Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams have early-season leads across six different IMSA GT Daytona (GTD) championships heading into this weekend’s 72nd edition of the 12 Hours of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway. Winward Racing’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD victory and a top performance by Korthoff Preston Motorsports in the first round of the 2024 IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup (IMEC) in January’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona are at the foundation of the strong early-season championship leads. Rolex 24-winning drivers Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje co-drive the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 at Sebring while IMEC GTD co-leaders Mike Skeen, Mikael Grenier and Kenton Koch compete in Saturday’s 12-hour race in the No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3. A third Mercedes-AMG Motorsport customer entry at Sebring is the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT of Salih Yoluç, Rui Andrade and Scott Andrews.
With the team’s full season Mercedes-AMG GT4 driver Daniel Morad joining Ward, Ellis and Dontje at Daytona, Winward Racing put in a convincing performance for its second Rolex 24 victory in the last four years to go along with 2021’s maiden triumph. The Winward No. 57 ran up front for the majority of the twice-around-the-clock classic for a race-high 383 laps led out the 731 circuits completed in the GTD class.
Winward now hopes to bring that winning Daytona momentum to Sebring where they have been fast since they debuted at the track in 2021 but have yet to put together a strong result at the finish.
Reigning IMEC GTD champions, the No. 32 Korthoff Preston team and drivers battled in the lead pack for the majority of the Daytona race and led a total of 36 GTD laps. The team was ultimately just a tick off the front runners in the final fight to the finish, but they backed up their fifth-place result at the checkered flag by winning Daytona’s opening round of the IMEC in the GTD class.
The Korthoff Preston team and drivers head into round two of the five race IMEC championship at Sebring tied for first place in the GTD standings with 13 points.
Winward’s overall WeatherTech Championship GTD Rolex 24 win in turn brings the No. 57 team and drivers to Sebring leading the championship standings with 364 points, 24 ahead of the nearest challenger. Winward’s strong run at Daytona also ranks the No. 57 a close second in the IMEC standings, just one point behind Korthoff Preston and the other co-leader, 13 – 12.
Mercedes-AMG left Daytona with the biggest championship leads following some post-race performance infraction penalties assessed to the manufacturer that had provisionally finished second and third in GTD. Mercedes-AMG leads the WeatherTech Championship GTD manufacturer championship standings with 371 points, a full 43 tallies ahead of the nearest competitor ahead of Saturday’s race. Mercedes-AMG also has an equally solid five-point lead in the IMEC GTD championship, 18 – 13, over the second-place challenger.
Another race-leading performance at Daytona was turned in by the debuting Rolex 24 and Sebring 12 Hour team Lone Star Racing. The No. 80 Lone Star squad led five laps and charged from the back of the field to the front three times to be in a position to contend for a podium spot in the race’s final hour.
Unfortunately, an untimely late caution derailed Lone Star’s chances when they were forced to enter a closed pit lane for emergency service and were assessed pit procedure penalties. The team recovered as best they could in the race’s final minutes for an eighth-place finish.
Winward’s great weekend at the Daytona opener also included a close second-place finish in Friday’s season-opening IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race. Morad was in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 and catching the race leader on the final lap but settled for the runner-up result 1.936 seconds behind the winner. Morad co-drives again at Sebring with Russell Ward’s father Bryce Ward, who ran in the top-10 throughout his race-opening stint in Daytona.
The Daytona opener also saw the debut of Mercedes-AMG GT4 standouts Michai Stephens and Jesse Webb who scored a top-10 Pilot Challenge GS-class finish in the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4. They look to improve on that result at Sebring where Stephens and Webb won a GT4 America race in a Mercedes-AMG GT4 last year.
A third Mercedes-AMG GT4 entry comes from Thaze Competition and co-drivers Marc Miller and the debuting Josh Green in the No. 78 Thaze Competition Mercedes-AMG GT4. Miller and the team finished third in the Thaze’s GT4 debut last year at Detroit and Green fits right in with that fast-out-of-the gate approach. Green qualified an impressive fourth overall in the Pilot Challenge Grand Sport (GS) class Thursday that set the field for Friday’s two-hour race that starts at 3:15 p.m. EDT.
The weekend’s featured 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race is scheduled to start at 9:40 a.m. EDT this Saturday, March 16. The race can be seen live in its entirety on NBC’s Peacock streaming network beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Broader coverage to the finish begins on the USA Network starting at 4 p.m. EDT and straight through the checkered flag at 9:40 p.m. EDT into post-race interviews until 10 p.m. EDT.
Russell Ward, Driver – No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “This will be our third time at the 12 Hours of Sebring, and we haven’t actually finished the race yet. We’ve set ourselves up so good for the championship, winning Daytona, and now just want to finish the Sebring race. We did some testing here earlier, and the car was really quick. Honestly, the track suits the Mercedes-AMG GT3. We’ve always been fast there and led a lot of laps in the last two years that we’ve done it. We’ve come in here without a lot of experience in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and have done quite well. We’re always trying to chase that victory, that winning high. From my experience in IMSA, it’s all about the preparation. If you’ve prepared the car well, you come in with a lot of confidence and then it’s usually an easy race. Speed wise, over the past two years, it was an easy race. We know we have a good package, and we are well prepared for this event. I’m hoping we can get this one on our list of victories.”
Philip Ellis, Driver – No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I don’t think you can prepare so much for Sebring. I think it’s more about experience, so the last two years were the best preparation we could have. Testing, of course, is always nice if you get to test at Sebring but it doesn’t really prepare you for the race, for the traffic and what comes at you, especially in the last two hours of the race. Compared to last year, we’ve all matured a lot more from the experience that we’ve gained, and our main focus is to finish the race. The biggest mistake we made in the last two years is taking too much risk where we didn’t have to, early on in the race. We always had a really good car, and a really good team and a really good driver lineup that put us out in front. We were either a bit too naïve or maybe even a bit too cocky making moves we shouldn’t have done early on in the race. That usually costs us a good result in the end. Both years we could have fought for the podium, if not the win, in GTD, and that is the goal this year.”
Mike Skeen, Driver – No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We had a great run at Daytona. No major mistakes, and the team did an awesome job. We’ve always had a great pit crew that executes well, and I think we’ll have a strong car at Sebring again. We did get a test in between the Rolex 24 and the 12 hour, and we’re pretty excited about how the car is performing. We’re learning a bit more every time out about the new Michelin tire and we should be strong. Most of the crew has endurance experience, and obviously all of the drivers do, so we understand that realm. The team has really done a fantastic job to make that their strength. Even the shorter races are endurance races, too. They’ve done a great job, and we seem to do really well every time in the endurance stuff. We won the Michelin Endurance championship last year, we are co-leading it now, and hopefully we can keep that up. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 is always a very consistent car. It helps to have consistency every lap and having a lot of confidence in the car over bumps. That makes for a stable platform that you can get everything out of and fight hard all day long.”
Kenton Koch, Driver – No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “It was good to get the endurance cup win at Daytona. We were really hoping for better than that, obviously, and this year we have a little bit of a different mindset on how we are approaching the races. Rather than trying to optimize the endurance cup points, we are going to try to optimize the strategy to get the result at the end. One strategy can hinder the end goal, and at Daytona we just kind of lucked into being in the right place at the right time. If that happens again at Sebring, great, but hopefully we get the win. It was good to come test here a few weeks ago, especially with the new compound of the new Michelin tire.”
Scott Andrews, Driver – No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “After a successful yet seemingly anticlimactic Rolex 24 At Daytona, I’m really looking forward to seeing what the Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 can do around Sebring. AJ Petersen and the team always prepare an amazing car. We definitely have a lineup of drivers and crew to do the job. We just have to make sure we do everything to the best of our ability, and we will see where we end up. It’s a difficult track mechanically for the cars and physically for the drivers, but we are looking forward to the challenge.”
