Sebring: Big win for Neel Jani 🎥

Ten days ago, Neel Jani would not even have dared to dream of this sporting success. At short notice, the 38-year-old from Biel received an invitation to take part in the 12 Hours of Sebring. At Chip Ganassi Racing, one of the most renowned and successful U.S. teams of all, he replaced Kevin Magnussen, who had also switched to Formula 1 at short notice.

Jani knew the archaic Sebring race track well, having started 2017 with the Rebellion LMP1 from pole position, which did not bring the team any luck at the time. After only 18 leading laps in the starting phase, the Swiss team, which also included Sébastien Buemi, retired after ten hours.

Hussar ride of the New Zealander
The race, which was held for the 70th time since 1952, was completely different for Neel Jani on Saturday. The Cadillac DPi, driven by Earl Bamber (NZ), Alex Lynn (GB) and himself, always remained in the leading group, but only in the second half of the race within direct striking distance of the leaders. These included six of the seven Daytona Prototypes from Cadillac and Acura over the course of the half-marathon.

Bamber, who was a member of the Porsche LMP1 team with the Bernese years ago, made the triumph clear in the final hour with a hurricane ride. Twice he lost the lead due to a slight collision with a GT car and a spin, twice he regained it and thus secured the coveted victory in the endurance classic for his team. Afterwards, the New Zealander spoke of one of his best and at the same time worst drives ever.

Historic Swiss success
For Neel Jani, it is one of his greatest endurance racing successes, which include the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 2016 World Championship title with Porsche. Previously, the only Swiss winners of the Twelve Hours of Sebring were Jo Siffert with Hans Herrmann (D) in 1968 in a Porsche 907 and Marcel Fässler in 2013 with Benoît Tréluyer (F) and Oliver Jarvis (GB) in an Audi R18 e-tron quattro.

Together with the 24 Hours of Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 12 Hours of Sebring form the Triple Crown of Endurance Racing. In 2012 only, this race in the heart of Florida was the first ever to count towards the newly launched FIA World Championship, since then it has been part of the American Sports Car Championship.

This video shows the final phase and Neel Janin cheering in the pits.

No chance for Toyota
At the world championship round the day before, the 1000 miles of Sebring, Sébastien Buemi finished a more or less satisfactory second place with Toyota. That was the best the 2021 unbeaten Toyota Gazoo Racing Team could do with the GR010 hypercar.

The classification via the so-called Balance of Performance was too unfavorable for the only hybrid model in the field and second place was therefore the best possible result.

First WEC victory for Alpine
But Alpine rejoiced for the first time thanks to the virtually unchallenged victory of Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxiviere. The Alpine A480 with naturally aspirated Gibson V8 engine led from the start to the premature finish, except for the different pit stop phases. Lapierre also has the Swiss passport, but drives under the French flag all his life.

The race was stopped early after about seven hours due to an approaching storm. It had previously been interrupted due to the accident of the second Toyota hypercar in the first half of the race for the purpose of recovering the wreckage and track repairs.

Strong performance by Rahel Frey and her partners
None of the other Swiss at the start of the two endurance races in Sebring made it onto the podium. Louis Delétraz narrowly missed it in fourth place in LMP2 in the WRC round.

Outstanding was the fifth place of Rahel Frey and her two partners in the GTE-Am, which made them the best-ranked Ferrari team in the twelve-car class.

WEC Sebing Classification IMSA Sebring Overall Classification

imsa.com

fiawec.com