Deletraz Steals 12 Hours Of Sebring Win For Acura In Closing Moments
Louis Deletraz left it for late.
The Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti driver took a restart in his No. 40 Acura ARX-06 with 23 minutes remaining in the 12 Hours of Sebring on Saturday night behind leader Sebastian Bourdais’ Cadillac Racing V-Series.R and hounded him for the closing laps.
The Cadillacs had been the class of the GTP class field, but a crash by pole-sitter Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac left the door open for the No.1 car of Bourdais, Scott Dixon and Regner van der Zande to carry the brand’s flag to victory.
Deletraz had other ideas and made a dramatic dive inside of Bourdais into the turn 7 hairpin and made it stick as the pair banged their way through the next few corners.
Deletraz finally opened up a lead and held it for the final four laps to claim Acura’s first win at the iconic race.
The fast qualifiers in the GTD Pro and GTD classes also won their classes in the race. The Vasser Sullivan No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth, and Ben Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood won in GTD Pro just .121 seconds ahead of the Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3, while the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 repeated its Rolex 24 at Daytona victory in GTD with the team of Russell Ward, Phillip Ellis and Indy Dontje.
The Era Motorsports No. 18 car of Connor Zilisch, Ryan Dalziel and Dwight Merriman also completed the Florida sweep in the LMP2 class.
The series heads next to the other side of the country for the Acura Grand Prix at Long Beach in California, where the GTP and GTD classes will compete on April 20 in a 100-minute sprint race.
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