ILMS/ALMS, 12 Hours of Sebring - Friday Morning (and Thursday Night)
Catching Up and Heating Up

First off, catching up from last night – GMG did get their car back last night, around 9:00pm, but it was nowhere ready to run.  In fact this morning, the team was still putting the car back together, with the intention of getting the car back on track for qualifying.

In other changes, the Alex Job GTC Porsche is a new-old car.  Specifically it is last seasons car – the one that was wrecked at Mosport.  The new chassis that the team was using earlier was wrecked beyond use in the Thursday morning session.  By the permission of the organizers, AJR was allowed to enter their older car for the race.  Currently running in a black and white scheme, it should be re-skinned in time for qualifying.

Continuing along the with the GTC theme, Tim Pappas took some time to catch us up with their efforts for 2011.  “We got a bit of a late start.  Our intention was to convert over our Grand Am car for racing here, but instead we bought a new car, which we didn’t get until just before we came down here for testing.  We started off with a full complement of spares, and now we’ve gone through most of them.  Damage front, side, rear, even the hood (what do you call the front hinged thing on a rear engine car???) was damaged when we didn’t put the pins in properly to secure it.  I truly like running in the GTC class, but I’d like to see other cars allowed in.  Not that I’d change from Porsche, but I think adding in other cars would make the class more legitimate, especially to the press.  At this time, I’m content running in this class. I can’t see going back to GT as it stands.  It’s expensive and unless you have the support of a manufacturer, you’re not going to have a chance.”  After having a rough Thursday, the team made the repairs from previous damage to get the mandatory 3 laps per driver in with about 2 minutes to spare in the night session.  “Even getting out in time for the laps was tight.  All of us drivers pitched in on the repairs – if we hadn’t been able to help the crew, we wouldn’t have made it out on track in time.”

Among those cars that had a rough Thursday, the best ending had to be for Cytosport.  After going through a lengthy repair after the fire, the team made it back out for the night session.  For Klaus Graf, it was a truly a team effort that got them back out.  “We weren’t sure if we were going to make it out for the session, but the team put forth a great effort to get us going again.  We got in our mandatory laps and then Lucas had some extra time in the car, as he won’t be in it today.  To see him lay down some quick laps like that really gave us some confidence for the race.  I really like driving the Aston – it’s different that the Spyder, but its something you, as a driver, just adapt to.  Its heavier and more powerful, but in the end it’s a race car.  Visibility out of it is ok – not really a problem in traffic, but it’s a bit of an issue coming into the pits.  I know its got to be better than the Peugeot and the new Audi.  From what I’ve seen, it looks like the visibility out of them must be pretty tough.”

Count Robertson Racing as officially frustrated, or even worse.  It seems that before this race, the team was informed that they would be running new restrictors as a “reward” for using the Michelin tires.  Instead of being able to mix it up with the front runners, the team is again mired back in mid pack.  According to Boris Said, “it is things like this that caused the Davis team to pull out after their aborted run at Petit Le Mans.  The restrictor has now caused us to be the slowest on the straights by a large margin.”  The gap is large enough now that the car, with the new restrictors is losing eight car lengths on the start/finish straight to the Corvettes.

Meanwhile – there actually was a session that took place on track.  Of course, there were also the what now appears to be mandatory red flags in the hour long session.  The first was for the 44 Lizard, which found its way into the tires in turn 6.  The damage appeared to be minimal to the car, but the rabbit habitat was extensively damaged.  The mandatory second red was for the NGT that had what appears to have been a significant off.

Overall, things are starting to really heat up as far as lap times.  In the interrupted session, it was Peugeot showing the way early and then in the waning moments, it was Duval setting the fastest time with a stunning 1:48.704 on his last lap in the Oreca Peugeot.  TK was second for Audi, just over a second back with the second Audi right there also.  Fastest of the non-diesels was Highcroft, with Pagenaud turning in a very nice 1:50.601.

Fastest in LMP2 was again the Signtech Nissan, with the Level 5 entries back amongst the LMPC runners.  The fastest in LMPC was Genoa.

In GT, it was Luxuary Racing leading a Ferrari 1-2, while the NGT Porsche, which wrecked in the session was the fastest in GTC.