DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — One of many callers on an IMSA-hosted media Zoom with drivers to preview the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring noticed that the six weeks for the reason that Rolex 24 At Daytona staged Jan. 24-25 in some way felt longer than the 15-week offseason main into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s conventional season opener.
“Yeah, it’s true, it looks like lots of downtime,” responded Felipe Nasr, who’s coming off his third consecutive general and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class victory in Daytona’s 24-hour traditional within the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, this yr in partnership with co-drivers Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich.
“I want there was a race in February,” he mused. “On the identical time, it feels prefer it went simply too fast from December to offseason to Daytona, so it’s good to even have a while after Daytona, simply to take pleasure in what simply occurred and collect the group and meet up with all people and put together for Sebring once more.”
However Nasr, a three-time champion within the WeatherTech Championship’s prime prototype class, and Porsche Penske Motorsport have been something however inactive. For one factor, they just lately examined at Sebring Worldwide Raceway in preparation for the 74th operating of the 12-hour endurance traditional, the second of 5 rounds within the 2026 IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup for races six hours and longer.
Nasr and the No. 7 Porsche adopted up their 2025 Rolex 24 win with victories at Sebring and on the streets of Lengthy Seaside, however outcomes light within the second half of the season and PPM’s No. 6 entry rallied to win the GTP class championship. No stone is being left unturned as Nasr – a 15-time winner in 71 IMSA begins – seems so as to add one other championship to those he achieved in 2018, 2021 and 2024. Significantly after a fourth one obtained away in 2025.
“We’ve been talking and assembly up with the group – ‘catch-ups’ about what we realized from Daytona and what we realized from the Sebring take a look at, whether or not it’s tires, aero, or every little thing that we undergo on the previous races,” Nasr stated. “This retains us within the loop and what we count on at Sebring. We’ve obtained to enhance. On the identical time, I’m all the time protecting myself sharp and getting ready for Sebring, which is fairly bodily for us drivers.
“I assumed the automotive was fairly good at our take a look at at Sebring a pair weeks in the past,” he added. “I really feel prefer it’s all in a great window and we realized rather a lot in that take a look at. I really feel like we’re in a great baseline to start out and take it from there on the race weekend.”
Sebring is famend for its bumpy floor, so maybe it’s applicable that Cadillac – a marque which has for many years been related to a easy trip in its road vehicles – has compiled a powerful report on the Florida airfield circuit.
The 2024 Sebring profitable trio of Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz, and Colton Herta has been reunited for IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup races this yr within the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Sequence.R, and Deletraz is raring to recapture their victorious chemistry.
“We had nice success in 2024, and I believe that was among the finest races in my profession up to now,” stated the 28-year-old Swiss driver, recalling one in every of his three IMSA race wins. “Hopefully we are able to try this once more, and being again with Jordan and Colton is nice. The Cadillac is basically robust in Sebring – we had been testing for 2 days. I believe we had a while to prep properly and I’m actually excited as a result of I believe we’ve obtained a great shot at it. We’ll give it a great go, and I’m actually trying ahead to it.”
Tom Dillmann shared IMSA’s Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class championship in 2024 and claimed his second profession race win on the 2025 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with co-drivers Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke. That trio is reunited in 2026 within the No. 43 Inter Europol Competitors ORECA LMP2 07. They’re coming off a second-place class end within the Rolex 24, the place they had been joined by Antonio Felix da Costa.
Dillmann cites the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as one in every of his favourite occasions, and he’s desperate to defend his class win within the quest for a second IMSA LMP2 championship.
“As somebody with a ardour for motorsport, Sebring is a kind of occasions that issues a lot,” he stated. “Profitable final yr actually mattered to me – I used to be actually blissful to win that traditional race. We’ve the identical lineup this yr, the identical group, and the automotive is robust there. There’s no motive for us to not be in place to repeat the win of final yr.
“We began the championship fairly properly, and the objective is once more to win the championship,” Dillmann added. “We have to maximize each race and make no errors – and we all know do it.”
The No. 43 Inter Europol group is one in every of a number of heavy hitters within the combine vying for LMP2 honors at Sebring and within the general championship. They embody the No. 99 ORECA from defending class champion AO Racing, the two-car entry from United Autosports USA, and the No. 04 fielded by CrowdStrike Racing by APR, amongst others.
Toby Sowery was a part of the profitable No. 04 lineup at this yr’s Rolex 24, together with George Kurtz, Alex Quinn, and Malthe Jakobsen. The victory at Daytona was the primary within the WeatherTech Championship for 29-year-old Englishman Sowery and he’s fired up in regards to the competitors in LMP2 – one in every of IMSA’s hidden gems.
“LMP2 is form of neglected as a result of there’s not producers concerned and the vehicles aren’t model new, so everybody has form of actually upped their degree,” he remarked. “The vehicles and the drivers are all so shut – we’re actually on the prime finish of the ceiling of what we are able to do with the automotive and drivers. The racing is all the time spectacular and the vehicles are actually dependable as properly. To extract every little thing and win a race isn’t any small activity, and I believe it positively does get neglected slightly bit.”
