A 38-car field for this year's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts was unveiled on Wednesday. The field poised to tackle the 3.74-mile Sebring International Raceway circuit will include 11 Daytona Prototype international (DPi) entries, just two LMP2 machines, eight GT Le Mans (GTLM) entries and 17 GT Daytona (GTD) race cars. A total of 13 different manufacturers are represented in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race. The race is scheduled to begin on March 16 at 10:30 a.m. ET.
Here’s a closer look at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring entry list: — Of 114 drivers on the provisional entry list, 39 drivers (34 percent of the field) have won at least once previously in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. — The winningest active driver at Sebring is No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R pilot Oliver Gavin, who owns six class wins (GTS in 2001 and 2002, GT1 in 2006 and 2007, GT in 2013 and GTLM in 2016). He’s one Sebring win ahead of his teammate, Jan Magnussen, in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R. Magnussen’s five wins came in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2015 and 2017. — Pipo Derani, who drives the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R is the winningest active driver in terms of overall Sebring victories with two. He won in 2016 and last year with the Patrón ESM team. — There are 17 drivers on the entry list with at least one pole position at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 driver Bill Auberlen has the most among active drivers with four: 1994 (GTU), 1997 (GTS-3), 1998 (GT3) and 2016 (GTLM).
— The No. 911 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR is the only 2018 Sebring winning team to return with the same driver lineup it used last year. Patrick Pilet, Nick Tandy and Frederic Makowiecki – who also won the 2018 WeatherTech Championship season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans – will be looking for back-to-back GTLM victories. — The No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3, which won the GTD class championship last year, returns two of the three drivers from its 2018 lineup in Bryan Sellers and Corey Lewis. Ryan Hardwick, the 2018 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Pro/Am world champion, completes the lineup in the No. 48 in place of Madison Snow, who went on to win the 2018 WeatherTech Championship GTD title alongside Sellers. — There are 17 teams on the entry list with at least one Sebring victory. Corvette Racing is far and away the winningest, with 11 victories at Sebring. It won its class seven times in eight years with three straight GTS wins in 2002, 2003 and 2004 followed by four consecutive GT1 wins from 2006 through 2009. It also won the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT class in 2013, before three consecutive WeatherTech Championship GTLM wins in 2015, 2016 and 2017. — Eleven of the 13 participating manufacturers have at least one previous Sebring victory. Porsche leads the way with 95 Sebring wins, followed by Chevrolet with 41 and Ferrari with 37.
Previous Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Winning Drivers in 2019 Field (39)Oliver Gavin (6) – GTS – 2001, 2002; GT1 – 2006, 2007; GT – 2013; GTLM – 2016Jan Magnussen (5) – GT1 – 2006, 2008, 2009; GTLM – 2015, 2017Bill Auberlen (3) – GTS-2 – 1995; GTS-3 – 1997; GT3 – 1998 Dirk Mueller (3) – GT – 2000, 2011; ALMS GT – 2012 Antonio Garcia (3) – GT1 – 2009; GTLM – 2015, 2017 Timo Bernhard (2) – GT – 2004; P2/Overall – 2008Patrick Long (2) – GT2 – 2005; GTLM – 2014 Sebastien Bourdais (2) – GTD – 2006; P/Overall – 2015 Joey Hand (2) – GT – 2011; ALMS GT – 2012 Joao Barbosa (2) – ALMS P2 – 2012; P/Overall – 2015Marcel Fassler (2) – P1/Overall – 2013; GTLM – 2016 Ryan Briscoe (2) – P2 – 2013; GTLM – 2015 Tommy Milner (2) – GT – 2013; GTLM – 2016 Jeroen Bleekemolen (2) – GTC – 2013; GTD – 2017 Jon Bennett (2) – PC – 2014, 2016Colin Braun (2) – PC – 2014, 2016Mario Farnbacher (2) – GTD – 2015, 2017 Pipo Derani (2) – P/Overall – 2016, 2018Romain Dumas (1) – P2/Overall – 2008Dane Cameron (1) – PC – 2011Ryan Dalziel (1) – WEC PC – 2012 Townsend Bell (1) – GTC – 2012 Oliver Jarvis (1) – P1/Overall – 2013Richard Westbrook (1) – GT – 2013 Cooper MacNeil (1) – GTC – 2013 John Potter (1) – GTD – 2014Andy Lally (1) – GTD – 2014Alex Riberas (1) – GTD – 2015 Christina Nielsen (1) – GTD – 2016 Ricky Taylor (1) – P/Overall – 2017Jordan Taylor (1) – P/Overall – 2017Kyle Masson (1) – PC – 2017Mike Rockenfeller (1) – GTLM – 2017 Ben Keating (1) – GTD – 2017 Patrick Pilet (1) – GTLM – 2018Nick Tandy (1) – GTLM – 2018Frederic Makowiecki – GTLM – 2018 Bryan Sellers – GTD – 2018Corey Lewis – GTD – 2018
Previous Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Pole Winners in 2019 Field (17)Bill Auberlen (4) – GTU – 1994; GTS-3 – 1997; GT3 – 1998; GTLM – 2016Oliver Gavin (3) – GTS – 2001, 2003; GT1 – 2009 Timo Bernhard (3) – GT – 2003, 2004; P2 – 2007Olivier Pla (3) – WEC P2 – 2012; P/Overall – 2015, 2016 Jan Magnussen (2) – GT1 – 2007; ALMS GT – 2012 Dane Cameron (2) – PC – 2011; GTD – 2014 Ryan Briscoe (2) – P2 – 2013; GTLM – 2017 Colin Braun (2) – PC – 2013, 2016 Tristan Vautier (2) – GTD – 2017; P/Overall – 2018 Dirk Mueller (1) – GT – 2000 Scott Dixon (1) – P1/Overall – 2009 Marcel Fassler (1) – P1/Overall – 2013 Andy Lally (1) – GTC – 2013 Sebastien Bourdais (1) – P/Overall – 2014 Frederic Makowiecki (1) – GTLM – 2015 Jeroen Bleekemolen (1) – GTD – 2015 Connor De Phillippi (1) – GTLM – 2018
Previous Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Winning Teams in 2019 Field (17)Corvette Racing (11) – GTS – 2002, 2003, 2004; GT1 – 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009; GT – 2013; GTLM – 2015, 2016, 2017Team Penske (4) – Proto 15 (P 5000+) – 1964; GT13 (GT – 5000+) – 1966; Trans-Am – 1968; P2/Overall – 2008 Team Joest (4) – LMP900/Overall – 2003; P1/Overall – 2009, 2013; WEC P1/Overall – 2012 CORE autosport (3) – ALMS PC – 2012; PC – 2014, 2016 BMW Team RLL (2) – GT – 2011; ALMS GT – 2012 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports (2) – PC – 2013, 2015 Porsche GT Team (2) – GTLM – 2014, 2018 Black Swan Racing (1) – GTC – 2011 Starworks Motorsport (1) – WEC P2 – 2012 Chip Ganassi Racing (1) – P/Overall – 2014 Magnus Racing (1) – GTD – 2014 Action Express Racing (1) – P/Overall – 2015 Scuderia Corsa (1) – GTD – 2016 Wayne Taylor Racing (1) – P/Overall – 2017 Performance Tech Motorsports (1) – PC – 2017 Riley Motorsports/Team AMG (2) – 2017 Paul Miller Racing (1) – GTD – 2018
Previous Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Winning Manufacturers in 2019 Field (11)Porsche – 95Chevrolet – 41 Ferrari – 37 Audi – 12Nissan – 12 Ford – 9 BMW – 7Acura – 3 Mercedes – 2Cadillac – 1Lamborghini – 1
Source: Read Full Article