TOYOTA GAZOO Racing. World Endurance Championship 1000 Miles of Sebring Sebring Circuit Florida, USA 13th to 17th March 2023. Image: Toyota
Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez won the the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship season-opening 1000 Miles of Sebring, in a solid showing for Toyota amid the new competition.
Brendon Hartley crossed the line in second in the sister #8 Toyota, x seconds behind the sister car, with Hartley and his teammates Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa unable to best their Toyota stablemates.
The highly-anticipated Ferrari 499P, which took pole position on Thursday with Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari 499P, could only manage third, with that same car, driven by Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen, and Miguel Molina, finishing two laps behind the winning Toyota.
While there was much hype around Ferrari being potentially able to match Toyota’s race pace, in the end, it wasn’t to be, with Toyota having the edge in the race. The Toyotas were also able to extend their fuel stints compared to Ferrari, plus the LMDh-rules Hypercars from Porsche and Cadillac, which helped the Japanese-German machines spend less time in the pits.
The #50 Ferrari, with Fuoco starting the car, led the race from pole, but with the early safety car caused by a crash for Luis Perez Companc in the #83 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, Ferrari pitted both cars — Fuoco from the led and teammate Alessandro Pier Guidi in the sister #51.
With Toyotas advantage on fuel consumption this turned out to be the wrong strategy. Fuoco and his teammates also had to contend with a drive-through penalty for overtaking before the safety car line at the race restart, and then had five seconds added to the car’s next stop after a pitstop infraction.
Pier Guidi and his teammates, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, meanwhile, didn’t quite have the pace of the teamcar. However, with a couple of hours to go, Pier Guidi came unstuck when he got into a tangle while overtaking GTE-Am cars, which caused a left rear puncture and necissatated a trip to the garage for the dame caused by the shredded tyre to be repaired. The car eventually finished 15th overall.
With Toyota 1-2 and Ferrari third, the best of the LMDh-rules cars was the #2 Cadillac V.Series-R of Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook and Earl Bamber, finishing around eight seconds behind the third-placed Ferrari.
The Cadillac never truly had the pace of the Ferrari, let alone the Toyota. This was proven through the race when the #50 Ferrari came back from its penalties to catch and overtake the Cadillac, but in the end it was close between the two after eight hours of racing.
The two Porsches finished fifth and sixth, with the #5 Porsche 963 of Fred Makowiecki, Michael Christensen and Dane Cameron four laps in total off the Toyotas, and two off the fourth-placed Cadillac. The #6 Porsche, driven by Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer, finished 24 seconds behind its sister car.
Much like in Daytona, where the Cadillac and Porsche made their debuts, the Porsches weren’t far away on pace from the Cadillac at Sebring, but the Cadillac built the gap slowly but surely over the two white-and-red Penske-run cars. In a positive for Porsche, though, the car had no reliability issues, after the gamut of problems the team faced with its 963s at Daytona in January.
The #4 Vanwall Vandervell 680 of Tom Dillmann, Jacques Villeneuve and Esteban Guerrieri finished the race 30th overall. The car ran well for the first half of the race, ahead of both factory Peugeots and the LMP2s. It was looking like a good day for the team formerly known as ByKolles, but the second half of the race dealt a blow.
Firstly, as a full course yellow period started to recover debris, the car got rear-ended by Mikkel Jensen in the #94 Peugeot, causing significant damage to the rear bodywork. Guerrieri duly pitted and the car was taken to the garage and repaired, but dropped from its top 10 position to amongst the LMP2 cars.
Then, later on, Villeneuve spun the car at the exit of the final corner, Sunset Bend. Although he didn’t hit anything, the right rear suspension had broken, causing the car to visibly bounce — more than normal — over the Sebring bumps.
The Canadian pitted the car but repair work dropped it down the field to 30th, where it finished.
The two Peugeots finished the race behind the Vanwall, with both cars facving multiple reliability issues and problems for the French squad, in yet again another tough race for the still-new 9X8.
The #708 Glickenhaus 007 retired mid race after stopping, off the racing line, at Sunset Bend. Driver Romain Dumas could not get it going again, which marked the car as an official retirement. Regardless, it did not have the pace to challenge the frontrunners, and was battling at times with LMP2s.
LMP2 and GTE-Am reports coming soon
Keyword: #7 Toyota wins 1000 Miles of Sebring in Toyota 1-2, Ferrari third