Vervisch: Sebring to Provide Different Challenge for Mustang

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Frederic Vervisch is expecting a different challenge at this weekend’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring for Ford Multimatic Motorsports, admitting the chances of a repeat win will be “very tough” for the Mustang GT3.

Vervisch, Christopher Mies and Dennis Olsen head into Saturday’s second round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season on the heels of a breakthrough first win for the Mustang GT3 globally in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

It came in a highly fought battle for GTD Pro honors, which is expected to continue this weekend at the Florida airfield circuit.

“We’re all happy, my teammates and the team, for winning Daytona,” said Vervisch. “I think Daytona is not the toughest race for man and machine but it’s the one you want to win. It’s the one on the calendar with the most prestige.

“We did that. We didn’t expect that. We had some good speed but I don’t think we were the quickest at the end of the race.

“Dennis still pulled it off. The team had great strategy and with great driving. It was unbelievable.

“But we’re very realistic. Sebring will be very tough for us. But we are leading the championship so it’s the others that have to attack us.

“We will do our thing and hopefully that’s good enough to stay where we are now.”

When asked by Sportscar365 on what factors will make Sebring a tougher challenge for the team, Vervisch indicated the nature of the 3.7-mile track, compared to the high-speed Daytona roval, is the primary factor.

“I think more, if you analyze the strengths of our car, we were obviously very strong on the straights in Daytona but we were struggling a lot on the first sector, which is corners,” he said. “That’s still our working point.

“Now we go to a track where there are a lot of corners with one of the lowest top speeds of the year.

“I think we cannot really use the strength of our car.

“We had the two-day test a couple of weeks ago, which also indicates that we still have some work to do. We’re not in the ballpark but I’m quite positive we will be better. Still it will be a difficult race for us.”

Despite a slightly pessimistic outlook to the weekend, the Belgian, who along with co-driver Mies are new to the WeatherTech Championship on a full-time basis this year, understand the task at hand in the team’s quest for the GTD Pro championship.

“For the worldwide program of the Mustang GT3, I think we did an amazing step this year by finally winning a race for the car,” said Vervisch.

“That’s very important for everyone involved in the project, as well as the team itself. Multimatic made a big step. They hired quite a lot of new, very strong people and it was clear they were key to our victory in Daytona.

“So I’m looking forward to the whole season.

“Like I’ve heard from the other drivers before, consistency is key [in IMSA] and we will focus on that and try and collect everything we can and try to avoid any issues.”