IRON LYNX TAKES DRAMATIC IMSA GTD PRO PODIUM AT SEBRING 12 HOURS

Iron Lynx secured its first podium finish of the IMSA Sportscar Championship season at the Sebring 12 Hours, coming through third and sixth in a frenetic GTD Pro battle which lasted the entirety of the race.
 
Held at the historic airfield circuit, the team took to the second round of the IMSA Endurance Cup with four cars for the first time – with the Lamborghini SC63 LMDh making its GTP class debut – and three Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 cars across the two GTD classes.

There was one line-up change of note from January’s Daytona 24 Hours, with Leonardo Pulcini joining Claudio Schiavoni and Matteo Cressoni in the #60 GTD Pro entry as Matteo Cairoli and Romain Grosjean took up their place the #63.
 
Franck Perera and Claudio qualified the #19 and #60 cars respectively on Friday. Franck finished the short session in fifth, with Claudio 12th and in the mix. After the session, six cars were sent to the back of the field, elevating the #19 to fourth on the grid and the #60 to 10th for the 12-hour endurance.
 
The race itself proved to be truncated by many caution periods, which kept most of the field very close throughout the entirety of the 12 hours and meant keeping on the lead lap and strategy proved to be crucial.
 
The #19 car, with driving duties split between Franck, Jordan Pepper and Mirko Bortolotti, spent much of the early part of the race right at the sharp end of the GTD field in a large group of cars fighting over the podium places. It went slightly off strategy in the early part of the race, allowing the crew to make one pitstop less than some of its rivals.
 
Meanwhile, the #60 car driven by Claudio, Matteo and Leonardo, kept largely out of trouble and were there to pick up the pieces from cars who hit trouble aside from a minor moment with a BMW GTP. It kept in the top 10 throughout the race.

As the race approached its final three hours, the story of the battle for the podium began to shape out. While the #14 Lexus and #77 Porsche were slightly quicker, the #19 Lamborghini held third for much of the race against the #62 Ferrari and the #3 Corvette.

In the final hours as the sun set, there was a decent amount of racing under green until a caution came with 80 minutes to go. This allowed all the cars to make their final pitstop and putting everyone on the same run to the chequered flag. The #60 car also worked its way to the back of the leading pack through strategy and the timing of the cautions.

With the field bunched up, the racing was very intense in the final minutes. The #19 car dropped a few positions in the early moments after the restart while avoiding an incident. The race struggled to pick up much momentum in the last hour due to frequent caution periods.

In a dramatic last couple of laps, the third and fourth-placed cars, the #3 Corvette and the #77 Porsche, made contact while Mirko was running fifth. This pitched the Corvette out of the race, while the Porsche was given a time penalty in lieu of a drive-through. This elevated the #19 to round out the podium, just three seconds away from the victor.

The #60 crew gained places up the order in the final minutes to take home a solid sixth place finish under the lights. Alongside the podium, this result marks a useful platform for the team ahead of June’s Watkins Glen 6 Hours.

The LMDh reached the end of the gruelling event and came through to secure a seventh place finish. You can read about its weekend here .
 
The Iron Dames’ race started promisingly but came to a premature end following contact leading to a technical problem. More about their weekend can be found here.

To come away from Sebring with a podium is a fantastic result for everybody in the team and is a great reward for all the hard work over the recent weeks. It is not an easy circuit, and each of the cars showed great potential which offers  a lot of optimism. We learned a lot through this week and have other positives to take, so our aim is to carry this momentum going forward. The Lamborghini SC63 also performed well here this weekend on its race debut at a very demanding circuit, which was great to see.

Andrea Piccini, Iron Lynx Team Principal & CEO