Albrecht Motorsports wrote a breakthrough chapter in VSCA GTP history on Saturday, winning the Monster Energy 12 Hours of Sebring with the No. 96 Cadillac V-Series.R GTP after one of the most chaotic and weather-shaped races the class has seen in recent memory. On a day that began under bright late-morning skies and ended with rain, repeated interruptions and bruised nerves up and down the pit lane, the German squad came from 10th on the grid to claim its first GTP victory.
A Landmark Race, and a Demanding One
Round 3 of the 2026 SportsCar Championship and Round 2 of the 2026 Endurance Cup already carried weight on paper, but Sebring added its usual rough-edged character to the story. The 3.70-mile, 17-turn circuit in Florida is never a place where a race simply unfolds in a straight line, and this year’s edition was shaped just as much by changing skies and caution periods as by outright pace.
There was also added spotlight around the event itself. Monster Energy’s title backing marked a landmark sponsorship moment for VSCA, the biggest race-title partner the series has had to date, and the GTP field delivered the sort of race that kept everyone guessing deep into the final phase.
Six full-course yellows and 3 hours and 42 minutes under caution repeatedly reset the order and made rhythm almost impossible to hold. The race never truly settled. It lurched, turned and twisted, and every GTP contender at some point seemed either in command or in trouble.
Pole Pace Did Not Become the Winning Formula
Thiago Mello put the No. 20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW M Hybrid V8 on pole with a 1:45.885, securing the second GTP pole of his career and the second for the team that celebrated its 15-year anniversary at Sebring and featured a special silver livery for the occasion. Early on, it looked like that pace might translate into control of the race as well. The No. 20 led the opening stint and ultimately topped the class for 90 laps, more than any other GTP entry.
But Sebring does not hand out trophies for writing the neatest opening chapter. As the race wore on, the weather changed, cautions multiplied and the GTP fight became a moving target. What had looked like a race Bravo Snow Schatten could dictate gradually slipped into a survival contest, and later penalties pushed the No. 20 down to fifth by the finish.
Lead Battle Turned Into a Revolving Door
The GTP lead changed hands 28 times, which tells its own story. This was not a race dominated by one car or one strategy. It was a long-distance arm wrestle between several contenders, with the No. 20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW, the No. 21 Delta Racing BMW, the No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW, the No. 32 Wastegate Racing Ferrari, the No. 12 Delta Racing BMW, the No. 554 RedLab Competizione Porsche and, eventually, the No. 96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac all taking turns at the front.
Tri-State Racing spent much of the day in the thick of it and led late, while Wastegate Racing remained a constant presence near the sharp end and Delta Racing had both of its BMWs involved in the fight at different stages. RedLab Competizione also rose into contention in the closing hours. It was the sort of lead battle where nobody could afford to blink for too long.
Then came the decisive late swing. The No. 96 Cadillac grabbed the lead for the final time with Phillip Blauth at the wheel and this time made it stick. After spending much of the race operating without huge fanfare, Albrecht Motorsports timed its move when it mattered most and did not let the door swing back open.
From Four Laps Down to Victory Lane
The win was not built on a flawless, lights-to-flag march. Quite the opposite. Albrecht Motorsports had to recover from adversity, and that recovery became the backbone of the race-winning story. Marc Scherschel admitted afterward that the No. 96 had been four laps down at one point after a crash, which made the final result all the more unlikely.
That recovery drive was the difference between being remembered as one more team caught in Sebring’s churn and becoming the headline act. Maik Steinicke, Marc Scherschel and Phillip Blauth kept the car in the fight, stayed close enough for the race to come back to them and then took full advantage when it did. The final winning margin over the No. 25 was 121.232 seconds, a number that looks comfortable on paper but does not reflect how much had to go right to reach that point.
The win also carried historical weight. Albrecht Motorsports had never won in GTP before. At Sebring, the No. 96 joined the recent list of class winners at the circuit and did so in style, gaining nine positions from its starting spot. In a category where the established names often set the pace, that kind of climb tends to turn heads.
Rain Changed the Terms of the Fight
If the cautions kept reshuffling the deck, the weather changed the value of every card in it. The race started in comparatively friendly conditions, but rain in the middle and later stages turned the GTP contest into a judgment call as much as a speed contest. Setup choices, tire calls and how much risk teams were willing to absorb all came into play.
Tri-State Racing felt that sharply. Seth Neufeld described the No. 25’s day as a rollercoaster, and that sounds just about right. The team climbed from ninth to third in the opening stint, fell two laps down at one stage, later led the race and then came home second. In a 12-hour race, that is the kind of emotional range that can feel like a whole season compressed into one afternoon.
Neufeld also pointed to one of the race’s key moments from Tri-State’s perspective: staying out on slick tires when the first rain arrived. That gamble did not pay off and cost the team a lap, a wound that lingered over the remainder of the race. Geordi Vermeulen put it in equally plain terms, saying the team did not quite have the setup or appetite to fully play the wet-weather risk game. Even so, second place was a major step forward after a rough start to the season.
Cautions, Controversy and Race Control Fallout
Sebring’s six full-course yellows were not only a sporting factor. The first caution became a flashpoint after Race Control acknowledged that some cars did not receive their lap back correctly during the wave-by procedure. After the race, the organizers admitted that both technical and human errors contributed to the problem during FCY1.
That admission matters because it did not happen in a vacuum. It was already the second time this season that Race Control issues had caused competitive consequences after problems at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January. In a multi-class endurance race, FCY management is the thread that keeps the whole fabric together. When that thread frays, the competitive picture can change in a hurry.
In a post-race statement, the organizers said they had reviewed the issues and concluded that the problems stemmed from the tools provided to Race Directors, along with the execution of the FCY itself. They took ownership of the failure, apologized to competitors and confirmed that changes would be made ahead of the next race at Laguna Seca. The statement also underlined that the current process has been too manual, a point that has now become impossible to ignore after two troubled events this season.
That backdrop does not erase what the winning team achieved, but it is part of the story of this GTP race. Sebring was shaped by pace, rain and strategy, but also by operational turbulence from the series side.
Penalties Left Their Mark
The post-race penalty sheet also had real weight in the GTP outcome. Several front-running or potentially front-running cars were caught up in incidents or procedural violations that changed the complexion of the final order. The No. 20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW received a 180-second post-race penalty for contact on Straight 2 after an attempted move through traffic went wrong, a major blow on a day when it had led the most laps.
The No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW was hit with a 60-second post-race penalty for contact with a lower-class car at Turn 17, while both Delta Racing BMWs were penalized multiple times over the course of the event. The No. 21 received post-race penalties for separate incidents on Straight 3 and at Turn 13, and the No. 12 was penalized for incidents at Turn 3 in addition to receiving a warning for pacing speed under caution.
Elsewhere in GTP, the No. 554 RedLab Competizione Porsche collected an early warning for a personal conduct violation and later a 60-second post-race penalty for contact in traffic, while the No. 7 VSR Competición Porsche was penalized twice and warned once in a race that never stopped asking difficult questions of the faster class as it worked through traffic in worsening conditions.
That matters in VSCA because results and points do not always march in lockstep. The winner is not automatically the biggest points scorer thanks to the clean racing bonus structure, which rewards the lowest incident total in the race. At Sebring, as throughout the season, staying out of trouble was worth almost as much as outright speed.
How the Top Ten Shook Out
Behind the winning No. 96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac, the No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW claimed second place, 121.232 seconds back, after one of the busiest and most resilient races of any GTP contender. The No. 32 Wastegate Racing Ferrari took third, one lap down, backing up its front-running presence with another strong points day.
Fourth went to the No. 554 RedLab Competizione Porsche, two laps behind, while the pole-winning No. 20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW had to settle for fifth at five laps down after leading the most laps but losing ground through penalties and race circumstances.
The No. 12 Delta Racing BMW finished sixth, also five laps down, with the No. 7 VSR Competición Porsche in seventh at six laps down. The No. 21 Delta Racing BMW came home eighth, 16 laps behind, just ahead of the No. 10 Vision 1 Motorsports Ferrari in ninth on the same lap count. Tenth place went to the No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac, 18 laps down, a sharp contrast to the team’s earlier Sebring success in 2024 and 2025.
That top ten tells its own tale. Some teams got there through steady execution, others through stubborn recovery, and a few arrived battered by what might have been. Sebring rarely lets everyone leave happy.
Post-Race Reactions
Marc Scherschel, No. 96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac:
“It’s very unexpected. We were four laps down at one point after a crash, and a lot of things were chaotic behind the scenes, so to be standing in victory lane after all that is incredible.”
“Everyone did a fantastic job. We believe this was only possible because each driver made very few mistakes, and Phillip did everything right in the end.”
“Things could not have gone much better for us. We will take it race by race and see what is possible. The most important thing is always to have fun, but we will keep training, keep trying to improve our qualifying pace, and maybe by the end of it we can really fight for this championship.”
Seth Neufeld, No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW:
“Throughout this race, everyone in the No. 25 garage went through a bit of a rollercoaster, which is not unusual in a race of this magnitude. We moved from ninth to third in the first stint, ended up two laps down at one point, then led the race and finally finished second. It was a journey, for sure, and overall we are very happy to be here and to call ourselves 12 Hours of Sebring podium finishers.”
“We definitely felt like we had some misfortune on our side, but there is no doubt we made some mistakes too. Staying out on slick tires in the first wave of rain was a poor judgment call on my end, and that probably cost us a lap that might have won us the race. But you cannot spend all day thinking about the what-ifs.”
“The goal is always podiums and wins, and that will never change. We are going to keep doing our very best to be fast through the rest of the season and keep bringing home big points. We absolutely believe we can be the best, and we are going to chase that in every race, no matter how hard it gets.”
Geordi Vermeulen, No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW:
“It feels amazing. A good result has been coming for a long time now. We had terrible luck at both Daytona and Long Beach, so it is great to finally show our true potential.”
“We are actually the only GTP team that has managed to lead a lap or more in every single VSCA race we have entered, and that is something I am extremely proud of. Today the weather just did not really play ball for us. We did not quite have the setup or the confidence to go all-in on the risk in the wet, and the 60-second post-race penalty did not help either. Still, we will take second place and a massive leap in the championship.”
“The goal now is to stay consistent and keep hauling in points. There is still a long way to go, and some of our strongest tracks are still ahead of us later in the season. You are going to see a lot more of BMW M Team TSR near the front.”
Championship Picture Tightens
Sebring reshuffled the GTP championship order in meaningful ways. Albrecht Motorsports leaves Florida leading the SportsCar Championship standings with 1370 points, moving into first place on the strength of its breakthrough win. Wastegate Racing now sits second, only 40 points behind, while World Of SimRacing Team drops to third and trails by 85.
In the Endurance Cup, the No. 12 Delta Racing BMW remains on top with 23 points, but the No. 32 Wastegate Racing Ferrari is now only one point back in second. The No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac falls to third, four points off the lead. That is the sort of margin that keeps every caution, every penalty and every clean lap under the microscope.
Looking Ahead to Laguna Seca
The next stop for the 2026 SportsCar Championship is the JRT Course De Monterey on March 21 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, scheduled to begin at 16:00 GMT. It will be Round 4 of 11 in the championship and comes with two very different storylines already attached.
One is competitive: Albrecht Motorsports arrives with momentum, Wastegate Racing is breathing down its neck, and several BMW entries have shown they have the pace to win if they can string the full day together. The other is procedural: after Daytona and now Sebring, Race Control and the organizers will head to California under pressure to prove that the promised FCY changes can restore confidence in a season that has already seen too many avoidable controversies.
For now, though, Sebring belongs to the No. 96. In a race full of caution periods, rain clouds, penalties and second chances, Albrecht Motorsports kept its footing when the ground would not stop moving.
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