As the Twelve Hours of Sebring hit the halfway mark, the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac comfortably led the #5 Mustang Sampling sister car as Jonathan Bomarito brought out a full course yellow right on the six-hour mark.
The 2019 running of the Twelve Hours started behind the safety car as the track was simply too wet to race. After nearly half an hour under yellow, the green flag dropped and Tristan Nunez immediately took the lead in the #77 Mazda with the two Action Express Cadillacs closely behind.
The two Acuras of Dane Cameron and Helio Castroneves heavily struggled in the rain, as it turned out that the two Penske machines had run with incorrect tire pressures, essentially ending their hopes before the race had truly begun. With the #10 Cadillac running behind from earlier issues and the #77 Mazda catching fire in the hands of Timo Bernhard, the #31 and #5 seem to be running up front with little resistance.
Mazda Team Joest's misery then completed as Jonathan Bomarito was caught out in rainy conditions and slid into the tyre barrier. Luckily for Bomarito, damage was minor and could be repaired.
The #38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA is having a remarkably simple endeavour so far, as its only competitor, the #52 PR1 Mathiasen entry, is some twenty laps down after suffering from major suspension failure in the third hour.
In GTLM, Porsche suffered the same fate as Team Penske and the #911 and #912 plummeted down the order in the first hour and are yet to recover. In their absence, Corvette, Ford and BMW are picking up the pieces with the pair of Ford GTs running strongest, the #67 ahead of the #66.
The #4 Corvette suffered an alternator issue in the third hour, but the sister car is running up front. The #24 was engaged in a fierce battle with the #3 Corvette as the halfway point neared, but it was the #67 Ford of 2018 Indycar champion Scott Dixon that was in the lead halfway.
In GT Daytona, Lamborghini, Acura, Mercedes and Porsche are battling for supremacy. The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche took the lead early on, but in the hours that followed, the #11 Lamborghini of GRT Grasser Racing, the #33 Riley Motorsports Mercedes and #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura all took the lead at some point, but it was the Canadian Porsche 911 GT3 R that took back the top spot as the race hit the six-hour mark.
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