until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Team Redline won its second iRacing special event in a row as a superior strategy got the team a 1-2 overall finish in the iRacing 12 Hours of Sebring.
It also came out on top in the GTE class after a closely fought battle with BS+COMPETITION.
It was Apex Racing Team though who started the race from the front, although it retired after a little over two hours into the race when its driver Michele Costantini was sideswiped by a lapped LMP2 car.
Mivano Simracing’s Rosso entry were strong contenders for the overall win, but steadily the marginally shorter stints began to work against them.
Regularly completing stints up to 21 laps long meant it pitted more than all three of the teams that finished ahead of them who were able to go 22 laps between trips to the pits.
The overall victors were Team Redline Ice Blue and its drivers Pietari Poikela and Dominik Hofmann who won by a margin of 46 seconds over the sister Team Redline Purple entry.
YAS HEAT Microsoft also completed the race ahead of the leading Mivano Simracing car and those four teams were the only ones to finish on the lead lap.
In the GTE category, BMW Team Redline was the fastest in qualifying and led for the majority of the race.
With 44 minutes to go, they entered the pits at the same time as the chasing BS+TURNER car with Laurin Heinrich behind the wheel who had closed the gap down to three seconds.
Heinrich left the pits nine seconds ahead of Maximilian Benecke in the BMW Team Redline car as Benecke opted to fit a new set of tyres as well as refuel.
With fresh rubber Benecke was able to close down the lap and reclaim track position before pulling out a lead of 32 seconds to win in the GTE class.
Team Redline didn’t field a team in the GTD category with BS+COMPETITION instead the leading team in the lowest category.
The BMW Team BS+COMPETITION car was the early leader, but contact from one of the LMP2 cars ruled them out of class winning contention.
Roll on the next one… https://t.co/MJP79DNC3l pic.twitter.com/NHS4Gzif9G
— Rainer Talvar (@RainerTalvar) March 27, 2021
Instead, the other car they ran won with Felix Quirmbach and Mikkel Gade ended on top in their class for BS+COMPETITION and at least a lap in front of every other team in GTD.
