2018 12 Hours of Sebring

International Motor Sports Association's (IMSA) president Scott Atherton confirmed the race was part of the schedule for the 2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA SCC) in August 2017.^[1] It was the fifth consecutive year it was part of the IMSA SCC, and the 66th 12 Hours of Sebring.^[1] The 24 Hours of Daytona was the second of twelve scheduled sports car endurance races of 2018 by IMSA, and the second of four races of the North American Endurance Cup (NAEC).^[1] It was held at the 17-turn, 3.741-mile (6.021 km) Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida on March 17, 2018.^[1]

On March 1, 2018, IMSA released a bulletin outlining the minimum refueling times for all the classes.^[2] All cars in the Prototype class were given 30 second minimum refueling time while GTLM and GTD were given times of 34 and 40 seconds, respectively. The times were made to override any refueling restrictor size following Montaplast by Land-Motorsport's penalty at Daytona.^[3]

After the 24 Hours of Daytona 7 weeks earlier, Filipe Albuquerque, João Barbosa, and Christian Fittipaldi were leading the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 35 points.^[4] GTLM was led by Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook, and Scott Dixon with a three-point advantage over Joey Hand, Dirk Müller, and Sébastien Bourdais.^[4] In GTD, the Drivers' Championship was led by Mirko Bortolotti, Rik Breukers, Rolf Ineichen, and Franck Perera with 35 points.^[4] Cadillac, Ford, and Lamborghini were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Mustang Sampling Racing, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing, and GRT Grasser Racing Team each led their own Teams' Championships.^[4]

On March 7, 2018, IMSA released the latest technical bulletin outlining Balance of Performance for the event.^[5] In the Prototype class, the Acura ARX-05 received a reduction of turbo boost and a fuel capacity reduction of 1 liter while the Nissan Onroak DPi got a turbo boost reduction between 6000-7600 rpm. The Cadillac DPi-V.R received a 10 kilogram weight increase while the Mazda RT24-P received a fuel capacity increase of 2 liters and adjustments to the cars rear wing. In the GTLM class, the BMW M8 GTE received a 20 kilogram weight reduction and increase of power between 5000-7500 rpm while the Porsche 911 RSR got a fuel capacity increase of 2 liters. In the GTD class, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 received a 20 kilogram weight increase and a 1mm air restrictor increase while the Lexus RC F GT3 received a 1mm air restrictor increase.

A total of 43 cars took part in the event split across 3 classes. 16 cars were entered in P, 9 in GTLM, and 18 in GTD.^[6] In P, BAR1 Motorsports and Jackie Chan DCR JOTA were absent while United Autosports scaled down to 1 entry. Paul Di Resta joined Phil Hanson and Alex Brundle in the United Autosports #32 entry while Bruno Senna missed the event after having undergone a surgical procedure a few weeks earlier.^[7][8] In GTD, Grasser Racing Team and Manthey Racing skipped the event while Risi Competizione scaled down focussing on its GTLM effort. CJ Wilson Racing made their IMSA SportsCar Championship debut at this event.^[9] Dillon Machavern and Markus Palttala joined Don Yount in the Turner Motorsport entry. Following the retirement of Scott Pruett, Sean Rayhall joined 3GT Racing in the teams #15 entry.^[10] Corey Lewis joined Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in the Paul Miller Racing entry.^[11] Tom Dyer joined Ryan Eversley and Chad Gilsinger in the HART entry.^[12]

There were four practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, three on Thursday and one on Friday. The first two one-hour sessions were on Thursday morning and afternoon. The third held later that evening ran for 90 minutes; the fourth on Friday morning lasted an hour.^[13]

The first practice session took place at 11:00 am ET on Thursday and ended with Hélio Castroneves topping the charts for Acura Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:48.237.^[14]

The second practice session took place at 3:10 pm ET on Thursday and ended with Ricky Taylor topping the charts for Acura Team Pensken, with a lap time of 1:47.841.^[16]

The night practice session took place at 7:30 pm ET on Thursday and ended with René Rast topping the charts for Mazda Team Joest, with a lap time of 1:48.233.^[18]

The fourth and final practice session took place at 8:00 am ET on Friday and ended with Ricky Taylor topping the charts for Acura Team Penske, with a lap time of 1:47.076.^[20]

Friday afternoon's 65-minute qualifying session was divided into three groups.^[13] All three categories had 15-minute individual sessions, and regulations stipulated teams to nominate a single driver to qualify their cars. The competitors' fastest lap times determined the starting order with the grid arranged to put the Prototype and GTLM cars ahead of all GTD entries.^[22]

The first was for cars in GTD class. Daniel Serra qualified on pole for the class driving the #51 car for Spirit of Race, beating Christopher Mies in the #29 Montaplast by Land-Motorsport car by over five tenths of a second.^[23]

The second session of qualifying was for cars in the GTLM class. Connor De Phillippi qualified on pole driving the #25 car for BMW Team RLL, beating James Calado in the #62 Risi Competizione car by less than one tenth of a second.^[24]

The final session of qualifying was for the P class. Tristan Vautier qualified on pole driving the #90 car for Spirit of Daytona Racing, besting Olivier Pla in the #2 Tequila Patrón ESM entry.^[25]

Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by ‡.

Pos.	Class	No.	Team	Driver	Time	Gap	Grid
1	P	90	Spirit of Daytona Racing	Tristan Vautier	1:47.432	_	1‡
2	P	2	Tequila Patrón ESM	Olivier Pla	1:47.592	+0.160	2
3	P	7	Acura Team Penske	Ricky Taylor	1:47.773	+0.341	3
4	P	22	Tequila Patrón ESM	Pipo Derani	1:47.834	+0.402	4
5	P	31	Whelen Engineering Racing	Felipe Nasr	1:47.853	+0.421	5
6	P	6	Acura Team Penske	Juan Pablo Montoya	1:48.177	+0.745	6
7	P	77	Mazda Team Joest	René Rast	1:48.192	+0.760	151
8	P	5	Mustang Sampling Racing	Filipe Albuquerque	1:48.256	+0.824	7
9	P	55	Mazda Team Joest	Jonathan Bomarito	1:48.279	+0.847	162
10	P	10	Wayne Taylor Racing	Renger van der Zande	1:48.370	+0.938	8
11	P	99	JDC-Miller MotorSports	Stephen Simpson	1:48.742	+1.310	9
12	P	38	Performance Tech Motorsports	Patricio O'Ward	1:49.068	+1.636	10
13	P	54	CORE Autosport	Colin Braun	1:49.158	+1.726	11
14	P	85	JDC-Miller MotorSports	Simon Trummer	1:49.329	+1.897	12
15	P	52	AFS/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports	Sebastián Saavedra	1:49.423	+1.991	13
16	P	32	United Autosports	Paul di Resta	1:49.488	+2.056	143
17	GTLM	25	BMW Team RLL	Connor De Phillippi	1:55.839	+8.407	17‡
18	GTLM	62	Risi Competizione	James Calado	1:55.897	+8.465	18
19	GTLM	24	BMW Team RLL	Jesse Krohn	1:55.985	+8.553	19
20	GTLM	67	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Richard Westbrook	1:56.098	+8.666	20
21	GTLM	66	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Joey Hand	1:56.191	+8.759	21
22	GTLM	912	Porsche GT Team	Laurens Vanthoor	1:56.251	+8.819	22
23	GTLM	3	Corvette Racing	Antonio García	1:56.588	+9.156	23
24	GTLM	911	Porsche GT Team	Nick Tandy	1:56.626	+9.194	24
25	GTLM	4	Corvette Racing	Tommy Milner	1:56.900	+9.468	25
26	GTD	51	Spirit of Race	Daniel Serra	1:58.710	+11.278	26‡
27	GTD	29	Montaplast by Land-Motorsport	Christopher Mies	1:59.229	+11.797	27
28	GTD	15	3GT Racing	Jack Hawksworth	1:59.251	+11.819	28
29	GTD	14	3GT Racing	Dominik Baumann	1:59.476	+12.044	29
30	GTD	48	Paul Miller Racing	Madison Snow	1:59.489	+12.057	30
31	GTD	63	Scuderia Corsa	Gunnar Jeannette	1:59.609	+12.177	31
32	GTD	75	SunEnergy1 Racing	Thomas Jäger	1:59.952	+12.520	32
33	GTD	69	HART	Tom Dyer	2:00.069	+12.637	33
34	GTD	64	Scuderia Corsa	Frankie Montecalvo	2:00.080	+12.648	34
35	GTD	86	Michael Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian	Katherine Legge	2:00.198	+12.766	35
36	GTD	58	Wright Motorsports	Christina Nielsen	2:00.378	+12.946	36
37	GTD	36	CJ Wilson Racing	Marc Miller	2:00.686	+13.254	37
38	GTD	71	P1 Motorsports	Kenton Koch	2:00.717	+13.285	38
39	GTD	33	Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsport	Ben Keating	2:00.743	+13.311	39
40	GTD	44	Magnus Racing	John Potter	2:02.151	+14.719	40
41	GTD	96	Turner Motorsport	Dillon Machavern	2:03.227	+15.795	41
42	GTD	73	Park Place Motorsports	Tim Pappas	2:04.650	+17.218	42
43	GTD	93	Michael Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian	did not participate			434
Sources:[26][27]

• ¹ The No. 77 Mazda Team Joest entry was moved to the back of the P field after failing post qualifying technical inspection.^[28][29]
• ² The No. 55 Mazda Team Joest entry was moved to the back of the P field failing post qualifying technical inspection.^[30][29]
• ³ The No. 32 United Autosports entry initially qualified sixteenth for the P class. However, the team changed engines after qualifying. By IMSA rules, the entry was moved to the rear of the P field on the starting grid.^[31]
• ⁴ The No. 93 Michael Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian entry was moved to the back of the GTD field for starting the race with a different driver than who qualified.

At the start of the race at turn 1, Vautier and Pla had a collision that led to Pla needing to pit during the next lap of the race. In addition to this, both Milner and Serra both got tire punctures and also needed to pit. Around twenty minutes into the race, Saavedra spun around the final corner and was hit by Montecalvo who was flipped over following a hit to the tirewall.^[32] Just before the four hour mark, an awning blew onto the track bringing out the yellow flag. Almost immediately after the caution ended however, Brundle spun during the final turn.^[33]

At the beginning of the afternoon, a Lexus hit a wall which caused debris to spread onto the track. This led to a caution period which caused Derani to lose his seventeen second lead. Just after the restart, an Acura retired due to an oil pressure problem. Towards the six hour mark, Fittipaldi and Nasr were involved in a collision that sprung from Nasr diving towards Fittipaldi. The collision led to Fittipaldi being spun around but rejoining the track shortly after.^[34] Around the halfway mark, Vautier was given a drive through penalty after hitting Montoya which led to his retirement. Later, there was another collision between van der Zande and Curran which lead to tire debris being torn off and causing another yellow flag. Before the end of the afternoon, Barbosa and French had a collision that led to the two falling multiple laps behind the leader.^[35]

At the beginning of the afternoon, Bruni hit a curb which led to his diffuser landing on the track. This brought out another yellow flag however after the flag the Porsche managed to maintain third place.^[36] Just before the end of the race, while in second, Pigot had attempted to drive between Vautier and the wall which led to him hitting debris and lose multiple places. The Mazda of Tincknell also would not engage it's clutch for a full two minutes which led to it losing a full lap to the leader. At the end of the race, the number 22 Nissan took first in the prototype class, the number 911 Porsche took first in the GTLM class, and number 48 Lamborghini took first in the GTD class.^[37]