Jani Drafted into Porsche Lineup for 12H Sebring

Photo: Porsche

Former FIA World Endurance champion Neel Jani has been drafted into Porsche GT Team’s lineup for this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season-ending Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Jani will join Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR-19 as a third driver, with the No. 911 entry set to run with Bamber, Nick Tandy and Fred Makowiecki.

Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell — the German manufacturer’s previously planned third drivers — have been committed to the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup season finale at Paul Ricard, which is also taking place this weekend in what will be a three-way clash that includes the FIA World Endurance Championship as well.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have our regular third drivers for this year’s 12-hour race because of overlapping dates with other series on the same race weekend,” explained Porsche’s head of IMSA operations Steffen Hollwarth.

“However, with Neel Jani, an extremely experienced driver joins the team.

“We aim to go for broke one last time with him and the entire squad. Unfortunately, we’re out contention for the IMSA title, but we are eager to clinch the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup.”

It will mark Jani’s first GT race after previously being part of Porsche’s now-defunct LMP1 program.

“I’ve done several days of testing in the Porsche 911 RSR, but it’ll still be diving in the deep end,” he said.

“I’ve never contested a GT race before. I’ll have a lot to learn in a very short time at the Sebring weekend.

“Most notably, from the perspective of a GT driver, I’m not familiar with driving in traffic. Still, I know the track well, I’ve driven prototypes there multiple times and I climbed the podium in 2013.

“Four years later, I scored pole position in an LMP2 car – beating all DPi vehicles.

“I’m looking forward to this big challenge and I’d like to help my teammates, Earl and Laurens, as much as possible to finish as far up the GTLM field as possible.”

Both CORE autosport-run Porsches, taking part in its final GTLM race, will run in a “special” livery that will be unveiled on Tuesday.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John