Nick Tandy Adds to His Legacy as Porsche Penske Motorsport Goes 1-2 at Sebring
Photo credit: IMSA, Michael L. Levitt, LAT Images
With a win in Saturday’s 73rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Porsche Penske Motorsport driver Nick Tandy became the tenth driver in history to win the unofficial triple crown of sports car endurance races.
Tandy joins A.J. Foyt, Hans Herrmann, Jackie Oliver, Al Holbert, Hurley Haywood, Mauro Baldi, Andy Wallace, Marco Werner and Timo Bernhard on the list of drivers with overall wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and now Sebring. Tandy’s win at Le Mans came in 2015 while his victory at Daytona came earlier this year, making him the first driver in history to win all four of the major 24 hour races (Le Mans, Daytona, Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps).
“It's incredible because I never realized how big a thing it would be winning all the four 24 Hours,” Tandy explained. “It went global. People talking about it globally.
“The Triple Crown is probably one of the more historic kind of - what do we call them - accolades.
“You look at the names that you're linked with,” Tandy continued. “That is just an unbelievable thing. Again, on top of the unbelievable stuff that happens when you win a single race like Daytona, let alone the other bits and pieces.
“I remember when I won Sebring in 2018 the first time, I said, This completed my set. I was racing Le Mans spec cars. There were six major races. There were four that raced Le Mans spec cars, the three IMSA endurances and Le Mans.”
Photo credit: IMSA, Brandon Badraoui/LAT Images
What Tandy is most proud of is that they are overall wins, not just class wins.
“Exactly. I think somebody said it's the sixth Tuplet, 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.
“Yeah, I'm glad I've got some good people to help me along the way to do it. It's just great, yeah.”
As he did to start the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season at Daytona, Tandy shared the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) win in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 with co-drivers Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor finishing 2.239-seconds ahead of Porsche Penske Motorsports teammates Mathieu Jaminet, Matt Campbell and Kevin Estre in the No. 6 Porsche 963.
(Photo credit: IMSA, Brandon Badraoui /LAT Images
In the Le Mans Prototype 2 class (LMP2), Tom Dillman, Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke took the win in their No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07, inheriting the lead with less than 20 minutes remaining when the leading No. 04 Crowdstrike car was caught out by slower Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) traffic after being pressured by Dillman.
“The team prior to the yellow was catching very quickly the Crowdstrike care, so I knew we had good pace. But to be fast enough to overtake is another story with this kind of high downforce car.
“I knew we had a shot,” Dillman continued, “but in IMSA you can really go from hero to zero in an instant in those last few minutes. I kept pressuring him because I know that if you have the pressure behind, you have to risk a lot in traffic.
“That's what happened. Happened to me a month ago. I was on the other side. I was leading in Asian Le Mans, and I had a mistake in traffic. I know what can happen. It happened and I could take the lead, and from then on I think I had enough pace to control the race
“You still need to go through GT traffic, which is not easy. They are all packed, they are all racing for position. They are not letting you by easy. Once I was through the GT traffic, I knew it was under control and brought it home.”
Photo credit: IMSA, Jake Galstad/LAT Images
In addition to its overall Sebring win, Porsche took top honors in GTD PRO, with Lauren Heinrich, Klaus Bachler, and Alessio Picariello scoring the win in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, moving them up to second in the season standings.
In addition to the significance of winning at Sebring, the win was important to Heinrich as he looks to defend last year’s class championship.
“Yeah, it's super important. Daytona was a bit unfortunate. Obviously everyone comes to Daytona with zero points, more or less. After qualifying you already score some. Yeah, you want to win Daytona. Most people go all in. I think that was not really our approach. In the end you fight with these people. It went wrong. We lost some points in Daytona, which is not great.
“Obviously we knew at some point if you want to defend the title, you have to catch. The sooner the better. Now getting that win, also yesterday P2 in the qualifying, great points for the championship.
“I'm honest with you,” Heinrich continued, “I don't know exactly where we are now, but a win in IMSA is always big points. You have 30-point gap between the winner and second place. We saw last year how tight it can be. In the end it can come down to the very last point. Getting a win is really something big.
“We still have eight races to go and we already have our first one. Last year we could win three. I think that was really important for us and gave us some safety margin in case something goes wrong, like we saw at Petit ( Road Atlanta) last year.
“I hope we can carry that momentum into the next ones. Last year we managed to win back to back after our first win. Certainly going into Laguna, that was the track where we won our first race last year. Should be a good track for us, as well.
“But yeah, I'm just happy. Certainly it's all about the points. Just getting that win is incredibly special.”
Photo credit: IMSA, Brandon Badraoui/LAT Images
For the second consecutive year, Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje won in the GTD class in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3. According to Ward, the team was able to repeat their win of a year ago with consistency and hard preparation at the team’s shop over the last two months.
“Really hats off to all the crew at Winward Racing, the full-time guys working day and night to make the car perfect,” explained Ward. “The car really suits this track really well. It's good on the tires. It's good in the heat. It's reliable.
“If you keep it on the paved surfaces, you really have a good chance in winning the race. If you look at the three cars in the mix at the end, none of us put a foot wrong. It's really what it comes down to in these endurance races, is consistency and being there for the last two hours.”