Whelen Engineering takes lights-to-flag win in Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring

Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr have taken a dominant victory in the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring, leading the race from start to finish to win while Corvette profited from inter-team drama at Porsche to take the first one-two victory for the C8.R.

Derani started the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-VR from pole position and was briefly challenged for the lead by the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Renger van der Zande at the start of the race, but held on and opened up a gap, which was comfortably maintained by team-mate Nasr to take the duo’s first win since Petit Le Mans in 2019.

Van der Zande and Ryan Briscoe went on to finish in second place, while Sebastien Bourdais and Joao Barbosa took a surprise last lap podium in the #5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac.

Bourdais was running outside the podium positions until the two Mazdas in the hands of Oliver Jarvis and Harry Tincknell both dramatically came to a halt on the final lap of the race after likely running out of fuel, costing the team a podium finish.

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Acura Team Penske had a difficult outing at Sebring International Raceway, with the two Acura ARX-05 not on the pace of their rivals, ultimately finishing out of reach of the podium. The #7 of Helio Castroneves came into the pits in the early stages of the race with a mechanical issue, which was able to be fixed.

In LMP2, the #81 Dragonspeed ORECA 07-Gibson of Henrik Hedman and Gustavo Menezes initially took victory after Menezes chased down and passed the #52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA of Patrick Kelly and Spencer Pigot.

However, after the race, Dragonspeed was stripped of the win as it was discovered that Hedman had failed to complete his minimum driving time of 45 minutes. Kelly and Pigot were therefore handed the victory, while Kyle Masson and Cameron Cassels were promoted to victory in the #81 Performance Tech ORECA, with the #18 Era Motorsport ORECA of Kyle Tilley and Dwight Merriman moved up to third place.

Caution breeds GT chaos

The race saw one full course caution when the #8 Tower Motorsport by Starworks ORECA 07-Gibson was brought to a halt on track with a fuel pump failure. The resulting caution and subsequent pit stop cycle caused chaos on pit road and proved disastrous for Porsche.

The #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Laurens Vanthoor had led the race in the early stages after passing both Corvettes at the start, but when the GTLM and GTD runners pitted under yellow, pit lane chaos caused Vanthoor’s left front to make contact with the right rear of the #911 sister car of Nick Tandy, which subsequently ripped Vanthoor’s front bumper off.

This forced the Belgian back onto pit road for repairs, while the contact later led to a spectacular right rear puncture for Tandy, whose tyre failed while turning into turn one. The Briton miraculously managed to keep his Porsche out of the wall, but was forced to limp back to the pits.

This left the pair of Corvette C8.Rs free to cruise to victory, with the #4 of Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin fending off the #3 of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to record Corvette’s maiden one-two finish with the C8.R.

Earl Bamber completed a fine recovery drive to finish third in the #912 Porsche 911 RSR-19, which included a thrilling battle with the #25 BMW M8 GTE of Connor de Phillippi, who went on to finish fourth.

The GTLM pit stop mayhem also had an effect on the GTD battle. AIM Vasser Sullivan was running in a comfortable one-two prior to the caution and looked set for a dominant win, until the Porsche clash on pit road threw Vanthoor’s front bumper landed directly in front of the pit stall of the leading Lexus pair, which caused them to drop down the order and placing their victory in jeopardy.

After the restart, Aaron Telitz and Jack Hawksworth stormed back up the order in the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 to regain the lost lead and went on to take their second consecutive GTD victory.

Toni Vilander took second place in a late-race scrap with Bill Auberlen, with the #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo going on to finish second while the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M6 GT3 completed the podium.