The sun is beginning to set on the 2025 12 Hours of Sebring with three hours to go, and the cars under safety car primed for a restart.
From Brendon Hartley’s off in the fifth hour, the race has been entirely green all the way to the closing stages of the ninth hour. There were a handful of spins and offs, but until Casper Stevenson in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin looped around at Turn 17 and was stranded at the apex with 3h17m remaining, it was green, green, green.
Stephenson’s spin prompted a safety car, though, which reset the field, wiped all the gaps and caused a flurry of pit activity as the 10th hour began.
The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac took the lead at the stops under safety car from the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, which has dropped to second. The No. 6 Porsche sits third, with the No. 93 Acura fourth and the No. 25 BMW up to fifth, having pitted just before the caution.
High drama occurred for two GTP runners in the pit lane during the yellow. Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Acura MSR ARX-06 and Philipp Eng in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL collided while exiting the pit lane. Blomqvist pulled out and tagged the right rear of the M Hybrid V8, damaging the front-left corner of his ARX-06 and its steering, prompting him to stop at the exit.
The No. 24 didn’t get away unscathed either, requiring a second stop under caution for a rear clip change, tire change and further inspection as a result of the impact. Both cars are tumbling down the order and out of contention as a result.
Elsewhere in the class, there was drama for Lamborghini’s SC63 — retired with suspected floor damage after 256 laps, marking a tough end to a tough week for the Riley-run prototype and a second DNF in two races to start the season.
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In LMP2 the No. 04 Crowdstrike by APR ORECA is out front, though the team will be frustrated after losing a big lead. Malthe Jakobsen stretched the team’s advantage to 1m11s during his most recent stint, before the team was handed a drive-through for failing to adhere to tire operational requirements which reduced the gap to 50s. That advantage has now been totally wiped out.
The No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA is second with the No. 11 TDS Racing entry third. The top seven in the class are on the lead lap.
Meanwhile, Pratt Miller Motorsports’ ORECA became the fourth retirement early in hour seven. The car, which suffered an oil leak earlier in the race, was withdrawn due to a “technical issue” after 144 laps.
GTD Pro feels like anyone’s game now, with four brands in the top four. The No. 65 Ford Mustang holds the top spot, with the No. 4 Corvette second, the No. 48 Paul Miller BMW third and the No. 77 AO Porsche fourth.
GTD was drama-heavy, with multiple retirements and leaders since the halfway mark. The No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari leads out of nowhere, ahead of the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus and the No. 57 Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Winward’s car has run like clockwork, the only setback a drive-through for a pit stop infringement (a mechanic working on the car from over the wall) while it was running fourth in the eighth hour.
Wright Motorsports’ Porsche lost track position to a recent infraction too. It fell foul of leaving pit lane with equipment attached and needed to serve a drive through which would drop the No. 120 911 to fourth.
There was a rotten stroke of bad luck for the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the seventh hour. Kenton Koch, from the lead, peeled off the circuit in the run to the Turn 7 hairpin with a loss of power that would prove terminal. A huge letdown after such a superb run through the first half of the race for the Ohio-based team.
It left the door open for a new leader. The pole-sitting No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari found itself at the head of the field, but it too would hit trouble after Alessandro Pier Guidi had an off at the end of the eighth hour at Turn 1.
The Italian kept the car out of the wall after running wide and hopping over the grass, briefly losing the lead to the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Zach Robichon aboard the Vantage fell back to second shortly after when Pier Guidi fought back, but with 3h44m left on the clock the Ferrari would slow to a stop at Turn 6. It was an on-the-spot retirement.
The No. 32 and No. 21 were not the only GTD cars to retire in this phase of the race. The No. 19 VDSR Aston Martin is also no longer taking part after a lengthy trip behind the wall.
