Sebring Friday Notebook

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

***Pipo Derani claimed his second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole and third at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as the Action Express Racing Cadillac driver seeks his fifth overall win in the Florida endurance classic.

***For the second consecutive race and the second year in a row at Sebring International Raceway, Cadillac swept the front row, with Sebastien Bourdais qualifying the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing entry in second.

***Derani said the disruptive qualifying session, which saw only a final four-minute green flag run due to an accident by the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet, was not representative of what the field could have achieved. The Brazilian driver reckoned the pole time could have dipped into the mid-1:47s if everyone was given a proper run. Derani aborted his second flying lap due to traffic.

***He said: “It’s never the nicest way to get a pole to know, for everybody, for the grid, that no one was able to achieve the full potential of their cars. But nevertheless it’s still the same for everyone. You still have to put a lap in and make sure that you make no mistakes in such a pressured situation.”

***All of Ricky Taylor’s lap times in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 were disallowed in the session after it was found that the team worked on the car during the red flag. Only tire changes are permitted per GTP qualifying rules. Taylor’s 1:38.038 would have put him on pole.

***Taylor told Sportscar365: “When we pitted we wanted to go to a new set [of tires] first of all, thinking there would maybe be a little bit of time left. Then the idea to bump the pressures because it was going to be such a short run. Had we changed the pressures on the other side of the wall vs. on the car we would have been OK. It was just a slight mixup.”

***Derani revealed they also changed tires during the red flag, while the majority of GTP teams elected to scrub in tires in the opening moments of the qualifying, owing to the fact that there will be no warmup session prior to tomorrow’s race.

***The No. 40 WTRAndretti Acura, which qualified third in the hands of Louis Deletraz, missed Thursday’s night practice due to an engine change.

***Jaminet told Sportscar365 that the car took a “big hit” although it appeared to only be bodywork damage sustained to the No. 6 Porsche. “The car is not too badly damaged,” he said. “Porsche and Multimatic built quite a strong car so luckily also looking at the impact, it could have been much worse on those on car side.”

***Jack Hawksworth recorded a new GTD Pro qualifying lap record aboard the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 on Friday. The British driver’s effort of 1:58.714 improved upon the previous best time, which was a 1:59.315 set by Antonio Garcia last year.

***Hawksworth credited Michelin’s newly introduced Pilot Sport Pro GT H1 as a key factor for the lap time gain. “I like the fact that we’ve got a new tire this year,” he said. “It’s mixed things up a bit and it just kind of keeps engineers and everybody in the team on their toes because it’s a lot to kind of delve into.”

***IMSA and Michelin’s reduced tire allocations resulted in both Paul Miller Racing and the two Ford Multimatic Motorsports GTD Pro entries skipping an entire practice session on Thursday. GTD Pro and GTD teams are limited to 15 sets for the entire event, while GTP teams have 11 sets designated for qualifying and the race, with LMP2 having 12 sets designated for the race.

***PJ Hyett secured his second pole position behind the wheel of an Oreca 07 Gibson after previously leading qualifying for the Asian Le Mans Series’ 4 Hours of Dubai last month. “There is something about that P2 car that I do enjoy,” Hyett said. “I like the extra aero. I like how physical it is. I like going fast as hell around the corners, all of these things that that P2 kind of lends itself to. It’s not that I disliked driving the GTD car last year. It’s just I think the P2 car and I get along very nicely together.”

***IMSA President John Doonan indicated there won’t be adjustments to Friday’s announced class makeup in the 2025 WeatherTech Championship schedule “unless something dramatically changes.” IMSA has elected to retain the same class structure for each race in 2025 as is being run this year, which includes the omission of the GTD Pro category at Long Beach and no GTP cars at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

***Doonan said the opening of 2025 entries will be in the “same rough timeline” in August, which will give teams some five additional months to finalize its programs compared to last year’s compressed timeline from when the 2024 calendar was released.

***He also pointed out that the early schedule announcement will allow tracks to promote next year’s event at this year’s race, a first for many venues.

***Schedules for the IMSA-sanctioned single-make series from Lamborghini, Porsche, Ford, Mazda and Ferrari are still to be released, while Doonan indicated that the 2025 VP Racing SportsCar Challenge calendar will be issued “as soon as we possibly can.”

***While yet to confirm an extension with NBC Sports as its television partner, Doonan said they remain in discussion with the network for what’s aimed to be a “solid and long-term” new deal. The current agreement runs through the end of this year.

***Doonan told Sportscar365: “We are talking to our partners at NBC and hope to have some more information to share on that relatively soon. It’s all going to be about stability and making sure everyone understands the platform that’s available for them for a long time to come.”

***Sportscar365 understands that IMSA has held further exchanges with GTD Pro/GTD manufacturers since reverting to last year’s Balance of Performance process, with a technical working group meeting having been organized on Tuesday to outline the sanctioning body’s expected performance window for the platform.

***Documents related to BoP requirements are understood to have also been circulated to OEMs.

***Mobil 1 will mark its 50th anniversary with more celebratory race liveries throughout the year, including on Penske’s factory Porsche 963s in both the WeatherTech Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship. Both Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R and No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 are all running special gold-themed designs this weekend.

Davey Euwema & Jonathan Grace contributed to this report

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