Cetilar Racing triumphs at the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring
A fantastic win for Cetilar Racing in the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring, the second leg in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup which ended on Saturday night in Florida, at the mythical Sebring International Raceway.
Half an hour from the end and more than 35 seconds’ advantage over the first of the following cars in the GTD category. An advantage that Antonio Fuoco, the driver in the last stint having swapped repeatedly with Roberto Lacorte and Giorgio Sernagiotto, all perfect stars in the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 number 47 by Cetilar Racing, managed to extend even further in the last few minutes of the race.
Plunged into darkness for the over 6 km of the Sebring circuit, Lacorte, Sernagiotto and Fuoco’s all-Italian dream came true. Cetilar Racing wins what is considered the world’s most important 12 hour race. At the finishing line, the Ferrari driven impeccably by the AF Corse team was ahead of everyone in the GTD class with a significant margin of 49″348 on Daniel Juncadella’s Mercedes, wining seventh place among the Gran Turismo cars behind the Pro teams and in absolute 22nd place out of a total of 53 starters. An achievement that for Lacorte (the driving force of this winning project), Sernagiotto and Fuoco, all racing on the tough track in Florida for the first time, became real in the final stages, when Lacorte closed the tenth hour ahead of the field before handing over the wheel to his companion. And from then on nobody else had a chance.
A 12 Hours of Sebring that began with an excellent seventh class time by Sernagiotto in the qualifying rounds on Friday. Then the first frantic 120 minutes: a contact, a spin and a few other hitches. But on the starting line of this American endurance race (indeed THE American endurance race), the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 number 47 of the only all-Italian team immediately showed that it could easily finish in the top-5. And the rest is history.
A victory on US soil for the Cetilar Racing team exactly 6,721 hours, i.e., nine months and one week after the previous one: 13 June last year when Lacorte, Sernagiotto and Fuoco won in their category in the 8 Hours of Portimão, valid for the FIA WEC.
“This win closes the circle of a programme that certainly had all it took to do a good job,” Lacorte commented. “We did here what we should have done in Daytona. Doing things properly and avoiding major errors, I saw that we have all it takes to win: Ferrari, AF Corse, Giorgio and Antonio. If they had asked me what the most important race was for me this year, I would certainly have said this one; I know the history of Sebring, it’s exciting, a real legend for me.”
“We certainly weren’t prepared for all this,” Sernagiotto said hot on the heels. “Roberto, Antonio and I were all here in Sebring for the first time. But now we know: AF Corse, Ferrari… that’s a guarantee. And we were able to give it our all in a really tough race. Sebring is a legendary circuit. Even though we made a few mistakes, I certainly made one, we managed to win with our strategy and all the rest.”
“The race had its ups and downs, but we never gave up, right to the end.” Fuoco commented. “We always believed in it, even though it seemed very difficult to win, given the conditions of the car after all the problems at the beginning. The guys in the pits did a fantastic job. I’m really pleased with this result, we all deserved it. I also think that we can do just as well in future.”
The next appointment with the IMSA is on 25 and 26 June, with the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen (New York). But before then, the podcasts on Radio24 with Carlo Genta devoted to this American adventure and the victory at Sebring.