TUSC Sebring Winter Test Wraps Up
The two-Day Tudor United SportsCar Championship Sebring Winter test concluded Friday evening with the #42 Oak Racing Morgan Nissan P2 back at the top of the timesheets, followed by a pair of Daytona Prototypes and a pair of P2s.
Neither of the Test’s top two prototypes, the Oak or the Action Express, ran as quickly in the final session as they had in the first three, leading to suspicions that those teams might have been testing heavier fuel loads or different fuel mappings. The Oak ran almost as quickly, but the #5 Action Express Coyote-Corvette, which led two sessions, ran eighth Friday afternoon.
The rest of the field went searching for greater speed, and many of them found it.
The #90 Spirit of Daytona Coyote-Corvette ran second in the Friday afternoon session, followed by the #01 Ganassi Racing Riley-Ford. Both these cars turned their fastest laps in the final session. The SDR lapped at 1:53.399 versus a 1:53.605 previous best. IndyCar champ Scott Dixon showed up late Friday for a few quick laps in the #01 Ganassi machine and pushed it to 1:53.452; that car’s previous best had been 1:54.653.
The two Extreme Speed Motorsports HPDs finished fourth and fifth, both breaking into the 1:53’s for the first time in the Test.
Four P2s and five DPs finished in the top nine, and all nine were within nine-tenths of a second of the lead Oak Morgan-Nissan.
Porsche Tops the Test
Porsche North America swept the GTLM class in both Friday sessions and finished first and third in Thursday’s sessions, announcing itself as a major player in GTLM. Porsche’s all-new 2014 991 RSR has completely erased the memories of the less-than-stellar introduction of its 2012 997 RSR—the new car won its class at Daytona and beat the competition at the Sebring Test.
The Porsche North America cars both broke two minutes in the final session, the only GTLM cars to do so in throughout the test. The #911 lapped Sebring in 1:59.395, the #912 0.472 slower at 1:59.867.
The Krohn Racing Ferrari 458 Italia was a surprising third in class with a lap of 2:00.731, its best time of the Test.
