Ford continues to dominate endurance championships around the world with the new Ford GT challengers, at the ongoing 12 Hours of Sebring by Mobil 1, the American team set the two fastest times in GTLM to lock the front row on the starting grid. The #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing car driven by Ryan Briscoe was the fasted after clocking an unrivaled time of 1m 55.939s.
Teammate Dirk Mueller in the #66 Ford GT set the second fastest time to give Ford a 1-2 in qualifying. There are only 3 Ford GTs at the 12 Hours of Sebring, Ford has been campaigning with 4 cars ever since they debuted at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year.
Third place in the GTLM class initially went to Tommy Milner in the #4 Corvette C7.R but a post qualifying check found Milner’s car with an illegal height ride forcing him to lose third place on the grid. The #4 Corvette will thus start from last place, behind the GTLM and GTD cars. Kevin Estre was elevated to third place in the #912 Porsche 911 RSR.
2017 Mobil 1 12 Hours Of Sebring Preview
Cadillac kicked off the 2017 IMSA season by dominating Daytona 24 Hours with a full podium sweep, but things could be different at Sebring as Porsche man, Neel Jani denied them a top spot during qualifying yesterday. Driving a Rebellion Oreca P2, Jani set a new lap record at Sebring with a 1m 48.178s to claim P1. Second place went to the #5 Cadillac DPi driven by Christian Fittipaldi while the #31 sister car claimed third with Eric Curran behind the wheel.
Photos by Marcel Langer
The 12 Hours of Sebring this year will be the fastest in history as seen in the times recorded during qualifying. The Prototype, GTLM and GTD cars all set new record times during qualifying, Tristan Vautier was the top man in GTD in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 from SunEnergy1 Racing. While the AMG GT3s failed to ‘impress’ at Daytona 24 Hours, Vautier has a different mission at Sebring as he set a new record time and ultimately the first proper victory for the AMG GT3 in North America. Elsewhere around the world, the AMG GT3s are unbeatable in endurance challenges, having won the 24 Hours of Nurburgring last year among other races.
Second in GTD went to the #29 Audi R8 LMS of Connor De Phillippi leading the #16 Change Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 driven by Corey Lewis. Two Lexus RC F GT3s rounded up the top five by taking fourth and fifth.
The 2017 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring will start at 10:40 a.m. ET Saturday with coverage going live on FOX Sports GO as well as IMSA Radio.
