Audi Wins 12 Hours of Sebring

Audi took home its 11th win in the just concluded 12 Hours of Sebring with a pair of Audi R18 e-tron quattros. The two cars finished 1st and 2nd after leading the throughout not allowing any other competitors come between them. Marcel Fassler, Benoit Treluyer and Oliver Jarvis drove the No. 1 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro, which won by 7.68 seconds over the No. 2 Audi of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Lucas DiGrassi in a 2013-spec diesel-hybrid.

This win was very important to Audi; earlier Audi Head of Motorsports Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich had said it was going to be an emotional race for them as the bid goodbye to Sebring, ALMS merges with Grand-Am for the new United SportsCar Racing series in 2014, this also implies that LMP1 class will fall to new regulations coming into force from 2014 that ensure no Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) category racers can compete in this race.

The win did not come off without pullbacks though, earlier on, McNish of No.2 Audi made contact with Mirco Schultis in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Mishumotors close to the Hour 3 mark and was black flagged for incidental contact. The penalty (stop and go, plus 60 seconds) put the No. 2 Audi R18 at the end of the lead lap, behind the team’s No. 1 Audi R18, before retaking the lead on pit stops at the Hour 4 mark.

Toyota claimed the 3rd position with their No. 12 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 driven by Neel Jani, Nicolas Prost and Nick Heidfeld. The GT class was action packed as the NO.4 Chevrolet Corvette C6.R of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner Jr and Richard Westbrook claimed the victory from the Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia with just 14 minutes to go.

Results – 364 laps:

Pos Cl Drivers Team/Car Time/Gap
1. P1 Fassler/Treluyer/Jarvis Joest Audi 12h00m11.638s
2. P1 di Grassi/Kristensen/McNish Joest Audi + 7.679s
3. P1 Prost/Heidfeld/Jani Rebellion Lola-Toyota + 5 laps
4. P1 Graf/Luhr/Dumas Pickett HPD + 6 laps
5. P1 Beche/Cheng/Belicchi Rebellion Lola-Toyota + 10 laps
6. P2 Tucker/Franchitti/Briscoe Level 5 HPD + 18 laps
7. P2 Tucker/Hunter-Reay/Pagena Level 5 HPD + 19 laps
8. P2 Kimber-Smith/Zugel/Lux Greaves Zytek-Nissan + 22 laps
9. PC Cheng/Guasch/Ostella PR1 Mathiasen FLM + 28 laps
10. PC Marcelli/Cumming/Johansso BAR1 FLM + 28 laps
11. PC Nunez/Shears/Heinemeier Hansson Performance Tech FLM + 29 laps
12. PC Junqueira/Popow/Ende RSR FLM + 29 laps
13. P2 Brown/van Overbeek/Lazzaro Extreme Speed HPD + 29 laps
14. PC Bennett/Braun/Wilkins CORE FLM + 30 laps
15. GT Gavin/Milner/Westbrook Corvette + 31 laps
16. GT Bruni/Beretta/Malucelli Risi Ferrari + 31 laps
17. GT Henzler/Sellers/Tandy Falken Porsche + 32 laps
18. GT Auberlen/Martin/Muller RLL BMW + 34 laps
19. GT Dalziel/Farnbacher/Goossens SRT Viper + 35 laps
20. GT Miller/Holzer/Lietz Miller Porsche + 35 laps
21. PC Drissi/Mitchell/Ducote BAR1 FLM + 38 laps
22. GT Muller/Hand/Edwards RLL BMW + 43 laps
23. GT Turner/Mucke/Senna Aston Martin + 46 laps
24. GTC MacNeil/Bleekemolen/von Moltke Alex Job Porsche + 49 laps
25. GTC Canache/Pumpelly/Wong Flying Lizard Porsche + 49 laps
26. GTC Cisneros/Seefried/Edwards NGT Porsche + 50 laps
27. GTC Hedlund/Heylen/Fogarty JDX Porsche + 50 laps
28. GTC Keating/Faulkner/Stanton TRG Porsche + 51 laps*
29. GTC Dempsey/Lally/Foster Dempsey Porsche + 53 laps
30. GTC Avenatti/Davis/Faieta Dempsey Porsche + 53 laps
31. GTC Calvert-Jones/Curran/Aschenbach Competition Porsche + 55 laps
32. GTC Ehret/Imperatori/Sandberg Flying Lizard Porsche + 55 laps
33. GT Dalla Lana/Johnson/Lamy Aston Martin + 57 laps
34. GT Bomarito/Kendall/Wittmer SRT Viper + 61 laps
35. GTC Gomez/Farnbacher/Giermaziak NGT Porsche + 63 laps
36. PC Schultis/Simon/Kaffer DragonSpeed FLM + 78 laps
37. P2 Sharp/Cosmo/Brabham Extreme Speed HPD + 83 laps
38. GTC Carter/Estre/de Quesada TRG Porsche + 95 laps
* Not running at finish

Retirements:

GT Magnussen/Garcia/Taylor Corvette 213 laps
GT Sweedler/Bell/Keen AJR/West Ferrari 209 laps
P1 Dyson/Smith/Leitzinger Dyson Lola-Mazda 81 laps
P1 Meyrick/Pla DeltaWing 10 laps

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