Sebring 12H: Bourdais, Duval, Vautier win in JDC-Miller Cadillac

During the sixth caution for Timothe Buret’s huge shunt, the DPis all pitted, and the restart saw the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 of Filipe Albuquerque ahead of the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R driven by Scott Dixon, Olivier Pla in the Meyer Shank Racing Acura ahead of the erstwhile leading Mazda, now driven by Oliver Jarvis.

At the drop of the green, Dixon immediately surged past Albuquerque to grab the lead, and soon Pla had also demoted the WTR Caddy. Dixon stretched away from the turbo cars, by almost 1sec per lap, while Pla pulled a six second lead over Albuquerque who had Jarvis in his mirrors. But the Mazda also had company behind – the #48 AXR Cadillac now driven by Simon Pagenaud. That car was already destined to be classified last in class, however, as Pagenaud had exceeded maximum drive time.

When Mike Conway driving the #31 AXR Caddy ground to a halt on track with 1hr55m to go, it triggered all the Prototypes to pit in anticipation of a full course yellow, that duly arrived – the seventh caution of the race. Dixon – who had been holding a 14sec lead – rejoined the track with ease ahead of Pla, but Albuquerque had already stopped to hand off to Alexander Rossi, and so the WTR Acura fell to fourth, behind the Mazda of Jarvis.

At the restart, Rossi fell further back to sixth, muscled aside by Kamui Kobayashi – now at the wheel of the #48 Cadillac – and Sebastien Bourdais, whose JDC-Miller Caddy was now back on the lead lap. IMSA Radio reported that the WTR car had lost power due to intercooler damage caused by Albuquerque’s earlier impact with the GTD Lexus.

Jarvis pitted to hand over the Mazda to Harry Tincknell with 72mins to go, and that triggered other teams to respond. One of those was Ganassi, who reportedly made a late call to Dixon to bring him in, just after he lapped a GTLM BMW. As Dixon tried to swerve the #01 Cadillac onto pitlane, he was struck hard in the right front corner by the BMW, necessitating steering repairs and a new nose, costing the car three laps.

Thus Bourdais, driving the JDC-Miller Cadillac that had run at least one lap down for the majority of the race zoomed into the lead with little more than hour to go. He held a 7sec lead over Tincknell’s Mazda, with Rossi third, Dane Cameron fourth in the Meyer Shank Racing but applying pressure to his fellow Acura driver, and Kobayashi fifth.

Bourdais had an eight second lead over Tincknell when he made his final stop, Rossi and Cameron emulating him and staying onboard. Kobayashi pulled in a lap later, Tincknell a lap after that, with 32mins to go. Then the eighth caution period of the race occurred due to a heavy shunt for a GTD car, and the top five were bunched again –  Bourdais, Tincknell, Rossi, Cameron and Kobayashi.

At the restart, Bourdais escaped initially from Tincknell, while Cameron drove around the outside of Rossi at Turn 1 to grab third. Then Bourdais had a couple of slow laps that left him within striking distance of the Mazda before edging away again. But Kobayashi had deposed both the Acuras and had moved onto Tincknell’s tail – and occasionally alongside him.

Smoking his tires under braking for the tighter turns, Tincknell held off Kobayashi by 0.2sec to claim second, 1.4sec behind the winning JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac of Bourdais, Tristan Vautier and Loic Duval.

With Kobayashi's Cadillac demoted to seventh and last in the DPi class for AXR's earlier drive-time infraction, it meant the MSR and WTR Acuras were promoted from fourth and fifth to third and fourth respectively, with Ganassi’s Cadillac two laps down in fifth.

In LMP2, Mikkel Jensen brought the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Oreca home first ahead of Ryan Dalziel in the Rolex 24-winning Era Motorsport entry.

LMP3 developed into a feisty four-way battle in the dying hours, until the Forty7 Motorsports Duqueine of Oliver Askew suddenly died temporarily, consigning it to fourth. Remarkably, CORE autosport, with Colin Braun, George Kurtz and Jon Bennett at the wheel of the team's Ligier, defeated the two Riley Motorsports Ligiers.

GT Le Mans: Corvette/BMW collision hands WeatherTech Porsche win

Following the restart with around 2hrs to go, Philipp Eng retained his lead and John Edwards moved past Matt Campbell’s Porsche 911 RSR to make it a BMW 1-2, but Edwards saw Eng disappearing from him at the same rate that he was dropping the Porsche. Antonio Garcia in the longtime leading #3 Corvette C8.R found he could keep pace with none of the cars ahead with two hours still to go.

When Edwards came into the pits with less than two hours to go to hand over to Jesse Krohn, the #24 BMW caught fire due to spilt fuel, which the Rahal Letterman Lanigan crew extinguished with impressive accuracy and speed. Krohn rejoined the track in a lapped fourth, but now Garcia was out front because his Corvette had needed less fuel and stopped for less time. De Phillippi took over from Eng, and was Garcia’s closest pursuer ahead of Jaminet and the lapped Krohn.

However, Jaminet got ahead after the final stops, then lost out to De Phillippi after the final restart, as the BMW started trying to close down Garcia. He did too, but nudged into the Corvette at Turn 7, and pushed it wide, damaging the Corvette. He then recovered with his damaged car, but ran wide at Turn 15 and then had to serve a drive-through penalty.

Thus Jaminet’s Porsche grabbed the lead, the limping Corvette was so slow that De Phillippi reemerged from his penalty still in second and the one-lap down #24 BMW moved up into third.

GT Daytona: Pfaff leads 1-2 for Porsche.

The Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Zacharie Robichon led with two hours still to go, but had lost its ‘shadow’, the Wright Motorsports Porsche which had to serve a drive-through penalty with Trent Hindman at the wheel for having one too many pitcrew members over the wall.

That dropped the sky blue car to sixth, leaving Frankie Montecalvo’s #12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F in second, ahead of Spencer Pumpelly’s Magnus Archangel Acura NSX, Ross Gunn’s Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage, and Katherine Legge in the Team Hardpoint EBM Porsche. However, Hindman was able to demote Legge to gain fifth.

Then the seventh caution saw the GTD cars hit pitlane, the Pfaff Porsche emerging still in front – now driven by Laurens Vanthoor – ahead of Gunn, Pumpelly, Hindman and Legge. Veach had lost out because he had pitted under green, just before the yellows, but he then sprinted away before the drop of the green flag – and then had his rear bumper knocked onto the tire by an impact from Vanthoor. So he had to pit for repairs and then serve a drive-through penalty.

Vanthoor wasn’t penalized and rocketed away from his opposition, Gunn ahead of the Wright Motorsport Porsche now driven by Pat Long, the Magnus Archangel Acura now in the hands of Andy Lally, and Legge.

For the final restart with 20mins to go, Vanthoor was leading Long, Gunn, Legge and Lally. Sadly for the SunEnergy1 team which had battled back onto the lead lap, the caution was called when the #75 Mercedes-AMG GT3 shed a wheel coming onto the pit straight, driver Maro Engel spinning and striking the wall.

Vanthoor pulled away from Long at the restart, leaving Gunn in third, but Legge and Lally clashed while fighting over fourth place. Legge was perceived to be at fault and was penalized, dropping to fifth behind the Magnus Acura.

Race results:

Cla	Class	Num	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time
1	DPi	5	Tristan Vautier Loic Duval Sébastien Bourdais	Cadillac DPi	349	12:01'01.418
2	DPi	55	Oliver Jarvis Harry Tincknell Jonathan Bomarito	Mazda DPi	349	12:01'02.853
3	DPi	48	Jimmie Johnson Kamui Kobayashi Simon Pagenaud	Cadillac DPi	349	12:01'03.059
4	DPi	60	Dane Cameron Olivier Pla Juan Pablo Montoya	Acura DPi	349	12:01'04.032
5	DPi	10	Ricky Taylor Filipe Albuquerque Alexander Rossi	Acura DPi	349	12:01'06.736
6	DPi	01	Renger van der Zande Kevin Magnussen Scott Dixon	Cadillac DPi	347	12:01'05.102
7	LMP2	52	Ben Keating Mikkel Jensen Scott Huffaker	ORECA LMP2 07	344	12:01'23.212
8	LMP2	18	Dwight Merriman Kyle Tilley Ryan Dalziel	ORECA LMP2 07	344	12:01'25.799
9	GTLM	79	Cooper MacNeil Mathieu Jaminet Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	334	12:02'42.220
10	GTLM	25	Connor de Phillippi Philipp Eng Bruno Spengler	BMW M8 GTE	333	12:01'18.541
11	LMP2	22	James McGuire Wayne Boyd Guy Smith	ORECA LMP2 07	333	12:02'14.977
12	GTLM	24	John Edwards Jesse Krohn Augusto Farfus	BMW M8 GTE	333	12:02'43.161
13	GTLM	3	Antonio Garcia Jordan Taylor Nick Catsburg	Corvette C8.R	333	12:02'51.712
14	GTLM	4	Tommy Milner Nick Tandy Alexander Sims	Corvette C8.R	330	12:01'14.546
15	LMP3	54	Jon Bennett George Kurtz Colin Braun	Ligier JS P320	329	12:02'33.175
16	LMP3	91	Jim Cox Dylan Murry Jeroen Bleekemolen	Ligier JS P320	329	12:02'35.860
17	LMP3	74	Gar Robinson Scott Andrews Spencer Pigot	Ligier JS P320	329	12:02'36.376
18	LMP3	7	Jim Norman Oliver Askew Austin McCusker	Duqueine D08	328	12:01'40.493
19	LMP3	33	Joao Barbosa Yann Clairay Lance Willsey	Ligier JS P320	328	12:02'50.163
20	GTD	9	Zacharie Robichon Laurens Vanthoor Lars Kern	Porsche 911 GT3 R	320	12:01'25.556
21	GTD	16	Patrick Long Jan Heylen Trent Hindman	Porsche 911 GT3 R	320	12:01'27.668
22	GTD	23	Ian James Roman De Angelis Ross Gunn	Aston Martin Vantage GT3	320	12:01'48.947
23	GTD	44	John Potter Andy Lally Spencer Pumpelly	Acura NSX GT3	320	12:02'08.207
24	GTD	88	Christina Nielsen Katherine Legge Ana Beatriz	Porsche 911 GT3 R	320	12:02'18.500
25	GTD	12	Frankie Montecalvo Zach Veach Robert Megennis	Lexus RC F GT3	319	12:01'39.225
26	GTD	14	Aaron Telitz Jack Hawksworth Kyle Kirkwood	Lexus RC F GT3	313	12:01'31.478
27	GTD	96	Bill Auberlen Robby Foley Aidan Read	BMW M6 GT3	313	12:01'36.058
28	GTD	75	Kenny Habul Maro Engel Mikael Grenier	Mercedes-AMG GT3	304	11:24'26.045
29	DPi	31	Felipe Nasr Mike Conway Pipo Derani	Cadillac DPi	292	10:04'05.751
30	GTD	99	Rob Ferriol Earl Bamber Trenton Estep	Porsche 911 GT3 R	280	12:01'36.620
31	LMP2	8	John Farano Gabriel Aubry Timothé Buret	ORECA LMP2 07	266	9:14'04.319
32	LMP3	83	Matthew Bell Rodrigo Sales Niklas Kruetten	Duqueine D08	265	10:51'09.230
33	GTD	1	Bryan Sellers Madison Snow Corey Lewis	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	255	9:37'34.679
34	LMP3	38	Rasmus Lindh Mateo Llarena Dan Goldburg	Ligier JS P320	177	6:24'04.063
35	GTD	28	Daniel Morad Michael de Quesada Billy Johnson	Mercedes-AMG GT3	91	3:19'57.664
36	GTD	19	Stephen Simpson Franck Perera Tim Zimmermann	Lamborghini Huracan GT3	91	3:19'57.925
37	LMP2	11	Thomas Steven Tristan Nunez Thomas Merrill	ORECA LMP2 07	90	3:33'28.269
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