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The story of the 2009 edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring was the historic ninth consecutive Audi victory, this year with a brand new car, the R15 TDI, which had only completed a very limited testing programme. The trio of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and "Dindo" Capello, won the race at a record speed and distance covered, with the sister car of Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller and Marco Werner finishing 3rd, to also win the team a 1-2 in the newly inaugurated "Michelin Green X Challenge", which relates fuel consumption to performance. The team had a trouble free race, apart from Marco Werner suffering from rib injuries, which forced him to relinquish driving duties early in the race. The Audis were split by the Peugeot 908 HDI of Sarrazin / Montagny / Bourdais, with the second Peugeot of Minassian / Klien / Lamy finishing 5th overall.

The Pole sitting # 66 Acura ARX 02a of de Ferran / Pagenaud / Dixon couldn’t match the race pace of the Audis and Peugeots, but was running strongly, and was always waiting in the wings ready to pounce, should trouble hit the leading quartet, unfortunately it was they who hit problems and retired with around 90mins of the race remaining. In the P2 category victory went to the Lowes Fernandez Racing Acura of Fernandez/Diaz, with the only other two starters in the class, the Lola Mazdas, not on the same pace and both retiring before mid distance. Apart from the class win they were 4th overall and the best petrol engine finisher.

In the GT1 class the pair of works Corvettes were the only entries, and both finished, the Magnussen / O’Connell / Garcia example beating the Beretta / Gavin Faessler car by one lap. In the GT2 group the pole sitting Farnbacher Loles Porsche suffered from transmission problems early in the race, necessitating a long stop, both the new BMW M3s failed, one before the race started, and the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT of Melo / Salo / Kaffer came from its rear of the grid starting position to take the class win and 8th overall, two laps ahead of the similar AE Pecom entered car of Companc / Russo / Bruni, who in turn were a lap up on the Farnbacher / James driven Panoz.

The economic climate may have provided a smaller than normal grid, but the crowds seemed as large as ever, and they were entertained by a great race between the two diesel giants, and a good supporting cast.

Keith Bluemel
03/2009


Sebring Results

Pos

1/1 

2/2

3/3 

4/1 

5/4 

6/1 

7/2 

8/1 

9/2 

10/3 

11/4 

12/5 

13/6 

14/7 

15/5 

16/8 

17/9 

18/6 

19/10 

20/7 

21/2 

22/11

23/3 

24/12 

25/8 

26/13