LM GTE @ 1,000 miles of Sebring 2019
WEC came back to its roots (WEC started in 2012 at Sebring) for the second time in 2019. It was the 6th race (out of 8) of the Super Season 2018-2019.
Lots of actions during the 1,000 Miles of Sebring 2019, as one counted 19 different leaders during the race with 4 different manufacturers Porsche, Ford, BMW and Aston Martin.
📷 1,000 Miles of Sebring 2019.
Coming from Ferrari for the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2018, Gianmaria Bruni got his first victory with Porsche GT Team #91 Porsche 991 RSR at the 1,000 Miles of Sebring 2019, together with Richard Lietz. They finished tenth overall and marked the 3rd victory of Porsche GT Team in the Super Season. Porsche Team GT was 10 seconds quicker than BMW Team MTEK to change tires with 20 minutes to go enabling Bruni to get out just ahead of the BMW
The #81 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE Martin Tomczyk, Nicky Catsburg, Alexander Sims finished second GTE Pro for 0.816 seconds after being always in the forefront. When rain forced the team to get rain tires with 18 laps to go, the trio was second behind the Porsche #91 with potential to take the lead back, but a safety car froze the positions.
Harry Tincknell, Johnathan Bomarito and Andy Priaulx ended third GTE Pro 1 lap behind #91 with their #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford GT LM GTE.
The AF Corse Ferraris were ill-served by BoP for this race. During qualifications, #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo fastest lap was 0.693 slower than Porsche #92 and 0.820 than Corvette #63. It was difficult in those circumstances for James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra to be on the forefront but they still ended fourth.
Despite him being among the fastest during qualifications, Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen driving #92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 991 RSR ended fifth.
#71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo driven by Davide Rigon, Sam Bird and Miguel Molina ended sixth.
#82 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE Augusto Farfus, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Bruno Spengler ended seventh .
Corvette Racing was present with only one car, the #63 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R driven by Antonio Garcia, Mike Rockenfeller, Jan Magnussen. It was 5th at qualification session with only 0.344 sec. to the fastest Porsche. Nevertheless the trio ended only eighth of the 1.000 Miles race.
#97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR driven by Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin could not defend his chances in qualifying following a steering column failure.
Starting dead-last in the GTE-Pro category, they gradually climbed up to the first position. But the Belgian-British duo lost a lap in the sixth hour of the race and finished in 9th place.
#95 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR with Nicki Thiim, Darren Turner and Marco Sorensen at the wheel, ended 10th.
The Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK’s Ford GT #66 of Olivier Pla and Stefan Mücke helped by Billy Johnson finished last of the LMGTE Pro class, 10 laps behind the winning Porsche.
