BMWs Finish Fifth in Three Different Classes at 12 Hours of Sebring

The 12 Hours of Sebring is the second longest, but the toughest race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and has a reputation for dramatic finishes. This year’s race had another dramatic finish, with BMW teams finishing fifth in three different classes.

In the days leading up to the race, the BMW M Team Hybrid V8 prototypes that compete in the GTP class didn’t look all that competitive. In qualifying, the fastest time was set by Sheldon van der Linde in the #24 car, but that was only good enough for eighth, and Philipp Eng went off course during qualifying and ended up 11th (and last) in class. The lap time of the #24 car was around seven-tenths off the pole of the #31 Cadillac, and Cadillac had two other cars in the top five.

BMWs qualified third in both GTD classes. Neil Verhagen drove the #1 Paul Miller Racing M4 GT3 EVO to third, four-tenths of a second behind the pole-sitting #14 Lexus. In GTD, Robby Foley qualified third in the #96 Turner Motorsport M4 GT3 EVO and was three-tenths off the pole of the #27 Aston Martin driven by Eduardo Barrichello, son of former F1 driver Rubens Barrichello.

Once the race was underway, the #24 M Hybrid V8 proved to be more competitive than in the qualifying and practice sessions. Drivers Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor and Robin Frijns kept the #24 car in the top five for nearly the entire race, but it became clear that the pair of Porsche 963’s entered by Porsche Penske Motorsport would be the cars to beat. The #25 M Hybrid V8 had its race effectively ended at the start of the fifth hour when it was hit by the #70 Ferrari that rolled into oncoming traffic after it spun. The #25 spent 15 laps in the garage for repairs to the rear suspension after the accident.

In the closing stages of the race, van der Linde was running in fourth but spun with 36 minutes left and initially finished sixth, but the car was later promoted to fifth when the #10 Cadillac was disqualified after post-race inspection. The #25 car of Eng, Kevin Magnussen and Marco Wittmann finished tenth. The pair of Porsche Penske Motorsport 963’s finished one-two (#7, #6) in the GTP class. It was Porsche’s twentieth overall victory in the race and was the second year in a row that Penske won both Daytona and Sebring. “I think a P6 is the maximum we could have got out of the car today,” said Sheldon van der Linde. “We struggled a lot in qualifying to get the car to work. The same issue we had in Daytona, but we proved that we have a much better race car over a longer distance. I’m kind of happy to have fought back from P8 on the grid, but at the same time disappointed with not being able to get on the podium when we were third and fourth for a while. It’s still good points for the championship. Execution was phenomenal today, but we just need to find pace in the car.”

In GTD Pro, the #1 Paul Miller Racing M4 GT4 EVO of Neil Verhagen, Connor De Phillippi and Max Hesse ran in the top three in GTD Pro for much of the race and was in contention for a podium. A spin after getting hit by the #4 Corvette late in the race set it back, and the car fell back further after a restart late in the race, which dropped them to fifth. The GTD Pro win went to the #911 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R. “Our goal was to carry the momentum from our Daytona win into Sebring and score as many points as possible for the endurance championship,” said Verhagen. “That worked well with first and third positions after four and eight hours. Unfortunately, towards the end we didn’t quite have the pace to fight for a podium against our competitors.”

In the GTD class, the Turner Motorsport #96 M4 GT3 EVO of Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher and Francis Selldorff also finished a solid fifth after a race spent running in the top five, though they too had some setbacks, including an unscheduled pit stop early in the race to replace a tire. The class was won by the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, which staged a dramatic late race comeback after being penalized for contact with another Ferrari. “We had an up-and-down day,” said Foley. “Our car was fast at the beginning of the race, and then we took some damage throughout the course of it. There were a couple of strategy decisions at the end that could have gone either way. We gave it our best shot. P5 is great points again.”

The next race on the IMSA schedule is dramatically different than the first two races. After the two longest races of the year, the series will head to the streets of Long Beach, California on April 17th-18th for a 100-minute race on the tight street course. That race will be for the GTP and GTD classes only.

—David Haueter
[Photos by Jon van Woerden]