Seldom has there been a more appropriate term to characterize the second race in a season as “Round Two” than the coming contests in GTD and GTD PRO. After all, the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona resembled nothing so much as a heavyweight title bout, make that bouts, in both classes.
The No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 and No. 13 AWA Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R may have won GTD PRO and GTD respectively, but only after 24 hours of intense and at times (over) heated clashes among the representatives of the nine automakers in the categories.
“After our Daytona win, we have been on a high,” said Frederic Vervisch, who shares the No. 65 Ford with Christopher Mies and Dennis Olsen.
“We learned a lot at the recent test at Sebring, so we are well-prepared for this race. We are feeling very positive and motivated to keep hold of our championship lead. We know it will be hard as it is not the perfect track for our car, but the team is on top form, and we are working well together with our sister car. I’m sure we can achieve a good result.”
Matt Bell, who shares AWA’s No. 13 Corvette with Orey Fidani and Lars Kern added, “It was a dream start to our season. We had a good test at Sebring; we feel well-prepared, but the GTD field is so deep with talent, and it’ll be extremely competitive again as we go ahead and take everyone on.”
Chevrolet and Ford may have brought joy to Motown with their Rolex 24 triumphs but defending Sebring GTD PRO and GTD winners Lexus and Mercedes-AMG will be keen to stage repeat performances this weekend, with Aston Martin, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche looking to get in on the winning action as well.
Saturday’s 73rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring streams live, flag-to-flag, exclusively on Peacock in the U.S. starting at 10:00 a.m. ET and streams internationally on IMSA’s official YouTube channel.