Few drivers have enforced their will on the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring like Action Express Racing's Sebastien Bourdais did on Saturday at America's oldest endurance race.
The four-time Champ Car champion partnered with Portugal's Joao Barbosa and Brazil's Christian Fittipaldi to destroy the 43-car field in their No. 5 Corvette Daytona Prototype as sweltering heat tested the conditioning and willpower of many in attendance.
The defining moment of the event – one that will be remembered for years – came when Barbosa passed the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford EcoBoost DP for the lead at 5:42 p.m.
Handing over to Bourdais soon after capturing first place, the Frenchman climbed in and delivered one of the most dominant performances in recent memory
Going head-to-head with Ganassi's Scott Pruett, Bourdais put the hammer down and began stretching the lead by more than one second per lap on most tours of the 17-turn course.
Before he was ready to hand the car over to Fittipaldi, Bourdais had lapped the entire field, pulling out a full 3.7-mile advantage over the Ganassi Ford DP in less than two hours of maximum attack driving.
With the field under AXR's command for the final three hours of the race, the defending TUDOR Championship Prototype title winners executed their game plan to perfection as they rotated drivers and completed flawless pit stops with the clock winding down.
Bourdais seemingly toyed with whoever was chasing him from the first stint to the last, and with Barbosa and Fittipaldi joining in on setting a pace that nobody could match, Sebring 2015 was won by AXR with pure, relentless speed.
"It feels great;
it was a heck of a race, very physically difficult," said Bourdais. "We lapped the field. How's that? That Corvette was just awesome today. We just kept plugging away; we had a flawless race. This one is special."
The AXR entry was followed home by Ricky Taylor in the Wayne Taylor Racing No. 10 Corvette DP and Richard Westbrook in the No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Racing Corvette DP.
The Ganassi Ford DP lacked the raw speed to repeat their 2014 Sebring win, and settled for fourth overall as rival General Motors saw its Corvette DPs complete a 1-2-3 sweep of the podium.
Porsche's factory GT Le Mans program mirrored AXR's performance throughout most of the race as the sister Nos. 911 and 912 Porsche 911 RSRs were on the way to a 1-3 finish just past the 11-hour mark.
Minutes later, the No. 912 encountered a wheel nut issue during its final pit stop that ultimately sent the car back to the paddock for repairs.
Seven minutes later, the class-leading No. 911 plummeted down the timing screens as shifting issues slowed the car.
Corvette Racing was waiting to capitalize on their hardship as the No. 3 C7.R swept into the lead and scored the victory, adding to their memorable Rolex 24 at Daytona win in January.
"A serious thanks to the team and all the hard work they put in," said Jan Magnussen, who shared the No. 3 with Antonio Garcia and Ryan Briscoe.
"We knew at the end we had the right strategy and the Porsches ran into a little trouble."
Combined with the Prototype win by AXR's Corvette DP, GM had the kind of day that rarely happens in the sport, and if winning overall and in GTLM wasn't enough, the No. 5's achievement celebrated the 50th anniversary of GM's last overall win at Sebring when Jim Hall and Hap Sharp won the 1965 12 Hour in a Chaparral 2.
