Sebring Fl.( March 16th, 2024)
With scant minutes remaining in the 72nd running of the 12 Hours Of Sebring, Louis Deletraz juked his No. 40 Acura ARX-06 first to the outside then back to the inside as he and the leading the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R driven by Sebastien Bourdais were approaching turn seven. As good as Bourdais was at defending, this final move was the nail in the coffin for Cadillacs dream of conquering the top step of the 12 hour classic. With Deletraz and his Acura now in the lead, Bourdais would make one final attempt to regain the lead but would ultimately fail and the Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura team would be the overall winner of this years contest by a mere .891 seconds.
Who knew that coming into the day that this would be how the race would play out. Pipo Derani and his Whelan Cadillac team looked dominant. Throughout all the practice sessions they were either at the top of the leaderboard or near it. The Cadillac racing team would also be there as well. When Derani captured pole with a blistering lap of 1:28:152 and Cadillac Racing joining them on the front row with a 1:28:299, this looked to be a race among the Cadillacs with everyone else duking it out for third place.
Indeed Derani had a firm grip on the race. With three quarters of the event completed he had a solid twelve second lead on the field and was pulling away from the competition. Then the unthinkable happened. While passing the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 on the high speed section coming into turn ten, the right rear of the Cadillac made contact with left front of the Ferrari causing a blowout of the Cadillacs tire and sending him into the tire barrier at full speed. The ensuing crash was one of the most violent ones in Sebring history with Cadillac ending up on its roof. Thankfully due to the safety of these modern cars, Pipo Derani was able to walk away unscathed. But the leading Cadillac’s day was done.
When queried as to what happened after his release from the medical center Derani would say “Honestly, I don’t know. I was 12 seconds ahead and everything was running smoothly. We overtake thousands of thousands of cars through a race like this. It’s one of those moments. Maybe he didn’t see, let go a little bit and there I was. Maybe I was expecting him to just hold his line to the right, knowing that I was going to go on the left. It’s just one of those situations where it happens without you having any chance of thinking whether you should have done something different or not.”
Maxime Martin piloting the No. 25 BMW inherited the lead once the dust had settled. But soon he found himself in a heated battle with the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 piloted by Brendon Hartley. Eventually the BMW succumbed to the pressure of the Acura and Hartly grabbed the lead. His lead would be short lived as mechanical issues caused him to lose a lap as he had to pit for an extended time during a full course yellow flag.
The No. 6 Porsche Penske 963 was now in the lead followed by the No. 5 Proton Competition 963. When a yellow flag came out, the rest of the field dove in for service, except for the lead Porsche’s as they were on a different pit strategy. But as it seems every year, the yellow flag was the great equalizer. With a little less than an hour and a half to go a yellow flag brought all the contenders back together. Then two more negated any strategies that the teams had put together for the last portion of the race.
It was what happened in this sequence that ultimately determined the winner. Just before the final yellows, the No. 1 Cadillac and No. 7 Penske Porsche dashed into the pits to get enough fuel to get to the end of the race. Meanwhile the No. 40 Acura made the decision to get fresh tires. It was this bit of strategy that helped Deletraz and his Acura quickly dispatch Nasr and his Porsche at the restart. With the race dwindling it was the combination of fresh tires, the pace of the Acura and of course Deletraz’s great driving that gave the team the win.
Afterwards co driver Jordan Taylor said “It’s a huge win for the team. It’s their first win in the GTP class for Acura. So it’s a big win for the team, first time as a two-car team as well. I think our plan was we stayed at a triple all day, didn’t have any big issues. The 10 car was extremely quick, drove to the lead at one point, but had their little issue that they recovered from and recovered to a top five. Overall, Louis’s closing stint was what made a difference today. I think the team did a good job keeping us in the fight, but he really fought for that win and got it for us.”
The LMP 2 class turned into a battle between three teams. The No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA, the No. No. 01 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA, and the No. 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA would do battle most of the day. But as Sebring goes, its what happens at the end of the race that counts the most. As Colin Braun was behind the wheel of the No. 01 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA was attempting to get by Felipe Fraga and the No. 01 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA the cars touched, and Braun spun. While his day wasn’t over, he was now clearly out of contention. Meanwhile towards the end of the race the No. 74 Riley developed problems and they fell down the leader boards as well.
Ryan Dalziel, Co-driver of the No. 18 Era Motorsports car let everyone know afterwards that even though they seemingly had control over the race it was not as easy as it seemed. He would go on to say “Every time we got to the front we ended up in the back and think when I got in the car — the plan is double me, double Connor — I get in the car, we were in the lead. Then we had one of the GTPs went off and threw up some carbon and so in the space of one lap, we had overheating and then we got a puncture, so that’s when we pitted off sequence. That was only four or five laps after the restart. Honestly, I thought that was it. Without a yellow I knew we were going to be struggling to make time back.”
In the GTD Pro class the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 captured pole position and had the look of a winner. But early on in the race during a pitstop the car accidentally struck one of their teammates. The ensuing penalty dropped the team to the back of the field. In one of the most prescient statements of the weekend driver Jack Hawksworth said, “We’ll get back into it and see if we can’t keep the car clean for another seven or eight hours and then have a go at it at the end.”
After the final restart of the race Hawksworth found himself and the No. 14 Lexus in third place. In one of the most daring pieces of driving he managed to slide pass Daniel Juncadella in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R and then Daniel Serra in the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 in the span of several corners and snag the closest of victories by .121 over the the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3.
After the race Lexus Sullivan driver Ben Barnicoat told everyone “That was a real champion’s effort. Everyone at Vasser Sullivan gave us everything we needed. I had some really fun, amazing, super-hard stints, but then at the end there when it started to get dicey, there’s no one else you want next to you but Jack Hawksworth.” Fellow team driver Kyle Kirkwood chimed in and said “I’ve got to give it to these guys. They did a phenomenal job all the way through that race. I did my part – saved a bunch of fuel and tires, which was kind of uneventful.”
If there was a team that wouldn’t be denied, it was GTD class winner No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. In qualifying the team solidly captured pole position. But a technical infraction not only cost them pole position, but it put them to nearly the back of the field. The team showed its resiliency the moment the green flag dropped and worked their way through the field. By the two hour mark they found themselves in fourth spot.
In the last hour of the race with Philip Ellis piloting the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 found himself in the lead over Elliott Skeer’s No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. Once the sun went down the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 came alive and was now in third place. With forty minutes to go Antonio Fuoco behind the wheel of the No. 47 Cetilar made a smart move on Skeer in the No. 120 Wright Motorsport to grab second place. The rest of the way Fuoco would nip at the heels of Ellis but couldn’t make that final pass and Ellis and his No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 grabbed the checkered flag.
At the press conference afterwards, race winner Philip Ellis would relate “I had to battle with Elliott on the first couple of restarts. He was pretty fast as well, and I was saving fuel because we wouldn’t have made it to the end with flat-out racing. Then the last two restarts I had to deal with the Ferrari. I could pull a little bit of a gap on Antonio, but in the last 10 laps he was pretty fast as well.” He continued on saying “So, I was a little nervous. I didn’t know what he could do if he had gotten to me. We were a bit weaker in certain points than other cars which made us a bit vulnerable, but luckily, we made it stick.”
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