Spaulding Spotlight: Sebring Conquers Over A Handful of Strong GTP entries
There was no shortage of chaos for the 2024 Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring and the GTP cars were at the forefront of the chaos.
Four strong contenders for podium were involved in unique incidents that revolved around leading the top class and it allowed for some parody for the four manufacturers (excluding Lamborghini).
#85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 (Customer)
One of the two customer Porsches had mid-race problems in its first appearance at the home of endurance racing, getting knocked out due to technical problems that resulted in the machine going behind the wall.
The entry would be the first of the GTP entries that retire prematurely and while the team may be a customer team, they definitely punch high above their weight.
After a speed driven Daytona that saw the team top a practice, JDC-Miller was running solid in their Sebring debut and were well in the hunt for a podium at points early in the race.
That may not say much given the point at which they were battling, but, it did show were the team could have been if they were to complete the full allocated race.
The JDC-Miller Porsche 963 became one of the few outliers that the German brand has had since its release of their LMDh, finishing in podiums with their other entries over the course of the past year. But, this run by JDC-Miller Motorsports showed some weakness from what has been a stelar group.
#31 Whelen Cadillac Racing (Action Express Racing)
The climax of the race came at the beginning of “The Flip,” taking out the leading and defending Sebring race winners from 2023, the #31 Whelen Cadillac Racing and Pipo Derani.
Derani bumped into the #21 AF Corse Ferrari with under five hours left to go in the race, resulting in a vicious incident that would flip the car on its roof, on top of a tire barrier.
Fortunately, Derani walked away from the carnage, but the car was far from clean.
The Action Express Racing entry had been strong all weekend, as had Cadillac, and the team did not miss a beat.
Securing pole yesterday, we knew that this team would have a entry prepared to be a force to go back-to-back at this year’s race. However, this incident was just a domino of what came after.
Post-incident saw a beaten up Cadillac being worked on by the team and boxes of debris being dumped onto the ground.
Things did not look good for the Cadillac in the garage and to no surprise it forced their hand to retire the car, but fortunately Pipo Derani was able to walk away.
#10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura
Wayne Taylor Racing saw their #10 Acura who came inches from winning a championship last season battle its way to the lead, even with an apparent oil leak which became somewhat there demise.
While cautions allowed the team to get back onto the lead lap, it was just one of the string of hiccups we saw from the different GTP teams.
The team was able to get their oil problem fixed and they had a lot of smoke coming from the exhaust of their LMDh Acura, but, it could have been a lot worse for the Konica Minolta branded team.
The issue did set the team back, putting them towards the tail end of the field but they did have a chance to work their way back towards a potential podium finish.
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsports
Porsche Penske has had a dominant start to the season and surprising the team found some speed prior to their “peak” time.
The #6 & #7 Porsche 963s for the Captain ran quite strong such as their customer partners, but, a cut tire early in hour ten for the #6 Porsche Penske took the group out of contention.
There seemed to be more problems with their rear suspension but it didn’t fix much.
The #6 had been competing for a top spot and had shown consistency until the unfortunate turn but the car kept running on track.
Nevertheless, it became the second of the four Porsches that came up with problems and took out a top contender, but the #7 stayed well in the thick of things to allow Penske to still have a shot a podium.