Honda and the Tequila Patron ESM team have achieved something many dream of and only a few accomplish. After taking the overall victory at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the crew has swept the two biggest North American endurance races back to back. Referred to as the 36 hours of Florida, the 22 year old Pipo Derani piloted the bright green and black car to an overall victory with only 45 minutes left on the clock, only building a lead of just under three seconds within the last 12 minutes thanks to a full course caution and a strong restart. A strong finish at both Sebring and Daytona give us a great outlook on how the rest of the season should look, but as always, anything can happen and we’re in for a wild ride with the rest of the season.
In the GTLM class the C7.R Corvette took first yet again, fresh off of a win from Daytona they’ve got some great momentum built up, but even more surprising was the second place finisher, the BMW M6 and its crew. They must have worked up some serious changes between Daytona and Sebring, whatever they did, it let the M6 and let the car and its drivers achieve a faster overall lap than the C7.R. With some better pit and race strategies, the team has potential to be a serious game changer. The M6 replaced the old V8 powered Z4 cars and with this last podium have earned the respect of fans all over as its replacement.
In GTD we had a big shakeup, coming out of Daytona looking for blood, the number 63 Ferrari 488 GTE and its crew took the win for their class with yet another BMW M6 in second and the defending Audi R8 LMS close behind.
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