We broke down the most telling areas of the track (red dots) and captured radar and sector time data to reveal how cars in the four different classes compare. (Photo: Courtesy of Sebring Int'l Raceway)
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Before backing off for turn in, the Peugeot 908 was clocking 178.9mph, in comparison the next fastest car at that point was predictable the Audi R10 but its was visibly slower, only seeing 172.1mph. This was on the run into turn one at Sebring, a very fast left hander with some pretty serious bumps in the mid corner and something akin to a ploughed field on the exit, its bloody rough in other words. LMP2 is going to be very close to the top class this year but the big cars still have a big speed advantage at this point, something they will not enjoy at other points around the track as we will see.
By the time the cars reach the turn 1 apex the Audi has dropped its speed to 134mph. the LMP2 cars carry a lot more speed in with both the Penske Porsches and the Andretti Green Acura traveling at 138mph at the same point. The Dyson Porsche RS Spyders were a little further behind but still marginally faster than the Audi's at 135mph.
The quickest car of all through the corner was the Marco Andretti-piloted Andretti-Green Acura which did it in 3.375 seconds, reinforcing the fact that the P2 cars are faster in the twisty bits. Next fastest through the turn was the Peugeot 908 at 3.525 seconds, taking a tenth out of the Audi which clocked 3.624.
Just behind the Audi come the gaggle of RS Spyders clocking with the best time being achieved by the number 20 Dyson car at 3.650seconds. The Zytek which is known to have a very impressive turn of speed produced 3.925 seconds, and the Intersport Lola only achieved 3.925seconds.
In the GT classes the C6R was the
fastest on the straight, clocking 157.6, but the real battle is in GT2 where the Porsche vs Ferrari grudge match is as close as our equipment could measure - both the 911 GT3 RSR's and the 430GT clocked a top speed of 149.8, with the Riley Corvette impressively close behind at 149.5. The lone Viper clocked 148.2.
Through the corner, the close battle continued with the fastest Porsche covering our corner section in 4.492seconds, and the best Ferrari in 4.553. A variance that small is hard to quantify. The number 48 Ferrari was clearly struggling on its Hankook tires, despite a superb driver line up. The cars traction control worked overtime on the turn 1 bumps, and the poor cornering performance showed up on the stopwatch, only clocking 5.025 seconds. Imagine losing over half a second to the fastest in the class in just one corner, and then remember they have sixteen more corners to negotiate…
We broke down the most telling areas of the track (red dots) and captured radar and sector time data to reveal how cars in the four different classes compare. (Photo: Courtesy of Sebring Int'l Raceway)
» More Photos
During Tuesday's sessions we moved on to turn 17 (Sunset bend) we look at the very high speed corner entry following the long Ullman straight. The top speed was again recorded by the Peugeot at 179.4mph with Audi behind again, at 174.4mph. Best of the rest was surprisingly not an LMP2 car rather it was the Intersport Lola at 165.2mph, closely followed by the Porsche RS Spyder at 164.2mph. The Andretti Green Acura seemed a little slow at 157.4mph.
In the GT classes the Corvettes were fastest in both classes with the C6R's clocking up 159.7mph and the Riley clocking 153.9mph. Porsche has the edge on Ferrari it seems with the best of each marque clocking 153.2mph and 152.2mph.
