Not much more need be said about overall winners Porsche Penske Motorsport, other than that marque, team and the No. 7 Porsche 963 are not only the defending GTP champions but also the most recent winners to kick off 2025.
They arrived at Sebring following a convincing Rolex 24 At Daytona victory. And Nick Tandy, who co-drove the winning Porsche with Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor on Saturday, added his Sebring win to an impressive collection of overall endurance race wins at IMSA’s marquee endurance rounds at Daytona and Motul Petit Le Mans, and three other global 24-hour wins at Le Mans, Spa and the Nürburgring.
“You rarely see a sports team or operation that does a single event without any faults or mistakes, and we’ve just celebrated with 40 people who have flawlessly run a car for 36 hours at Daytona and Sebring combined,” said Tandy, who could have added the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 that finished second at Sebring only just ended in third at Daytona. “Just a testament to what Porsche and Penske have put together to allow us to go racing. It’s just incredible that we’ve had this run the last two events.”
LMP2 saw defending WeatherTech Championship class champion Tom Dillmann team-up with team newcomers Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke to emerge victorious in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07, the same Inter Europol squad that partnered with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports to capture last year’s LMP2 team championship.
In GTD PRO, Laurin Heinrich joined Klaus Bachler and Alessio Picariello in taking the win in AO Racing’s No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992). Better known as “Rexy,” it’s the same car which carried Heinrich, AO Racing and Porsche to the 2024 WeatherTech GTD PRO titles. And in GTD, defending WeatherTech Championship champions Philip Ellis, Russell Ward and Winward Racing scored their second straight Mobil 1 Twelve Hour-victory in the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 (once again with co-driver Indy Dontje).
Ward could have spoken for all four winning squads when he observed, “I think I speak for the whole crew when I say we expect nothing less. I really want to give a shout out to the entire team and particularly the full-time people back at the shop. Everyone works so hard to get this done. There’s no break, this is just what we love to do.”
Unperturbable
The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring featured several impressive “rebound” performances, as teams shook off setbacks to lead the race and – in some cases – finish on the podium. Case in point, the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series R.
The 2023 race-winning team started from the rear of the GTP field after software issues prevented the car from participating in Friday’s qualifying session. Unperturbed, Jack Aitken smartly marched to the class and overall lead before the two-hour mark and – together with co-drivers Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti – led 155 of 353 laps before slipping to fourth place once night fell and weather conditions cooled.
“The race started really well for us today and we managed to stay in those top positions for the majority of the race,” said Aitken. “I think when the night came around, we didn’t have that extra gear that the others did. We missed out on the podium; it’s tough to take . . . But there are positives from this – coming from the back of the field is still not a bad result.”
The No. 57 Winward Mercedes-AMG did the Whelen team one (or more) better as they stormed into the GTD class lead from fourth on the grid in the opening quarter hour and stayed at or near the front for the balance of the afternoon.
That is until they were assessed a drive-through penalty for a pit lane violation after the midway point in the race. Unperturbed, Ellis, Ward, Dontje & co. clawed their way back into contention before Ellis shouldered aside the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of 2024 GTD PRO race winner Jack Hawksworth to grab the lead with 12 minutes remaining in the race, a lead he extended to 3.265 seconds at the checkered flag.
“We had to come back from a penalty early on, shook it off and kept going,” said Ellis. “There was a car at the end. We knew we were quicker, but we had to be careful getting by. That’s the level of operation for this team, and we don’t take an unnecessary risk. If they give you an opening, you take it, and we did.”
Tantalizing Glimpses
The results may not show it, but the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring also offered tantalizing glimpses that good things may be in store for several manufacturers and teams who didn’t figure among the podium finishers.
Having notched the GTD PRO win in the Rolex 24, both the No. 64 and No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3s put in strong performances at Sebring. They finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in a race where both the team’s drivers and pundits shared pre-race skepticism about the car’s potential performance at this circuit.
Meanwhile, on what proved to be a disappointing weekend for the Ferrari Formula 1 team, a bevy of Ferraris 296 GT3s did Maranello proud at Sebring in both the GTD PRO and GTD categories. The GTD PRO-polesitting No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari finished just off the GTD PRO podium in fourth, a solid run for the team featuring the DragonSpeed and Risi Competizione technical alliance in just its second race together.
In GTD, Inception Racing’s No. 70 Ferrari came home fourth, and Conquest Racing’s No. 34 Ferrari led 20 laps before finishing seventh. The GTD-polesitting No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari looked like a potential winner in class, leading a class-high 77 laps, before a spectacular high speed “off” in Turn 1 negated their momentum. Lilou Wadoux – who spent a goodly amount of time at the head of the GTD field herself earlier in the race – stopped on course shortly after taking over from polesitter Alessandro Pier Guidi, who was almost worth the price of admission on his own to watch.
Then there was the scintillating No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, which made an impressive WeatherTech Championship debut, running to a largely trouble-free ninth place finish in GTP and lapped within a half second of the class leaders for most of the event. The “other” Heart of Racing Team entry – its No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 – quietly banked a second consecutive GTD podium in third place to start the year, positioning itself well in that class championship.
Last, but by no means least, Vasser Sullivan Racing showed there’s life in the oldest platform in GTD PRO and GTD as the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 was very much in the hunt for top GTD honors before being, er “forced” to settle for second spot with just a dozen minutes remaining in the 12-hour contest. As Lexus appears ready to debut a new car for 2026, don’t be shocked if the current Lexus springs a win or two this season.
