Pipo Derani’s quest for a fifth Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring title is finished after a high-speed incident in Turn 10 that left the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac in the tire barrier and upside down.
Pipo Derani UPSIDE DOWN!
The race leader in the 12 Hours of Sebring got into the tire barrier and flipped. He walked away under his own power.
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While attempting to pass Miguel Molina in the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, Derani made contact with the Ferrari, sending him hard into the tires. Fortunately, the Brazilian escaped without injury.
Derani said he wasn’t sure what happened in the incident with the Ferrari.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said after being checked and cleared by the medical center. “I was 12 seconds ahead and everything was running smooth. We overtake thousands of thousands of cars through a race like this. It’s one of those moments. Maybe he didn’t see, let go a little bit and there I was. Maybe I was expecting him to just hold his line to the right, knowing that I was going to go on the left. It’s just one of those situations where it happens without you having any chance of thinking whether you should have done something different or not.”
After a lengthy yellow, Maxine Martin leads in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.