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The 12 Hours of Sebring is almost upon us. The field is looking exceedingly close amongst every single class, but how will it turn out? We've come up with some predictions. Let's see how right we were next week!
Race win
Prototypes
Phil: It looks tight between BMW, Porsche, and Acura at the top end. I'd love to see BMW take their first major endurance race victory with the M Hybrid V8, but I think Porsche will win out and it'll be the #7 car of Nick Tandy, Felipe Nasr, and Laurens Vanthoor who will get the win.
They were supreme at Daytona and I think they'll get a second on the bounce, with Tandy completing endurance racing by winning every major race.
In LMP2, this is always a dogfight, and with it essentially a spec class it's very hard to pick a winner. But my prediction for the win goes to Spike, the #99 AO Racing Oreca. PJ Hyett is an extremely good amateur, while Dane Cameron obviously knows his way around a race car and Jonny Edgar is a young, quick driver who has a future in this sport. Plus they were fast in qualifying and quite clearly have a quick car.
Tim: From the qualifying performance, and through running the numbers in practice, it looks very close at the front. BMW, however, really are a team revived in 2025, and I think that the #24 crew have a point to prove after that heartbreaking conclusion to Daytona.
Phil Oakley
Dries Vanthoor is operating at his best, Eng and Magnussen are looking solid, and I think they're going all-in on a landmark anniversary victory – it'll be tough to stop the #7 Porsche, but my heart's telling me they can.
The LMP2 category is looking as close as ever, but the #11 TDS Racing seems to have made a real step forward this year. Steven Thomas claimed a very strong pole on Friday afternoon, and teamed with a fired-up Hunter McElrea, who was seriously impressive at the venue 12 months ago, and Peugeot Hypercar driver Mikkel Jensen, this is the car to beat on the bumps.
GTs
Phil: I think GTD PRO will go to Corvette's way. While they were a little way back in qualifying that often doesn't mean all that much in IMSA and especially at Sebring.
Corvette are always quick at Sebring and have won multiple times here. The driver line up is probably the best line up of any GTD PRO team and they were quick in practice 3. As for which car, I'll pick the #3 of Antonio Garcia, Daniel Juncadella, and Alexander Sims.
Let's hope, though, Nicky Catsburg in #4 can stay safe at restarts.
Phil Oakley
In GTD, like LMP2 this is hard to pick and often depends on the strength of the bronze driver. I'm going to pick the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin for the win. Robichon did decently in qualifying to put the car sixth, and Tom Gamble is a quick gold-rated driver with a big future ahead of him.
Tim: The GTD classes were locked-out by Ferrari in qualifying, but I don't think they've quite got the firepower across the 12 Hours.
The GTD PRO scrap will come down to BMW and Corvette, and after their Daytona duff-up the Paul Miller and Pratt Miller cars will be at it again. This time, BMW come out on top, the #48 of Max Hesse, Dan Harper and Jesse Krohn take the class win.
Seconds out, round two...
And in GTD it's been hard to look past the Mercedes-AMG cars across Practice, and even into Qualifying. The reigning class champions, the #57 Winward Racing AMG won the race last year, and I wouldn't look past them defending that result in 2025.
First retirement
Prototypes
Phil: I'm going to hold out hope here and say Lamborghini will survive longer than expected, although I think the pace won't be exactly fast from the Italian manufacturer.
Instead I'm going to pick the #31 Cadillac, via getting involved in an early race incident. Cadillac seem to be struggling for pace a bit and through pushing too hard to make early progress I think they'll come unstuck.
Tim: Sadly, I'm still not convinced the Lamborghini-Riley effort have things settled after what was an extremely difficult Daytona.
The SC63 went really well on the bumps in 2024, and I was really impressed by Grosjean's pace in the car, keeping the race-leading Porsche at bay for an entire stint to stay on the lead lap.
But, things haven't progressed, and it feels like this programme is starting anew in 2025.
GTs
Phil: Ford were strong at Daytona and the issues in WEC were due to specific changes made to the car for that series. But Sebring is a car breaker and maybe, just maybe, they haven't got the issues sorted just yet.
So I'll pick one of the Fords for first retirement from GTD PRO. Which car? Equal chances but I'll pick one and say the #64.
And in GTD, I'm going to predict one of the Lamborghini Huracans comes unstuck early on and crashes. Again it's hard to say which specific car but I'll go with the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lambo.
Tim: There's always tonnes of action in the GTD ranks, but at Sebring that often boils over into some big incidents.
So I'm predicting the first retirement will come from the middle of the pack, and it'll be the #021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari getting clunked in some early race traffic shenanigans.
