Here’s a selection of post-race driver and team quotes from the second round of the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring:
- “It was incredible. We couldn’t believe we were in position to win. It’s certainly the biggest day in my career. We were lucky the way the traffic and the restart went. With about an hour to go I didn’t think it was going to work out. The car was a real handful but we finally found the sweet spot right at the end and the whole team and my team-mates did a great job,” –Marino Franchitti, No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford EcoBoost Riley, overall and P class winners.
- “The part of the race that is hard to swallow is the mistaken penalty to Cooper (MacNeil) eight hours into the event. That mistake by the officials cost us any chance at winning the race. It was too bad because the car and the drivers never missed a beat all day. The car didn’t have a scratch on it. We just deserved more. Disappointing,” –Alex Job, team principal, Nos. 22/23 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT Americas in GTD.
- “The No. 2 car had a great day and unfortunately had a little bit of contact and they would have been right there shooting it out for the win. David (Brabham) and Ryan (Dalziel) raced the No. 1 car to the front and did an incredible job. We just were very unfortunate with the yellow. If the Ganassi No. 01 car was two-thirds of a lap down and or the yellow never came, they wouldn’t have been able to gain the ground and catch us, so we would have won,” –Scott Sharp, No. 1 Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b, finished second in P.
- “This was the hardest race I have ever done. We had no grip on the track during the day and we suffered a lack of power compared to DPs and HPDs,” –Gustavo Yacaman, No. 42 OAK Racing Morgan Nissan, finished fourth in P.
- “The car felt quite lively and very quick in my first stint. It was nice that when I came out from my pit stop, we were able to run a very similar pace to the other prototypes. We had a bit of a brake issue in the first stint, but once I had the opportunity to cool them down during the long yellow, it was fine. But once again, the DeltaWing proved to be a fantastic car in traffic – it was a good stint and it was good to lead a race again,” –Andy Meyrick, No. 0 DeltaWing DWC13 coupe, first hour race leader.
- “I was just telling myself ‘don’t mess it up’ those last laps. Patrick (Long) always says I am good at night and I am just happy that it did work out,” –Jorg Bergmeister, No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR, won GTLM.
- “It’s still very surreal to be here. Having so many challenges throughout the race made for a very exciting 12 hours, and I’m still in a bit of shock that we came away with a victory,” –John Potter, No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 GT America, won GTD.
- “For a program that was pulled together at the last second, to come out of here with a second was more than we could have hoped for, so I’m very pleased. Starting the year with podiums at Daytona and Sebring is not too bad!” –Townsend Bell, No. 555 AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, finished second in GTD.
- “We had the drive shaft yoke break at the rear axle. The shaft stayed connected to the transmission and what I felt was it banging around in the driveshaft tunnel, which was all beat up. My power had gone, no drive, and I bet it knocked off a fuel line, I was sitting there trying to start it, feeding, fueling the fire, no pun intended,” –Ben Keating, No. 33 ViperExchange.com SRT Viper GT3-R, GTD, car burned to the ground in the first hour.
- “The performance of the SRT Motorsports car was flawless, absolutely flawless all day. I just couldn’t believe how close the race was. For almost 12 hours there was less than 20 seconds separating the top-three. It was probably the most exciting race I’ve seen yet,” –Ralph Gilles, SRT President & CEO; Nos. 93 and 91 finished second and seventh in GTLM.
- “My second stint was really fun. My back-and-forth with the No. 09 got a little bit closer than I wanted it to. I kind of got caught up on the restart there when the whole pack of DP cars came by. But I managed to recover from that and retake the lead,” –James Gue, No. 54 CORE autosport ORECA FLM09, won PC, had great lead battle with David Heinemeier Hansson for class lead.
- “That was probably the most fun I’ve had in a stint in a long time. The car is excellent. I had a phenomenal battle with the CORE car,” –David Heinemeier Hansson, No. 09 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09, finished second in PC.
- “The team actually did an incredible job when repairing the car because we only lost about 18 laps, which is pretty good considering the damage we sustained. We had setup issues beforehand and found that they had been cured after the crash, so I don’t know whether we had some mechanical problems beforehand or whether the track just came to us,” –Tom Kimber-Smith, No. 25 8Star Motorsports ORECA FLM09, finished fifth in PC.
- “I got a little wide and then got into the marbles that sent me right in to the wall. I’m OK, the car not so much. I know the guys will get on it, I know they will. It’s just about putting this one behind us and looking ahead to the next one,” –David Ostella, No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports ORECA FLM09, PC (accident in fourth hour)
