The first two hours of the 1000 Miglia di Sebring have gone to the archive and by the time lap 63/268 the protagonists of the FIA World Endurance Championship have already given several points for discussion.
In the Hypercar Class the Alpine held the first position very well at the start making the most of the Pole Position, but despite the excellent turns performed by Matthieu Vaxivière and Nicolas Lapierre, the A480 # 36 of Team Signatech has a problem.
Like last year, the smaller tank forces the car managed by the Signatech Team to stop much earlier than its category rivals, and so the desperate attempt to extend always risks fading.
The Toyota, after a difficult start, are lurking (taking into account the above). The GR010 Hybrid # 8 and # 7 had started in third and fourth place in the category, but at the first pit stop they did not change the tires and this allowed them to overtake the Glickenhaus 007 LMH # 708.
At the moment there is therefore the Alpine first, Buemi / Hartley second with the Toyota # 8 and Kobayashi / Lopez third with the # 7, while the Glickenhaus in Pla / Dumas is 4 “from the podium.
# 22 United Autosports Usa Oreca 07 – Gibson: Philip Hanson, Filipe Albuquerque, William Owen
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
In LMP2 Class it didn’t take long for United Autosports’ Oreca 07-Gibson to take command of operations, with # 22 in Albuquerque / Hanson leading operations ahead of # 23 in Di Resta / Pierson.
With the tank even smaller, these cars are now forced to stop after about 35 ‘of the race, which continually shuffles not only the positions, but also the strategies for the teams.
Third was Kubica / Colombo with the # 9 of Prema, which together with Collard / Nasr (# 5 Team Penske) passed the # 83 of AF Corse, which Nielsen / Perrodo are still holding in Top5 and first in Pro / Am.
Then we find Rui Andrade with the # 41 of the RealTeam by WRT, the # 1 of the Richard Mille Racing Team (Wadoux / Milesi) and the # 28 of the Jota (Ed Jones), while the ‘sister’ of the latter, the # 38, lost ground to Roberrto Gonzalez due to a collision that saw her unlucky protagonist with the # 35 of the Ultimate driven by Matthieu Lahaye.
Among other things, Lahaye also met later with Fabio Scherer’s # 34 (Inter Europol Competition); the Swiss had to slow down and return to the pits, replaced by Esteban Gutiérrez, who shortly afterwards had to stop several times for electronic resets.
Among the LMP2 Pro / Am the second place is in the Ultimate, while the third is in the # 45 of Algarve Pro Racing.
# 64 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner, Nick Tandy
Photo by: Paul Foster
In the LMGTE PRO class, the Corvette C8.R # 64 took the lead thanks to the excellent Nick Tandy, who tried to keep up with the two Porsches as much as possible. Both the # 92 of Estre / Christensen and the # 91 of Bruni / Lietz kept the top positions at the start, but a 15 “penalty to be served at the next pit stop for an infraction committed at the start will cause them to slip behind the Chevrolet.
The overtaking of the C8CR had already taken place in the first stop phase and Christensen pushed like hell to get Tandy back; now the two are divided by a few tenths, at very short irons when there are dubs to be made.
Unfortunately up to now the AF Corse Ferrari race has been a real disaster. The 488s obviously suffer from an unfavorable BoP, highlighted by the fact that James Calado is fourth with the # 51 with over 1’13 “from the top, while Antonio Fuoco with the # 52 is even more delayed behind him.
# 98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin Vantage AMR: Paul Dalla Lana, David Pittard, Nicki Thiim, Henrique Chaves
Photo by: Paul Foster
In the LMGTE AM class the duel for primacy is between the Aston Martins of NorthWest AMR (# 98 Dalla Lana / Pittard) and TF Sport (# 33 Keating / Latorre), followed by the Porsche # 77 of Dempsey Proton Racing within ten seconds. (Ried / Priaulx).
The Iron Dames Bovy / Gatting, on the other hand, climbed to fourth place with the Ferrari # 85 after passing the Porsche # 56 of Team Project 1 – which ran into a spin by Brendan Iribe – and the Aston Martin # 777 of the D’Station Racing (Fujii / Hoshino).
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