SEBRING, Fla. The 73rd running of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring settled into an easy groove as the middle third of the classic IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event at Sebring International Raceway ran essentially caution-free.

After four full-course cautions flew during the races first two hours, hours three through eight saw green flag action briefly paused just once when Brendon Hartley nosed the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R into the tire barrier outside Sunset Bend (Turn 17) early in the fifth hour. The No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 held the overall and Grand Touring Prototype class lead at that point, but the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R again soon powered to the front after starting from the back of the GTP field due to a technical problem in qualifying.

But less than five minutes prior to the races halfway point, Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 took advantage of traffic to pass the Cadillac into Turn 2. The two top contenders in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) and overall maintained a solid cushion over Porsche Penske Motorsports No. 6 car, which pitted just before the eight-hour mark to hand third place back to the No. 60 Acura. After eight hours, Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche led Jack Aitken in the No. 31 Cadillac by 7.466 seconds.

LMP2 

In the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class, the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 moved into the lead near the end of the fifth hour and maintained a tight grip on the top spot, even after being assessed a penalty for failing to adhere to tire operational requirements just before eight hours of the race had elapsed. Malthe Jakobsens lead over Bijoy Garg in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07 after eight hours was a comfortable 53.242 seconds.

GTD Classes 

In GTD PRO, Paul Miller Racings pair of BMW M4 GT3 EVOs led the field, with Dan Harper in the No. 48 leading Neil Verhagen in the No. 1 by 5.076 seconds. Their closest competition came from AO Racings No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), which was 13 seconds back and working hard to get back on the same pit stop sequence as the class leader.

The battle in the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class took a turn heading into the seventh hour when the leading No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3 ground to a halt on the circuit with Kenton Koch behind the wheel. That set up an intriguing battle between the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo and the class Motul Pole Award-winning No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, with the cars running roughly half a stint apart on fuel.

The No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 was also a strong GTD contender until incurring a procedural penalty just prior to the eight-hour mark. Alessandro Pier Guidi kept the top spot in the Af Corse Ferrari despite a lurid run through the grass just after he had passed Zacharie Robichon in the Aston Martin for the class lead. At the eight-hour mark, Pier Guidi held a 2.352-second advantage.

At the eight-hour mark, the unofficial top scoring Michelin Endurance Cup cars at Sebring were the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen entry in GTP (first and second in the two segments), No. 11 TDS ORECA in LMP2 (first and third), No. 1 PMR BMW in GTD PRO (first and second), and No. 21 Af Ferrari (first both segments).