World Of SimRacing Team, a mainstay in the VSCA SportsCar Championship since its inception more than two years ago, finally broke through for its maiden top-category victory by winning the third annual 12 Hours of Sebring.
Saturday’s endurance classic in Florida saw the Spanish team lead an impressive 67 laps en route to climbing to the top step on the podium, but even though the #51 Cadillac V-Series.R GTP held a solid lead entering the closing stages of the race, busy multi-class traffic in the final lap set up an exciting photo finish.
At the line, Álvaro Martinez edged Composite Performance’s Nicholas Johnston by a mere 0.292 seconds - making it the fourth-closest finish in VSCA SportsCar Championship history.
World Of SimRacing Team was of course also involved in the series’ second-closest finish ever in 2022, taking second place in a LMP2 photo finish at Canadian Motorsport Park.
But this time, the team out of Blimea, Spain together with Martinez’ team-mates Dani Fonte and Iker Estefania, was able to close the deal and keep the upper hand to win one of the marquee events in all of VSCA.
Visibly disappointed coming so close to victory, Nicholas Johnston and Composite Performance team-mates Patrick Fogel and Andrew Parker still had plenty of reason to hold their heads high. By way of their second-place finish the #15 Cadillac also gained four spots in the championship and sits now in third, only 69 points out of the lead with 7 more championship rounds to go.
Completing the podium, but a distant five laps down, the #3 Porsche 963 GTP of Mayer Simspeed Performance with Niclas Pedersen and Jason Birnie took third place, showing that the GTP class came down to a battle of attrition in this event.
An additional lap further down, the #19 Trading Paints Racing Porsche of Jordan Erickson and Selena Ward took fourth place. After leading a promising 62 laps throughout the event and while holding third position, Erickson lost control at ‘Sunset’ during wet track conditions. In the incident just after the ten-hour mark, the Charlotte, North Carolina native crashed hard into the tire barriers, which led to nearly 16 minutes of repairs on pit lane, taking last year’s LMP2 class champions out of contention for the overall win.
Taking home fifth place when the checkered flag waved, the #88 Cadillac of DS Racing Esports Team earned their second straight top-five result of the season with Pedro Espadinha and Rui Sousa behind the wheel. However, the team saw its chances for a better result slip away after an incident with eventual race winners #51 World Of SimRacing Team in the sixth hour of the event.
Following the incident, when Sousa tried to rejoin the track, his machine backed into the tire barrier, losing the rear end of the car in the process.
The second entry of DS Racing Esports Team, the #42 Cadillac with Pedro Vargas, Francisco Pereira and Tomas Mora finished in P6, a total of eleven laps down, just ahead of Team Heartcore and their #830 Cadillac with Jakob Lehmann, Christoph Könneker and Robert Kunkis.
Kunkis, who made his first-ever VSCA SportsCar Championship start at Sebring, was involved in a scary incident with the #21 Audi of GSE Racing eSports just after a restart near the six-hour mark when the two cars collided heading through turn eight.
Both cars received severe damage in the incident and in the end the team out of Hamburg, Germany ended up P7.
A promising performance in qualifying, when they took outside pole position, turned bleak for the #4 Porsche of Fischer Motorsport and Thomas Martin, Neill Forbes and Patrick Rall after a series of incidents during the 12-hour event. The team wound up eighth, 13 laps down after leading 40 laps.
Last year’s series champions #1 Grizzly Motorsports Porsche finished P9, also experiencing troubles in the race and finishing 14 laps down.
Pole sitters #111 HAC Racing and their Cadillac were the last GTP class entry scoring championship points in tenth, finishing 38 laps down with Christophe Demay, Daniel Kean and Matthew Routon behind the wheel.
HAC Racing’s championship lead shrinking
Despite finishing only in tenth place - their worst finish since The Roar Before The 24 in January - the #111 HAC Racing Cadillac continues to lead the GTP series championship, albeit by a shrunk margin of only 21 points over Daytona winners #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance.
The #15 Composite Performance Cadillac may have come up short in their quest to win the 12 Hours of Sebring, but the team’s consistency shows to pay off as they now climb to third in the point standings, only 69 points away from taking the lead.
Extremely tight points battle in Endurance Cup
Sebring, being the second Endurance Cup race of the season, provided another significant update in the quest to determine this year’s VSCA Endurance Cup champion.
After winning Daytona but struggling at Sebring, the #3 Mayer Simspeed Performance Porsche has lost five spots and the #111 HAC Racing Cadillac is the new points leader with three more endurance races remaining on the schedule.
The #51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac sits pretty comfortably in second, only one point back. Equal on points but falling short by the tie breaker race wins, the #15 Composite Performance Cadillac is third.
Laguna Seca up next - a true wild card on the schedule
WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca is up next for the series on April 13th. The track located near Monterey, California proved to be a true wildcard of a race in the past two seasons. In 2022 the race was marred by a record-setting five (!) full-course yellows. In last year’s edition, the track went the other extreme and having only one early caution led to many teams scrambling on strategy calls and creating another unpredictable finish.
Competitors and fans alike are now looking to see what Laguna Seca has in store this time around. GreenFlag TV will broadcast the event once again, live, flag to flag on its own and the VSCA YouTube channel.
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