9 February 2012

The Winter Tests on the Sebring circuit took place on 8-9 February. This gave teams, mainly American, a chance to find their marks before the Sebring 12 Hours. The HPD ARX-03a made a stunning debut!

It was the only pukka LM P1 present and it tested for the first time on the second day in the Muscle Milk colours. Driven by Lucas Luhr the car set the quickest time in 1m 48.192s, which promises great things to come. The German was delighted with the potential of the new HPD like Simon Pagenaud who will beef up the driver line-up for the 12 Hours: “I think that this car is going to surprise a lot of people!”smiled the Frenchman.

Honda also dominated in LM P2 thanks to Level 5 Motorsports. Christophe Bouchut was faster in the 2012 model than Luis Diaz in the older HPD. Soheil Ayari set the third-best time in the Pecom Racing Oreca-Nissan showing that the Hondas won’t have it all their own way in 2012.

In LM PC, the Dempsey Racing entry driven by Dane Cameron came out on top. Ferrari ruled the roost in GTE with the Bruni-Beretta-Vilander 458 in front of the Extreme Speed and Krohn Racing entries.

Text: François Hurel – Photo: Rolex / Stephan Cooper