Team Penske IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Race Report
Track: Sebring International Raceway
Race: 12 Hours of Sebring
Date: March 16, 2019
No. 6 Acura ARX-05 DPi – Dane Cameron/Juan Pablo Montoya/Simon Pagenaud
Start: 1st
Overall Finish: 9th
Class Finish: 9th
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 339/348
Recap:
- On Friday morning, Dane Cameron qualified the No. 6 ARX-05 DPi on the pole position for Saturday's 67th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring, his third career IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pole award and his first in the DPi class.
- Rain showers greeted the teams as they arrived at Sebring International Raceway, resulting in the first 40 minutes of the event being run under the yellow flag in an attempt to improve the driving conditions.
- The setup on the No. 6 Acura did not suit the wet conditions as Cameron dropped to the fourth position on the opening lap. To compound the tough start, Cameron had to deal with electrical issues that eventually required him to change the steering wheel during a lap 20 pit stop. He then received a pit road speeding penalty upon entering pit road as his dashboard was not working properly and had to serve a pass-through penalty.
- Upon returning to the track, the No. 6 Acura was struggling on corner exit in the wet conditions. At the two-hour mark of the race, teams began discussing a switch to dry tires as the track condition improved. Unfortunately, the electrical problems continued and forced the team to make additional pit stops to try and repair the issue.
- The long pit stops necessary to try and diagnose the problem resulted in the No. 6 Acura falling nine laps down to the race leaders. Neither Cameron, Juan Pablo Montoya or Simon Pagenaud were able to catch any breaks in the form of caution flags that would allow them to make up the lost laps.
- Despite never giving up on the day, the No. 6 team crossed the finish line at the end of the 12-hour event in the ninth position, the spot where they ran for most of the event.
- The No. 6 team is now fifth in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup standings, 10 points behind the leaders. They are seventh in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi standings, 20 points out of the lead.
- The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series now turns its attention toward the sprint portion of the schedule, beginning Saturday, April 13 at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Quote:
"It was an unfortunate start to the race for us. We just weren't very competitive in the wet conditions and the electrical issues just made it worse and caused us to lose a bunch of laps. Once the track dried I thought we were a lot better, but the lack of cautions made it impossible to make the laps up. That is not the way we thought our race would go after starting from the pole, but we will move on and try to get a win at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. That would be a great way to start their new sponsorship of the event." – Dane Cameron
No. 7 Acura ARX-05 DPi – Helio Castroneves/Alexander Rossi/Ricky Taylor
Start: 3rd
Overall Finish: 4th
Class Finish: 4th
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 348/348
Recap:
- Helio Castroneves was tasked with qualifying the No. 7 Acura ARX-05 Prototype for the 67th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring. He responded with the third-fastest lap of the qualifying session, narrowly missing out on starting beside teammate Dane Cameron on the front row.
- Like Cameron, Castroneves struggled on the opening laps of the race, which began in extremely wet conditions after persistent rain fell over Sebring International Raceway for most of the morning. He fell to the sixth position while also having issues getting off the flat, rough corners of the circuit.
- On lap 26, Castroneves gave way to Ricky Taylor, a 2017 winner of the 12 Hours of Sebring. Taylor also found the wet circuit treacherous, spinning early in his run in turn 17. The spin caused Taylor's seat belts to come unbuckled and he was forced into a long pit stop to have them properly fixed.
- The lost time on the track, coupled with the spin, dropped the No. 7 Acura two laps to the leaders. However, they too began to pick up time when they were able to remove the Michelin wet tires for racing slicks when the track had sufficiently dried.
- After spending much of the event working their way to only one lap down to the leaders – a difficult task with only a handful of caution periods on the day – the team was able to take a wave around pass under a caution at the 9:50 mark of the race. This placed them back on the lead lap with a chance at a podium finish.
- Alexander Rossi drove brilliantly to over the final stints of the race, eventually closing to only a few seconds behind the leaders, but he was unable to muster the strength needed to make the passes. After a great battle back from adversity the No. 7 Acura team crossed the finish line in the fourth position.
- With the finish, the No. 6 Acura remains third in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup standings, nine points behind the leaders. The team also sits third in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi standings, nine points out of the lead with the next event coming in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 13.
Quote:
"We really got behind the 8-ball, right from the beginning in the wet. The entire Acura Team Penske organization rallied after that to make up a two-lap deficit without any yellow flags to help us out as much as we would have liked. To bring the No. 7 Acura home in fourth, kind of a ‘best of the rest' situation, is a positive but we come here wanting to win. I want to thank everyone at Acura Team Penske for an amazing job. The pit stops were great. Helio and Ricky were fantastic as always, so we can hold our heads high." – Alexander Rossi