Sebring Wednesday Notebook

Photo: John Dagys

***The entry list has been reduced to 63 cars, following the withdrawal of the No. 7 Starworks Motorsport Oreca FLM09. The team’s all-white No. 8 PC car, meanwhile, will be driven by Renger van der Zande, Sam Bird, Martin Fuentes and David Cheng.

***Kyle Marcelli, who drove for Starworks at Daytona, has landed a last-minute ride at Scuderia Corsa, replacing Stefan Johansson in the No. 63 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3. Johansson, the team’s sporting director, was initially intended to serve as one of the two mandated Silver-rated drivers but co-driver Lorenzo Case was downgraded from Gold to Silver status late last week.

***Starworks team owner Peter Baron confirmed that Scott Mayer and Pierre Kaffer will drive the team’s new Honda-powered Riley DP, with Alex Popow and Sebastian Saavedra also listed on the entry list, but not yet confirmed as of Wednesday afternoon.

***Baron said they plan to return to a two-car PC effort for the next round, with Fuentes in the No. 7 and Mirco Schultis returning to his No. 8 car with van der Zande. The German driver is missing this weekend due to family matters.

***The late ride for Cheng means that all three of last year’s PC class-winning drivers have found themselves at different teams in the spec prototype class this year. David Ostella will drive the No. 38 Performance Tech entry, while 2013 ALMS champ Mike Guasch looks for three PC class victories in a row, and second consecutive, in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports car.

***It’s understood that AIM Autosport has inherited the team points of the Rolex 24 class-winning No. 555 Level 5 Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, following the transfer of entry completed by IMSA late last week. As a result, the Canadian squad is also atop the championship standings of the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup heading into the second round of the season.

***NASCAR’s Rick Hendrick and Ray Evernham spent the day at Sebring on Tuesday, filming an episode of Evernham’s Velocity TV show “AmeriCarna” with Corvette Racing and its new Corvette C7.R. Hendrick’s 1968 Corvette Owens/Corning Corvette L88, recently purchased at Barrett Jackson, was also on hand for the shoot and turned laps.

***A handful of Porsche GTD teams have been faced with a late delivery of new components to their 911 GT Americas, which were approved in a competition bulletin issued to teams just a few days ago. It includes a new splitter, nose and Crawford DP-spec single element rear wing.

***With Level 5 Motorsports having pulled out of the series, the team’s longtime engineer/strategist Jeff Braun is giving CORE autosport a helping hand, on an off weekend from his Level 5 duties, supporting his son Colin as he and co-drivers Jon Bennett and James Gue seek back-to-back TUDOR Championship PC class wins.

***Greg Creamer will be one of the busiest people in the paddock this weekend, as the veteran broadcaster is set to anchor MRN Radio’s coverage of the race, while also serving as a pit lane reporter for FOX Sports for three two-hour stints. He’ll also handle pre and post-race PA duties on Saturday while calling the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, Prototype Lites and Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge races.

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