{"id":829,"date":"2025-03-15T22:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T22:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/?p=829"},"modified":"2025-03-15T22:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T22:08:34","slug":"2025-12-hours-of-sebring-race-diaries-i-hours-7-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/2025-12-hours-of-sebring-race-diaries-i-hours-7-8\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 12 Hours of Sebring Race Diaries I Hours 7-8"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

America’s oldest endurance race returns for the 76th edition in 2025, with the most competitive GTP field ever and over 50 cars involved, it’s going to be a hectic battle to the finish, and I’m here to take you through the rest of the action!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big news at the top of the hour was Porsche were in the lead, Felipe Nasr making an easy move up the inside to give the Penske run #7 car the lead ahead of Cadillac’s #31.<\/strong> Earl Bamber stayed in good stead behind, splitting the two works cars as Toby Sowery took over the LMP2 class leading #04 Crowdstrike car from Malthe Jakobsen.<\/strong> He had a healthy 40 second lead over the #22 of Rasmus Lindh.<\/strong> Ford’s #64 car that had been leading with Mike Rockenfeller eventually pitted, giving Paul Miller Racing’s #1 car the race lead with Connor Di Phillippi now aboard the GTD Pro leading car.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wider scope of GTP, Cadillac effectively had only one car with a shot at winning, as the #40 and #10 were still languishing behind after their own incidents and penalties, while Aston Martin were up as high as 6th with Ross Gunn putting in some incredibly strong lap times and running ahead of the privateer Porsches on pit strategy. The #60 was also facing its own issues with pace, and far down the pecking order. Both Porsches were still in contention having run trouble free since the start. LMP2 meanwhile had just four cars on the lead lap with the #04 leading from United Autosports #22 and Inter Europol’s #43, as the class’s early contender #11 was fourth. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TDS Racing then suffered more misfortune, being turned round at Sunset Bend by the recovering #88 AF Corse Ferrari of Mathias Perez Companc, all while Toby Sowery extended the #04 car’s lead to nearly that of a minute. Such a close class in concept was proving anything but at Sebring with the largest gaps between cars of any class in this race, not even 7 hours in. Charlie Eastwood meanwhile took the lead of GTD in his #36 Corvette.<\/strong> GTD then had a huge drama, as having retaken the lead from Eastwood’s Corvette Kenton Koch pulled his #32 Mercedes to the side of the road having run out of virtual energy. Incredibly bad luck for that team, and another strong GTD contender removed from the running to win. While they languished at the side of the track, Gradient Racing’s #66 Ford Mustang was also stationary. They’d received a 100 second stop and go penalty. It was Heart of Racing’s #27 car that now lead the class.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dries Vanthoor had already given his #24 crew a tough start with the drive through penalty, but now spun in sector 2 and dropped the team more time they really didn’t need to lose. They were the only BMW on the lead lap, and was now sitting 4th and 35 seconds back from Felipe Nasr’s race leading #7 Porsche.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, another GTD contender was hit hard by a drive through penalty. Winward Racing were already struggling after a slow pitstop, and then after attempting to repair their car the #57 car had salt poured on the wounds, as fellow Mercedes competition Korthoff Preston Motorsports’ #32 car was officially classified as a retirement.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there was one more moment of drama before the hour was up, as the race leading #04 Crowdstrike LMP2 was found guilty of exceeding tyre pressure limits and thus received a drive through penalty, though they were so far ahead of the others they actually managed to stay in the lead by over a minute. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So going into the next portion of the race, Laurens Vanthoor leads the race overall in the #7 Porsche ahead of the #31 Cadillac and the sister #6 Porsche. LMP2 is still the #04 Crowdstrike LMP2 despite the aforementioned drive through penalty, while GTD Pro is headed by Jesse Krohn in the #48 BMW. GTD is incredibly the #21 AGAIN, having come through to take the lead for the second time after facing significant adversity. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

thumbnail image credit – Rick Flores from USA, CC BY 2.0 https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America’s oldest endurance race returns for the 76th edition in 2025, with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13,34,32,22],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prototype-racing","tag-13","tag-2025-imsa","tag-imsa","tag-prototype"],"yoast_head":"\n2025 12 Hours of Sebring Race Diaries I Hours 7-8 - The Motornerd<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2025\/03\/15\/2025-12-hours-of-sebring-race-diaries-i-hours-7-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2025 12 Hours of Sebring Race Diaries I Hours 7-8 - 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