Nick Tandy was the quickest driver in a distrupted opening free practice session of the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s 12 Hours of Sebring.
The ‘Grand Slam’-achieving #7 Porsche Penske 963 GTP driver set a lap time of 1:48.651 after which the session which hosted three red flags and four separate incidents.
Round two of the 2025 IMSA schedule begun its proceedings with the first of three 90-minute free practice sessions at the demanding Sebring International Raceway.
Only minutes into the session, the #6 Porsche GTP stopped at Turn 6 which prompted the first red flag – though the #6 Porsche would later return to the track with significantly lesser limited laps completed compared to their GTP class rivals.
After a short while to retrieve Mathieu Jaminet’s Porsche, the session continued until race control declared another red flag after Wayne Taylor Racing’s #45 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 suffered an impact at Turn 2 with Danny Formal at the wheel.
Due to the fact the #45 Lamborghini team caused a red flag during free practice, they incurred a penalty to automatically lose their fastest lap during qualifying tomorrow.
Twelve minutes passed when the session resumed before the next drama involving Daytona 24 Hours LMP2 winners United Autosports USA and Daniel Goldburg whose #22 Oreca 07 LMP2 endured an impact at Turn 3 although he continued slowly before pitting for repairs.
Again, after some smooth green flag running, LMP2 driver Jeremy Clarke was the subject of a third red flag with 13 minutes remaining (and counting down) when he went off-course in his #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca. Green flag running resumed with under 10-minutes of FP1 remaining.
‘Mr. Grand-Slam’ tops timesheet for Porsche Penske
In the end, Tandy was quickest with his 1:48.651 lap time ahead of #93 Acura ARX-06 driver Nick Yelloly’s 1:48.796.
Meyer Shank Racing team-mate Colin Braun put the #60 Acura in third place after his fastest lap of 1:48.832, as Jaminet followed with a 1:48.832 set on his fourth lap out of 15 completed.
Philipp Eng rounded out the top-five in GTP for the #24 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 with a 1:49.040.
Reigning Le Mans winner Nicklas Nielsen topped the LMP2 category for the #88 AF Corse Oreca 07 team having set a 1:50.403 lap time.
Sebastien Bourdais followed closely behind in the #8 Tower Motorsports Oreca with his 1:50.508 ahead of a 1:55.401 set by Inter Europol Competition’s Tom Dillmann.
Riley’s #74 Oreca was fourth owing to Felipe Fraga’s 1:50.868 as United Autosports USA driver Paul di Resta put the #22 Oreca in fifth from a 1:50.886.
Reigning GTD class winners at Sebring, Winward Racing, were the fastest of the GT field after Indy Dontje’s 2:00.767 lap time.
Their #57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 was followed by the other Mercedes-AMG, Korthoff Competition’s #32 machine, as Kenton Koch set a 2:00.839.
Dragonspeed’s #81 Ferrari 296 GT3 was third in the combined GT order and fastest in the GTD Pro category.
Davide Rigon set a 2:00.866 to be narrowly behind the #32 Mercedes-AMG, as fellow GTD Pro competitor AO Racing and their #77 ‘Rexy’ Porsche 911 GT3.R was next.
Klaus Bachler drove a quickest time of 2:00.900 and Daniel Serra took third in GTD Pro for Conquest Racing’s #34 Ferrari after his 2:00.922.
See here for the full results of FP1. The second practice session commences at 3.05pm local time or 7.05pm UTC.
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