Why ‘no-mercy’ 12 Hours of Sebring is feared

There’s a reason why the 12 Hours of Sebring is classed as one of sportscar racing’s hardest to win, even though it is half the length of Daytona or Le Mans’s blue riband events. It’s gruelling. In last year’s 12 Hours of Sebring, eight top-class cars qualified, but only two finished.

Sebring is a former army training base and airport and is one of America’s longest-serving racing venues. It hosted its first race on New Year’s Eve in 1950, and for 63 years going on 64, it’s promised to instil fear in any competitor that dares to try and conquer it. It’s bumpy to the extreme, more so than almost any other professional racing circuit sportscars drive on. Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor said he nearly lost a tooth in his first test there in 2017, and I don’t think everyone identified it was a joke. The race takes place in central Florida in March, which can still reach 26 degrees Celsius (78 Fahrenheit) comfortably. It’s often humid and rain certainly isn’t unheard of, despite the heat. Although it’s not as long as the Le Mans 24 Hours, it packs plenty of challenges over 12 hours. It’s a true test of driver and machine, make no mistake.

Driving the track

Ride onboard with the Porsche 963 above, as we talk you through what makes Sebring so tricky to master. The main straight heads into the tight Turn 1 left-hander which is bumpy on the entry and mid-corner, unsettling the car and making it both difficult to get the power down and accelerate out of. It can also be difficult to keep it pointing in the right direction as it rides the bumps. This is a common theme at Sebring, caused by the change of surfaces (look at the colour of the road changing for a visual cue of this), the age of the surface and it barely being changed, and the baking Florida sun cooking the asphalt each year. The run-up to Turns 3, 4 and 5 is relatively simple with two low-speed left-handers, but the surface is changing all the time offering different levels of grip and adding to that bumpy sensation.

Firing under the bridge and through Big Bend the car is flat out and stable, building towards 300kp/h before dropping to 70kp/h (43.5 mph) for the Hairpin at Turn 7, which is also - you guessed it - bumpy. Under acceleration, those bumps are almost lifting the car off the floor over the kerbs, through Fangio and up to the tight and narrow Turn 10 where, if you get out of shape, there’s very little room to correct it. The exit of Turn 10 and into Collier is a long left-hander. Because the cars are slow through Turn 10, they are flat out through Collier but with still quite a tight left turn to navigate. You really have to trust that the downforce of the car and the tyres weld the car to the floor, because you're turning hard left while building up to 200kp/h (124mph) before you flick right for Turn 12. Turn 12 is a 90-degree right-hander which is also narrow, but this one is so bumpy that the cars barely get any power down until 50 metres after the corner, and the drivers have to feather the throttle to stop the car’s rear-end from crying enough and folding under the strain. The fast left-hander Bishop - Turn 14 - is flat in the epic top-level IMSA machinery, but immediately at the exit the driver is braking and shaping up for Turn 15 which is much tighter than it looks on the circuit map. The brave and aggressive drivers can make a lot of time here but also throw away their chances if they get it wrong. The final turn, Le Mans, despite its name, is one of the simplest on the track, the only proviso being it launches onto the back straight so you must prioritise getting a good exit to carry the speed all the way down past the pits and back to Turn 1. Only around 321 more laps left and you’ve done the Sebring 12 Hours!

What do the drivers think?

Felipe Nasr won the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2019, and was also part of the line-up which won the Daytona 24 Hours in January, meaning he and team-mate Dane Cameron lead the IMSA standings going into Sebring. “Sebring is unique, it's a rough racetrack because that place has no mercy for the racecar, it puts you on the edge, really puts the driver physically on the edge as well,” Nasr explains.

“It’s a long track too, it has all kinds of corners. Turn 1 being pretty fast and bumpy and then you have all the middle sector of the track which is, braking is very unique. “It's usually very warm during the day at Sebring, so the race car takes another beating. “But the event itself is phenomenal. Everything, the racetrack, the event, the infield of the track gets very busy in many ways, but it's spectacular to see the fans and how they love to be at that track. It makes everything pretty special. “I think it's a very classic race in America. It's the personality of the track, it's the personality of the place, the fans that attend the track and the race starts during the day and finishes at night and the nighttime always brings more action because it gets harder for everybody to stay on track and to be fighting for the overall win. “We came pretty close last year and just wasn't able to get it done at the end there. “But I feel like we are much better prepared, after seeing how we performed the Daytona, but it's just another race, we have to start it all again. Day one, every practice session, setting up the car and being flexible in that one.”

How has Porsche fared at Sebring in the past?

Porsche has the most overall race wins at the 12 Hours of Sebring with 18. Its first win came all the way back in 1960, with Jo Bonnier, Olivier Gendebien and Hans Hermann proving victorious in the beautiful Porsche 718 RS60. Perhaps one of its most famous Sebring results was not a win though, as in 1970, movie star Steve McQueen came close to winning the event before being passed late on. He and Peter Revson were using the race to prepare for filming of the film, Le Mans, where McQueen plays a driver racing for Porsche in its infamous 917.

Through various cars, the marque won every race between 1976 and 1988, and won its latest 12 Hours, 20 years later in 2008.

Who is driving for Porsche in the 12 Hours of Sebring?

In the #6 Porsche 963, Fred Makowiecki will join the full-time pairing of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy. In the #7 car which won the 24 Hours of Daytona, Matt Campbell joins regulars Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr.