Alpine Wins Heavily Interrupted 1000 Miles Of Sebring

Grid Talk Reporter 23:56 18/03/2022

Alpine won the 1000 Miles of Sebring, the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, that was red flagged three times due to a huge Toyota Hypercar crash and thunderstorms in the area.

The planned eight-hour race ended in an anticlimax when severe weather moved into the area in the final hour. The #36 Alpine A480-Gibson grandfathered LMP1 car - driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Andre Negrao - dominated the event, constantly outpacing the Hypercar class opposition from Toyota and Glickenhaus as well as the LMP2s. Following the first red flag and 30-minute delay, while the barriers were repaired following Jose Maria Lopez’s huge crash in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid at Turn 15, the race went green with just over 3hr40mins remaining. The #8 Toyota led at that point but had to take emergency service, to avoid running out of fuel, and pitted on the following lap for another stop. 

At the resumption, Alpine led the solo Glickenhaus 007 LMH by a lap with the remaining Toyota dropping back to third. However, as the green flag flew, Briscoe in the Glickenhaus passed the Corvette GTE Pro car before the restart, earning a penalty. After a second red flag for electrical storms in the area, although no rain fell, the race was scheduled to restart with a 36-minute dash to the finish - but with more rain threatening. After further electrical activity, the field was getting ready to restart when more lightning was detected nearby. The chequered flag was waved with 14 minutes still on the clock as the heavens finally opened. Alpine claimed its first overall WEC win from the surviving #8 Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, and the Glickenhaus of Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Ryan Briscoe.

In LMP2, the #23 of United Autosports Oreca entry of Paul di Resta, Oliver Jarvis and Josh Pierson won the class in fourth overall ahead of the lead WRT car of Robin Frijns, Sean Gelael and René Rast. The Realteam by WRT car shared by Ferdinand Habsburg, Norman Nato and Rui Andrade initially dropped out of third place after taking an emergency pitstop behind the safety car following the second red flag, but was ultimately handed the final podium spot in an adjustment to the results. That demoted Prema to fourth on the team's LMP2 debut with Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Lorenzo Colombo at the wheel, ahead of the two JOTA entries in fifth and sixth.

The #92 factory Porsche squad of Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen, which dominated the weekend, won the GTE Pro class by 1.4s from the belligerent Chevrolet Corvette team. After an entertaining battle between Porsche and Corvette over the opening hours, during which both 911 RSR-19s were penalized for a startline infringement, Estre’s car passed the sole Corvette C8.R soon after the restart following the first red flag on the run to the final corner .The sister #91 Porsche of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz looked set to make it a one-two but a jammed left-rear wheelnut hampered its cause as it finished third, over 9secs in arrears of the Corvette of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner. Ferrari's pair of 488 GTE Evos trailed home in fourth and fifth, with the #51 car of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado leading home the #52 machine of Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco. 

In GTE Am, Aston Martin locked out the top two places, with the NorthWest AMR squad of David Pittard, Nicki Thiim and Paul Dalla Lana winning out ahead of the TF Sport car of Marco Sorensen, Ben Keating and Florian Latorre and the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche.