Vanthoor wins Sebring 12 Hours pole for BMW

Dries Vanthoor hadn’t raced around Sebring International Raceway before this week, but you wouldn’t be able to tell — not after he stepped up to win the pole for the 73rd annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on a sunny Friday afternoon of qualifying.

Vanthoor, Philipp Eng and Kevin Magnussen will lead the 56-car field to the green flag tomorrow in their No. 24 Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8, in a special livery to honor BMW North America’s 50th anniversary — and the 50th anniversary of the German marque’s first Sebring win.

Qualifying was a disaster for Cadillac Whelen: Jack Aitken peeled out of the pits only for his No. 31 Cadillac to stop at pit exit. He would cycle the power multiple times to try and get the car moving, but the car kept shutting down again and would only move as far as Turn 3. Aitken eventually relented and pulled off course, bringing out a red flag.

With less than five minutes on the clock when the green flag came back out, it left the remaining 12 drivers with little time to get their tires up to temperature and set their fastest laps.
Vanthoor came out on top, setting a 1m47.091s to win his second straight GTP pole.

Tom Blomqvist looked like he had the pole sewn up but was knocked down to second place by Vanthoor, and on his second and final flying lap, he fell just 25 milliseconds short, timing in with a 1m47.116s aboard the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06.

The two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s qualified third and fourth and will line up on the second row: The No. 7 of Rolex 24 At Daytona winner Felipe Nasr set a 1m47.522s, less than a tenth better than the No. 6 of Mathieu Jaminet.

Veteran Neel Jani turned in a great lap to go fifth fastest in the No. 5 Proton Competition Porsche, followed by Renger van der Zande in the No. 93 MSR Acura.

Then it was the two Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillacs, the No. 40 V-Series.R of Louis Deletraz in seventh, and the No. 10 of Ricky Taylor in eighth, followed by Gianmaria Bruni in the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche.

Sheldon van der Linde ended up 10th aboard the No. 25 RLL BMW. The South African spun out exiting Turn 1 and hit the barrier with the left side of the car. He was able to avoid putting his car in a dangerous spot to bring out a red flag, at least.

The rest of the GTP field was within 2.3s of the pole time, including the No. 63 Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC63 of Romain Grosjean and the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie of Ross Gunn, who were 11th and 12th respectively. The No. 31 Whelen Cadillac will start 13th at the rear of the GTP grid.

TDS Racing showed that their hot laps from practice could translate to qualifying after Steven Thomas took the pole in the No. 11 ORECA 07. Thomas had to fight off qualifying maestro PJ Hyett for top honors.

Thomas grabbed the pole with a 1m51.804s to go ahead of Hyett, and while Hyett was able to improve, his 1m51.919s only put him and the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA in second.

United Autosports USA’s two cars qualified third and fourth, the No. 2 of Nick Boulle ahead of the No. 22 of Dan Goldburg. Boulle survived a close call after Jeremy Clarke (No. 43 Inter Europol Competition) spun at Turn 15 and tried to rejoin the track ahead of Boulle, who had to slow down to avoid another collision.

Tobi Lutke also had a late spin at Turn 3, but he’d already timed in fifth for Era Motorsport, ahead of George Kurtz who spun coming out of the carousel, but timed in eighth for CrowdStrike Racing by APR. AF Corse’s Luis Perez Companc and PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ Rodrigo Sales were sixth and seventh.

Ferrari 296 GT3s swept qualifying in both GT classes, headed by GTD PRO polesitter Albert Costa, who was in firm command during his 15-minute session.

Driving the golden yellow No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3, Costa took provisional pole on just his third lap out of the pits, setting a 1m59.225s, The Spaniard’s time withstood the challenges of Laurin Heinrich, Neil Verhagen, and Dan Harper to stay at the top of the leaderboard.

Costa’s time was slower than that of the GTD polesitter but because of IMSA’s new race procedures, he and the rest of the GTD PRO field will start at the front of a 31-car pack of GT cars tomorrow, ahead of all the GTDs.

Heinrich, in the No. 77 AO Racing “Rexy” Porsche 911 GT3 R, battled Harper for the outside of the front row and took it with a 1m59.397s to lock in second place.

Then it was the two Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVOs, the No. 1 of Verhagen in third, going ahead of the No. 48 of IMSA rookie Harper.

They’ll line up ahead of the two Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, after four-time Sebring winner Antonio Garcia put the No. 3 Corvette in fifth, just ahead of the No. 4 of Tommy Milner.

Following their Daytona win, the two Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3s could only manage ninth and 10th, led by the No. 64 of Seb Priaulx.

And in GTD, Alessandro Pier Guidi put the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari on pole position with a time of 1m59.131s, a sensational lap to take the pole by nearly four-tenths of a second.

Kenton Koch, who showed good speed all week so far, qualified second in class aboard the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3. He leapt ahead of Jack Hawksworth, the first man to break the two-minute barrier in qualifying despite a close call with the barriers. But Hawksworth’s 1m59.521s was only good enough for third, eight-thousandths behind Koch’s 1m59.513s.

Philip Ellis was fourth fastest in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG as the last driver below two minutes, with Lorenzo Patrese in fifth driving the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Ferrari.

Bronze driver Orey Fidani qualified the Daytona-winning No. 13 AWA Corvette and will start 17th in class tomorrow, while the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari did not set a time and will start from the back of the pack.

The 73rd annual Sebring 12 Hours starts tomorrow at 10:10am ET, streaming on Peacock in the U.S. with international coverage on the IMSA YouTube Channel in most countries.