The seventh hour the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring fuelled by Fresh from Florida started under a Full Course Caution after a nasty crash involving Gaston Kearby and Alex Tagliani in the PC class.
But, during that period, the race lead also changed, with Ryan Dalziel in the No.1 Extreme Speed Motorsport HPD taking the lead from Tony Kanaan’s #02 Ford Ecoboost Riley during the pits process.
The race then went green with Dalziel leading from Kanaan, but further on down in the GT ranks Townsend Bell took GTD lead in the No.555 Ferrari from Maddison Snow’s Rum Bum Racing Porsche, with Antonio Garcia taking GTLM lead in the Corvette C7.R from Rob Bell’s SRT Viper. Further on, however, Bell suffered an issue dropping the No.91 machine down to fourth in class, allowing Corvette to take 1-2 in GTLM with Oliver Gavin moving into second place.
There was then a series of spins on track as in previous hours, with John Pew in the No.60 Michael Shank Racing Ford Ecoboost losing it, only to be followed by one from Ryan Hunter- Reay in the No.91 Viper, with the car slamming into the Turn 17 wall.
RHR did however re-join, bringing the No.91 SRT Viper into the pits where he was replaced with Mark Goossens, but the damage sustained cost them time in the pits where its rear end was done up with gaffer tape.
In other drama’s, the No.81 GB Autosport GTD car suffered a puncture at turn one, whilst the leading No.1 HPD stalled in pitlane after its driver change.
P
#1 – ESM – Dalziel/Sharp/Brabham
#02 – Chip Ganassi – Dixon/ Kanaan/Karam
#2 – ESM – Brown/van Overbeek /Pagenaud
PC
#54 – CORE Autosport – Bennett/Braun/Gue
#09 – RSR Racing – Ende/Junqueira/Heinemeier Hansson
#85 – JDC/Niller Motorsports – Miller/Kraut/Simpson
GTLM
#3 – Corvette Racing – Magnussen/Garcia/Briscoe
#4 – Corvette Racing – Gavin/Milner/Liddell
#919 – Porsche North American – Long/Christensen/Bergmeister
GTD
#555 – AIM Autosport – Sweedler/Bell /Mediani/Segal
#22 – Alex Job Racing – MacNeil/Keen/Frommenwiler
#13 – Rum Bum Racing –Plumb/Snow/Heylen /Plumb