54 entries for Twelve Hours of Sebring
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Richard S. James | March 8, 2023 5:18 PM ET
A 54-car preliminary entry list has been released for next week’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. While most of the classes have shrunk from the Rolex 24 at Daytona opening round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship as is typical, the LMP3 field has grown from nine to 10 as the regular season championship for that class, as well as LMP2, begins.
GTP maintains its core eight entries (growing back to nine later in the season when JDC-Miller Motorsports takes delivery of its Porsche 963), losing the extra Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-LMDh, as the No. 2 moves to WEC, which begins its season with the 1000 Miles of Sebring the day before the Twelve Hour. LMP2 has also dropped by one.
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LMP3 loses FastMD Racing, but Ave Motorsports and Jr III Racing join the field. Ave is fielding the No. 4 Ligier for Seth Lucas, Tonis Kasemets and Trenton Estep, while Jr III brings the No. 30 Ligier for Ari Balogh, Garret Grist and Dakota Dickerson.
The GTD PRO ranks have dropped by one, the expected withdrawal of the MDK Motorsports 911 GT3 R due to the Porsche BoP issues. GTD is the largest class with 20 entries, down three from Daytona – the SunEnergy 1 Mercedes AMG, one Iron Lynx Lamborghini and the NTE Sport Lamborghini.
IMSA has also adjusted the Balance of Performance for GTD. While at Daytona, all four cars had the same weight, same per-stint energy usage and energy replenishment rate, each car has been assigned its own parameters in each of those categories. All the cars have gained weight from the 1030kg minimum used at Daytona, with the Acura ARX-06 gaining the most at 1054kg, and Cadillac the least at 1038kg. BMW is at 1040, while Porsche is at 1048. The Maximum Stint Energy ranges from 905MJ for BMW and Cadillac to 912 for the Porsche and 917 for the Acura. Replenishment rates have a range of 0.3MJ per second, 22.63 to 22.94MJ/sec. IMSA has not released the BoP tables for the GTD classes.
Practice for the 2023 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring begins next Thursday, March 16, at 10:10 a.m. – the same time at which the race will start two days later on Saturday.