12h Sebring: Victories for two half-Swiss drivers
DOUBLE CITIZEN The 12 Hours of Sebring ended with a triumph for a Nissan sports car. One of the three drivers was Nicolas Lapierre from Geneva. In the GT class, Patrick Pilet on a Porsche also won with a dual nationality. Simon Trummer, Marcel Fässler and Philipp Frommenwiler missed out on the podium. Nicolas Lapierre was born in Thonon-les-Bains near the border in France, but lives [...]
Nicolas Lapierre was born in Thonon-les-Bains, France, near the border, but has lived in Geneva for several years. Because his mother is Swiss, he also has a red passport, but drives with a French license.
Last Saturday, the dual citizen celebrated his second triumph after 2011 with Peugeot in the 66th edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring. His partners on the Nissan DPi from Team Tequila Patrón ESM were Brazilian Pipo Derani and American Johannes Van Overbeek. Their lead over two Cadillac DPi, which were in front at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January, was only 12.4 and 53 seconds.
Simon Trummer as best-ranked Swiss
The trio led for 158 of the 344 laps. The engine of this Daytona Prototype (DPi) developed by Onroak Automotive in Paris is the VR38 type from the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. Nissan last won this race in 1994 with the 300ZX and three times before that with an IMSA GTP sports car.
The Oreca LMP2 of JDC-Miller Motorsports with Simon Trummer from the Bernese Oberland finished 13 laps behind. As at Daytona, the European LMP2 sports cars had no chance against the American DPi prototypes in terms of pure speed.
The missing victory in the collection
Compared to the two BMW M8 GTEs and Ford GTs, this also applied in principle to the two factory Porsche 911 RSRs in the GTLM class. Through consistency, i.e. with a good strategy and thanks to faultless performances by the drivers, Patrick Pilet took the class lead for the first time after 10 hours and 10 minutes.
The final driver, Nick Tandy, did not relinquish it. "This victory was all I needed in my collection," said a delighted Pilet, who also has a Swiss passport thanks to his mother but always appears as a Frenchman.
Only two Swiss overall victories at Sebring
Although the Corvette team, with Marcel Fässler as one of the six drivers on the two C7.R cars, also experienced an almost trouble-free race, the Americans, as winners of previous years, had to settle for 6th (with the car driven by the man from Schwyz) and 8th. "We were in the lead at one point," but didn't really have a chance at the podium," Fässler expressed his disappointment.
Philipp Frommenwiler was also at the top of the GTD class in his first stint with 3GT Racing's Lexus RC F GT3. His team partner Dominik Baumann even set a new GT3 lap record. Shortly after half-time, the first technical problems occurred, which eventually threw the team back to 15th place.
The 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida counted as the second round of the 2018 IMSA Weather Tech SportsCar Championship. Previously, only Jo Siffert (1968 on Porsche 907) and Marcel Fässler (2013 in Audi R18 e-tron quattro) had been able to win the oldest endurance race in the USA as "real" Swiss.
sportscarchampionship.imsa.com
