Pipo Derani Wins 12 Hours of Sebring Pole

With only one lap at the end of the session available, Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani won the pole for the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring Friday (March 15). Derani’s lap at 124.491 mph was not the fastest lap of the weekend, but it was fast when it counted.

Derani won the pole by .147 seconds over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais. Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Global’s Louis Deletraz will start third in his Acura, then BMW M Team RLL’s Philipp Eng. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr was fifth.

The GTP session had a red flag seven minutes into the session when Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Mathieu Jaminet dropped a wheel exiting turn 1 and spun into the barriers. The Porsche 963 was not seriously damaged, but it was done for the session. Jaminet had not set a time when he crashed. As a result, he will start at the rear of the prototypes on Saturday.

At the time of Jaminet’s crash, only JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Phil Hanson had set a representative time in his Porsche 963. It was three seconds slower than his best lap of Thursday.

Ultimately, time was added to the session to get the 10 minutes of on-track time necessary for the session to be official. That meant that teams had four minutes to do a warmup lap, then qualify at speed.

Hanson was right on par in the ultra-short first sector, but fell off, qualifying sixth. Ultimately, Derani was able to beat out his Cadillac compatriot, something that Action Express Racing had not done all day Thursday.

Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Global’s Ricky Taylor appeared to be right where he needed to be. Then, his times were wiped out as a result of one of his crewmembers touching the car during the red flag. That is forbidden. As a result, he will start at the back of the prototypes.

In LMP2, the favorite for pole is typically United Autosports’ Ben Keating since the rules mandate that bronze-rated drivers must qualify in LMP2. Early in the session, Keating put himself on top of the chart.

However, AO Racing’s PJ Hyett set a lap at 120.062 mph in “Spike” to claim the pole for himself with five minutes to go. There was still plenty of time for the rest of the field to have a go at Hyett, but High Class Racing’s Dennis Andersen stopped at the hairpin and brought out a red flag with a minute remaining. That ended the session right then and there, giving Hyett his first career pole.

Hyett ended up .171 seconds ahead of Dan Goldburg in the…