Sebring: Victories for Buemi and Ineichen 🎥
CONFIRMATION The sports car superweekend at Sebring ended with another WRC race win for Sébastien Buemi and Toyota. In the 12-hour race, Rolf Ineichen came home with a class win, as he did at Daytona. Toyota's fifth one-two at the sixth round of the 2018/19 World Endurance Championship, which was affected by rain in phases, was no mean feat in terms of pure speed. On the other hand, the error rate in the race [...]
Toyota's fifth one-two in the sixth round of the 2018/19 World Endurance Championship, which was marred by rain at times, was no mean feat in terms of pure speed. On the other hand, the error rate in the eight-hour race on the mogul track at Sebring in the heart of Florida was generally higher than on any other track on the calendar. Toyota Gazoo Racing also felt the effects of this.
Start-finish victory for the world championship leaders
While Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso led from the start and celebrated their third victory of the season including an absolute new lap record, the second Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López was caught out. The Argentinean collided with an Aston Martin after about four and a half hours, after which a stop was necessary to repair the bodywork. This meant that the positions were taken.
This video sequence shows how starting driver Buemi weaves through traffic on his 16th lap:
https://www.facebook.com/fiawec/videos/308740009843858
Toyota ahead of title win
Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima extended their lead in the drivers' championship over their teammates, who last won twice in fall 2018, from 5 to 15 points. The decision will probably not be made until the finale at Le Mans in June. In the constructors' championship, however, the gap to the second-placed Rebellion team is already so large that Toyota can secure the title at the penultimate round at Spa (B) on May 4.
This short video shows the finish in the pouring rain at Sebring:
https://www.facebook.com/fiawec/videos/819315251749060
Rebellion experiences a bad day
Keyword Rebellion: The team from England running under the Swiss flag only brought the R13 of Berthon/Laurent/Menezes over the distance in seventh place, behind the three best LMP2s. The car was in third overall position for a long time before major technical problems arose.
The second number 1 Rebellion driven by Mathias Beche, Neel Jani and Bruno Senna had to pit after just ten minutes with gearbox problems. The trio dropped to the back of the 33-car field, subsequently made up several positions and retired shortly after halftime in the dark due to an accident involving Beche. Third place as the best LMP1 privateer team thus went to SMP Racing.
Neel Jani: "That was not our weekend. Reliability was our strength at the start of the season. Now Sebring has shown that we need to catch up again in this respect."
Eighth place for Simon Trummer in 12-hour race
The 67th staging of the oldest endurance race in North America, the 12 Hours of Sebring, counted as the second round of the IMSA Sports Car Championship the other day. It ended with a triple victory for the Cadillac DPi teams, led by the trio of Felipe Nasr, Eric Curran and Pipo Derani.
Simon Trummer qualified his Cadillac DPi in a good eighth place. Together with Stephen Simpson and Chris Miller, the man from Thun also finished eighth, just three laps behind the winners.
Rolf Ineichen never ceases to amaze
As at the 24 Hours of Daytona, Rolf Ineichen celebrated a magnificent victory in the GTD class on a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo from Grasser Racing, again with Mirko Bortolotti and Rik Breukers as partners. Ineichen himself laid the foundation for this with the fourth-best qualifying time.
In the race, the team was constantly in the top positions. With his masterful final drive, works driver Bortolotti secured victory for the team, just ahead of a U.S. Lambo team, a Ferrari and the fastest Audi from Land Motorsport with Ricardo Feller as one of the three drivers.
In the top GT-LM class, Marcel Fässler with Corvette Racing only managed eighth place. Electrical problems required a longer repair.
