Interrupted seven times, the 73rd edition of the Sebring 12 Hours was led by five different manufacturers at various stages. But just like at the Daytona 24 Hours, Porsche Penske Motorsport emerged victorious once again.
The race followed a strikingly similar script to late January, with two official Porsche 963s on the podium alongside an Acura ARX-06 from Meyer Shank Racing.
Who impressed, and who fell short? Here's our pick of the winners and losers from the Sebring 12 Hours.
Winner - Nick Tandy
In January, Tandy made history as the first driver to win the world’s four biggest 24-hour races: Le Mans, Spa, Nürburgring, and Daytona.
But the 40-year-old Brit had unfinished business with Sebring, the last major endurance classic win missing from his résumé. After securing victory with the #7 Porsche 963, that gap is now filled.
Having also won Petit Le Mans in 2015, Tandy has now conquered the six greatest endurance races on the planet. That’s a feat no one else can claim!
"It's incredible because I never realised how big a thing it would be winning all the four 24 Hours,'' Tandy said. ''It went global. It's one of the most historic.
"You look at the names of the people that are on that list, the names that you're linked with... I think somebody said it's [now] the sextuplet, which is again something that nobody's ever done.
"Hopefully it's even harder for somebody to match that rather than just the four 24 Hours.''
Loser - Wayne Taylor Racing
Much was expected from the reunion between Cadillac and Wayne Taylor Racing. However, after the first two races of the 2025 IMSA season, the best result the team has managed is a fifth-place finish in Daytona.
"That is probably the most disappointing Sebring 12 Hours I have been to," Wayne Taylor admitted.
"As we weren’t that competitive in qualifying, we decided to build a race car for the race. And now that the race is over, even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, we were running the same times as the top cars."
Several mistakes were made, not only with the #10 but also with the #40, whose hopes for a strong result were dashed by Brendon Hartley’s off-track excursion, which also earned him a one-minute stop-and-go penalty.
All week, the #10 and #40 V-Series.Rs - finishing seventh and eleventh, respectively - struggled in comparison to the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac, which was a clear step ahead in every aspect.
Winner - Porsche Penske Motorsport
As the only top team alongside Action Express to run the same car as last year, Porsche Penske Motorsport team is now executing its races to perfection.
"You rarely see a sports team or an operation that does a single event without any faults or mistakes or anything like this," explained Tandy.
"We've just been celebrating with probably 40 people who flawlessly ran a car for 36 hours at Daytona and Sebring combined.
"It's just a testament to what Porsche and Penske have put together as a group that allows us to race and have this success without mistakes. The two-car operation has had four podiums out of four. No mistakes, no penalties, no damage - today was simply a dream in endurance racing."
Penske secured its second Sebring 12 Hours victory, the first since 2008, while Porsche extended its all-time record to 19 wins, the last also dating back to 2008. The #7 Porsche, driven by Felipe Nasr, Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor, led 166 of 353 laps, compared to 147 for the #31 Cadillac V-Series.R from Action Express Racing.
To find the last time the same car won both the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours of Sebring consecutively, one must go back to 2017. It’s a remarkable achievement.
It's also the first team, car, and driver line-up in the GTP era (since 2023) to win back-to-back IMSA endurance races.
It will take an extraordinary effort to prevent Porsche Penske Motorsport from defending its title. As things stand, no team seems capable of doing so...
Winner - Aston Martin Valkyrie
Expectations for the Aston Martin Valkyrie’s second competitive outing were modest, especially given the punishing bumps of Sebring, worlds apart from the smooth surface of Lusail International Circuit where it had made its debut just two weeks earlier.
While it wasn’t setting the timing screens alight, with a best lap 1.1 seconds off the fastest in class, it fared no worse than the Lamborghini SC63. Crucially, it reached the checkered flag without any excessively long pitstops, allowing Ross Gunn, Roman De Angelis and Alex Riberas to finish ninth, two laps down.
"If we could have wished for something going into this race, a top-10 finish would have been the dream," said team principal Ian James.
"We’ve beaten a couple of really good cars out there, and 12 hours around this place is momentous for us in terms of the program. Every lap we do, we learn something, and we are going to come back stronger every time."
The Valkyrie conquered Sebring. It’s often said that if a car survives 12 hours here, it can survive 24 hours anywhere. That’s an encouraging sign...
Loser - Lamborghini
A year ago, the Lamborghini SC63 made its U.S. debut at the Sebring 12 Hours, securing a solid seventh-place finish, on the same lap as the winners.
This time, it was nowhere near that level. The #63, driven by Mirko Bortolotti, Daniil Kvyat and Romain Grosjean, was the first GTP-class vehicle to retire, just as at Daytona, completing only 256 laps. While the Daytona failure was due to engine issues, this time an exhaust problem caused damage to the floor.
Performance-wise, the outlook is no brighter. Grosjean’s fastest lap was still 0.955 seconds off the best in class.
The project’s future remains uncertain, and performances like this do little to secure its longevity.
Loser - Race Direction
Rarely have we heard such widespread criticism of race direction in IMSA. But some decisions had a significant impact on the race results.
Early in the race, during a Full Course Yellow, a delayed announcement regarding the opening of the pitlane penalised the top three cars. The two factory Porsche 963s and the #60 Acura had already passed the pit entry when the call was finally made to open the pits, allowing those behind to pit and the top three had to wait and pit after, losing track position.
“Thankfully, this didn’t happen at the end of the race,” remarked one of those affected.
Wayne Taylor was another vocal critic, particularly over a penalty that cost his team dearly.
“The #10 car got a drive-through penalty of 60 seconds for something we didn’t do, which put us down another lap,” Taylor complained.
“Three laps! Two were our fault, but the other was because of the race director [Beaux Barfield].
"We reviewed the footage, Ricky [Taylor] never touched the car. And the race director’s response was that he made a ‘bad call’. Well, what is the protocol for correcting a ‘bad call’?"
The incident in question was thought in the moment to have stemmed from contact between Taylor and the #23 Triarsi Ferrari driven at that moment by Charles Scardina.
"Nope, I didn't make contact. I actually- I talked to Beaux afterwards just to say I never touched him [Scardina], he [Barfield] sent me the screenshot of what they saw - and the angle, it really looks bad for me.
"But going through [Turns] 10-11, sometimes we'll look on the outside, sort of test the GT if they want to defend us or if they leave it open. And he went to cover the outside line, and when he covered he put himself on the dirty part of the track. I'm sorry that they had a bad day but I didn't touch him. I wish we had an onboard to prove it."
But while Ricky said he couldn't really blame race direction, Wayne didn't feel that way.
"That one lap cost us the chance to fight for the win," he said.
"It is inexcusable. I am not putting in this kind of effort, representing these brands, just for someone to make such mistakes. In the end, we had a car capable of fighting, but the race director didn’t let us race.”
The most glaring error, however, came at the end of the race in the LMP2 category. Anticipating a Full Course Yellow after a Mercedes lost a tire in the middle of the straight, Sebastien Bourdais (Tower Motorsports), Paul di Resta (United Autosports) and Mikkel Jensen (TDS Racing) all dove into the pitlane.
Leading the category at the time, Bourdais should have logically rejoined the race in first place. However, a mix-up by race direction allowed the pitlane to remain open while executing a wave-by procedure. This played directly into the hands of the #04, #43 and #74 Oreca 07s, which had curiously delayed their pitstops by one lap.
Despite finishing second and third respectively behind the Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 driven by Tom Dillmann, Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke, Tower Motorsports and TDS Racing were furious. “After our disqualification at the 24 Hours of Daytona, this is getting to be too much,” fumed Bourdais.
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Loser - BMW M Team RLL
With a favourable BoP, the BMW M Hybrid V8 had set high expectations during qualifying, proving it would be a strong contender this week. On Friday, Dries Vanthoor secured his second GTP pole position after the Daytona 24 Hours.
However, in the race the Bavarian machines quickly fell behind. The best finisher, the #25 of Robin Frijns, Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann, could only manage fifth place.
Yet of the two BMWs, it was the #24 that appeared to have the better pace. Unfortunately, it was struck in the pitlane by the #60 Acura ARX-06, which had been prematurely released by the Meyer Shank Racing crew.
“The start into the Sebring weekend was very positive with the pole position by Dries Vanthoor,” said Andreas Roos, BMW motorsport chief.
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“Unfortunately, the race itself in the GTP category was disappointing – we have to be honest. Car #24 managed to fight back to the front after the initial penalty but was ultimately taken out of the race by an unsafe release by a competitor. After the accident, a lengthy repair was necessary, and all chances for a good result were taken away.
"Car #25 also didn't have a completely error-free race. In the end, it managed to finish fifth, but that is obviously not what we had hoped for after the good performance of our BMW M Hybrid V8 in qualifying. However, we are now looking forward, as our cars were reliable and performed well.”
No podium finishes after the first three races of the season - across both WEC and IMSA - is far from what was expected from BMW this year. While bad luck played a role in Sebring, the German manufacturer remains a long way from the level of operation seen at Porsche Penske Motorsport.
Winner - AO Racing
The Porsche liveried like a dinosaur has stolen the hearts of fans in IMSA since its debut in 2023, but despite winning the 2024 GTD Pro championship the car had never won a major IMSA enduro - until now.
Laurin Heinrich looks like a proper star of the future with every race that passes and he's probably already done enough to demand a GTP seat for next season. He was stellar in getting the #77 car to the front late on, pulled out a seven-second gap, lost it with the late caution, then drove off to victory from the restart anyway. - Jack Benyon
Loser - Vasser Sullivan
Jack Hawksworth looked to have pulled off a second late move for a Lexus win in a row at Sebring - this year in the GTD class - only to be nudged out of the way by the eventual class winner #57 Winward Racing. It's hard to say if the contact was enough for a penalty, but certainly Hawksworth did nothing wrong.
It's likely the RC F GT3's last year of competition (it started in 2017!) and its chances of a final win are becoming slimmer by the race. The sister car had a rollercoaster outing filled with issues and finished seventh in class.
Another loser in the GTD class was the polesitting #21 AF Corse car, which went off track early with a brake issue, then fought back into victory contention only to retire with four hours to go. - JB
