Whenever the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship moves from Daytona to Sebring, the winners of the Rolex 24 At Daytona are always highlighted. They’ve won the biggest race of the season and, almost always as a consequence, head into Sebring as the championship leaders.
For that reason alone there would be a heightened expectation on Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor to perform well at Sebring after winning Daytona. But Tandy’s role is in an even brighter spotlight this week because of the milestone he accomplished at Daytona. With overall victories at the Rolex 24, Le Mans, Nürburgring and Spa 24-Hour races, he became the first driver to win all four 24-hour races to achieve what is now being called, the “Tandy Slam.”
And at Sebring, Tandy can now join a less exclusive — but no less prestigious — club of drivers that have won endurance racing’s traditional Triple Crown of Le Mans, Daytona and the Sebring 12 Hours.
Asked how he views this year’s chance to join that club, Tandy replied, “There’s high motivation, of course. But it’s no more than any other year. I’ve been lucky enough to win there three times in GT, so Sebring, it’s been a good event for me.”
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Tandy won the GTLM class for the factory Porsche team not once, not twice, but three times in a row from 2018 to 2020 in the Porsche 911 RSR.
“The last two years we came close both times, to being in a position to win at the end,” Tandy added, recalling 2023 — when he was in contention to win the 12 Hours before he was caught up in a three-car pile-up — and 2024, when Tandy’s No. 6 Porsche 963 blew a tire while leading and damaged the rear bodywork.
Had neither of those misfortunes happened, we’d already be talking about Tandy as the 13th driver to win the Triple Crown of endurance sports car racing and the first since Timo Bernhard joined the club in 2010, when he won Le Mans to follow his 2008 Daytona and 2005 Sebring victories. Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Hans Herrmann, Jackie Oliver, Jacky Ickx, Hurley Haywood, A.J. Foyt, Al Holbert, Andy Wallace, Mauro Baldi and Marco Werner are the other 11 members of the club.
But Tandy, being the fierce competitor he is — a man who’s driven everything from the fastest, most cutting-edge prototypes at Le Mans to Ford KAs at club-level endurance races at Brands Hatch, and succeeded at both and much more — is as motivated to win this race as he would be any other event, and that baseline is high.
“The big races are fantastic to win, but at the end of the day, they score the same points as any other race,” he mused. “And you always go into each event with maximum motivation.
“I think if I was racing in British GT and there was a 10-lap shootout for the win, there’d be the same motivation to try and beat everyone as there would be to win at Le Mans or Sebring. The motivation doesn’t change, it’s just what’s talked about afterwards.
“When records build, I guess then the individual races get talked about a little bit more — which is great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s something that I’ve been thinking about the last couple of years, trying to win overall, much like a lot of other drivers and teams.”
When considering the achievements as well as the close calls that Tandy and Porsche have had here at Sebring since the launch of the 963, it would be a sweet win for him, Nasr, Vanthoor, Penske and Porsche — who come into Sebring as the IMSA GTP championship leaders in their respective classes. If they were to win Sebring, Nasr would be just one Le Mans win away from his own Triple Crown while Vanthoor — who finally won Daytona this past January after a few painful near-misses of his own — would be a Le Mans win away from both the Triple Crown and the 24-hour Grand Slam.
“It would be great. Obviously, we’re leading the championship after the first round. You’ve got to think about the championship focus, as much as the single-event stuff, but it would be nice!” Tandy said.
“I’ve got the overall win at Petit (Le Mans), so that would kind of complete the ‘big six’ as well,” he adds, referring to perhaps the most incredible win of his career when, in monsoon-level conditions, his Porsche 911 RSR won overall at Road Atlanta in 2015 against all the prototypes.
Tandy won’t have the same conditions to contend with at Sebring, with warm weather expected throughout the week for what is regarded among many drivers and teams to be the toughest test in endurance racing. And what is for him, the last remaining individual prize for one of the greatest sports car drivers of all time to win.