The final practice session and qualifying for tomorrow’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring saw several crashed cars, but indications are that most of the damage was not severe in all three cases, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, the cars will be on the grid tomorrow.
The Porsche Penske Motorsports crew has stripped the No. 7 963 that Matt Campbell crashed in Turn 1 during qualifying, and was preparing to replace the gearbox and rear suspension assembly with a new one, at a relaxed pace. That procedure may have happened anyway to prepare for the Twelve Hours. Otherwise Porsche reports the damage was limited to bodywork, and the car will be ready to go for tomorrow’s race.
The No. 9 GTD PRO Pfaff Motorsports 911 GT3 R sustained a little more damage in Klaus Bachler’s qualifying crash in Turn 1, the team having to replace two corners and a steering rack, plus some bodywork, but team manager Steve Bortolotti reports that there shouldn’t be any problem getting the car ready, and it shouldn’t even be a late night for the crew.
“We don’t believe we’ll have any issue being on the grid for tomorrow’s race,” he said. “Luckily Klaus is OK — it was quite the hit. But the car took it amazingly well, so that was very encouraging. And the team had all the spares ready, built up already. I’m very proud of how prepared they were to put the car back together in a very quick amount of time. We’ve just got to repair some carbon and get get some things situated better. But we should have no reason why we shouldn’t be on the grid tomorrow. It’s not the way you want to qualify but we won in 2021 from last on the grid, so hopefully we can repeat this here.”
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Bortolotti says the biggest hurdle may be securing a new firebottle, the fire system having been set off at some point in the crash and recovery. However, the team believes they’ve located one reasonably close by.
The No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R that Kay van Berlo spun into the tires at Turn 17 last night was quickly repaired by the crew and made it out for the warmup and qualifying this morning. Alan Metni qualified the car 15th in GTD.