The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IWSC) and Michelin Pilot Challenge series head to Florida next weekend for the second races of their respective seasons. For the IWSC, the 12 Hours of Sebring is the second longest race on the schedule and is considered the most difficult. For Michelin Pilot Challenge, the Sebring race will be the first of their standard two-hour races, after the opening four-hour race at Daytona.
Sebring is a historic track. Built on the site of an Air Force training base from World War II, cars have been racing here since 1950 and the first 12 Hours of Sebring was held on March 15th, 1952. The 3.74-mile track with 17 corners is known to be hard on cars and drivers, and it’s probably the only track in the world that’s famous for its bumps (particularly turn 17 that comes onto the front straight). Getting to the end means not only staying clean and avoiding contact with other cars, but also having a reliable car that’s getting abuse from the track surface for 12 hours.
BMW will be represented in the GTP, GTD Pro and GTD classes in the 12 Hour IWSC race, which has 55 cars on the entry from four different classes (with LMP2 in addition to GTP, GTD Pro and GTD). There are twelve entries in the GTP class from Porsche, Acura, Cadillac and Aston Martin and BMW. BMW M Team WRT, who took over the GTP program from Team RLL at the end of last season, will field the #24 M Hybrid V8 prototype for Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor and Robin Frijns, and the #25 car for Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Kevin Magnussen. The team has some momentum after the #24 had an unexpected podium finish in the Rolex 24 at Daytona back in late January.
BMW M Team WRT is still getting up to speed in IMSA, and will have almost entirely US-based crew at Sebring.
Sebring will be the first race where Team WRT (with headquarters in Belgium) will use primarily crew members from their US base, rather than borrowing crew from the FIA WEC program, which they also run for BMW. “Sebring will be probably something like 90 percent [U.S. crew],” said team boss Vincent Vosse in an interview with Sportscar365.com. “It was planned like that. Now we have everyone but we still want to support our knowledge [from WEC]. Long Beach will be the first [fully separated] program as we will be in Imola.”
Paul Miller Racing is coming into Sebring after a big GTD Pro class win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and will have Connor De Phillippi, Neil Verhagen and Max Hesse in the #1 M4 GT3 EVO at Sebring. De Phillippi and Verhagen are the full-season drivers, with Hesse joining for the longer endurance races. There’s a lot of competition in GTD Pro, with thirteen cars loaded with factory drivers from Ford, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG, Lamborghini, Porsche and McLaren in addition to the single BMW entry. One car to watch out for is the Lamborghini Temerario GT3, which will be making its worldwide racing debut at Sebring and replaces the Huracan GT3.
Paul Miller Racing is coming off a win at the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
The GTD class has the largest field at Sebring, with 19 entries. Turner Motorsport is the lone BMW in the class, with Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher and Francis Selldorff in the #96 M4 GT3 EVO. Foley and Gallagher are full-season drivers with Selldorff joining for the longer endurance races. Selldorff got some experience in the M4 GT3 at Sebring last fall in an APEX ONE 10-hour race, but it will be a new experience to have the much faster prototype traffic to deal with on this circuit, which is much different than Daytona where the majority of the lap is run on the super-speedway. Turner will be up against cars from Ford, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, Lamborghini and Mercedes-AMG.
Turner Motorsport will be the lone BMW among 19 GTD class entries.
The Michelin Pilot Challenge series is no less competitive than the WeatherTech series, and there will be 34 cars entered in the GS class at Sebring from BMW, Porsche, Aston Martin, Mercedes-AMG, Ford, McLaren and Toyota. BMW will be well represented with seven entries, with two each from Carbahn with Peregrine Racing, Random Vandals Racing and Turner Motorsport and one from Auto Technic Racing. One standout on the BMW driver entry is BMW legend Bill Auberlen, who will be driving the #38 ST Racing with Random Vandals M4 GT4 EVO with Samantha Tan.
BMW will have seven entries in Michelin Pilot Challenge, including two from CarBahn with Peregrine Racing.
Practice sessions get started on Wednesday March 18th, but the thick of the action starts on Friday the 20th, with IWSC qualifying sessions and the Michelin Pilot Challenge race at 2:00pm ET. The 12 Hour IWSC race starts at 10:10am ET on Saturday the 21st. For more information on the Sebring race weekend, including the schedule and broadcast times, visit imsa.com.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy LAT Images]
