Sebring 12 Hours: #22 ESM Nissan squad wins close-fought race

The Extreme Speed Motorsports Nissan squad claimed victory in a close-fought Sebring 12 Hours.

The #22 ESM Onroak-Nissan DPi driven by Pipo Derani, Nicolas Lapierre and Johannes van Overbeek completed a 12-second victory in the second round of the 2018 IMSA SportsCar Championship.

Derani was at the front of the safety car queue when the race went green with just over an hour of the race to run.

After a demon restart, he was able to pull a clear gap over Felipe Nasr in the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R.

Brazilian Derani was six seconds up on Harry Tincknell in the best of the Joest Racing Mazda RT24-P Daytona Prototype internationals going into the final round of pitstops with 40 minutes left to run.

But he emerged with a nine-second lead over the Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac driven by Renger van der Zande and was able to control the gap to the chequered flag.

The Mazda, which Tincknell shared with Jonathan Bomarito and Spencer Pigot, failed to restart at its final stop and needed a push to get going, dropping the car to sixth position.

The Action Express entry of Nasr, Eric Curran and Mike Conway lost out to Tincknell after the final restart and then fell behind van der Zande just before the stops.

Nasr faded to a distant third over the final hour, but was still nearly half a minute up on the CORE Autosport ORECA-Gibson 07 driven by Colin Braun, Romain Dumas and Jon Bennett at the chequered flag.

The CORE entry jumped to fourth as the first LMP2 car home with 10 minutes to go when Paul di Resta made a splash and dash fuel stop in the United Autosports Ligier-Gibson JSP217 he shared with Alex Brundle and Phil Hanson.

Both Penske Acura were in contention until their respective retirements.

Ricky Taylor stopped the #7 car with engine problems shortly after half distance, while Juan Pablo Montoya retired the sister car just over an hour later after a clash with Tristan Vautier in the Spirit of Daytona Cadillac.

The #5 Action Express Cadillac driven by Joao Barbosa, Filipe Albuquerque and Christian Fittipaldi, winner of the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA opener in January, dropped out of contention in the eighth hour with a long stop for suspension repairs.

Porsche took GT Le Mans honours with the CORE-run Porsche 911 RSR shared by Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet and Frederic Makowiecki.

Pilet came out on top in a thrilling battle with Toni Vilander in the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE at the end of the 10th hour.

Tandy took over for the run to the flag and proved equal to the challenge of Alexander Sims's Rahal BMW M8 GTE to secure a six-second class victory.

The BMW, in which Sims was joined by Connor De Phillippi and Bill Auberlen, came back from a lap down after a mid-race brake change.

Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Corey Lewis took GT Daytona honours in their Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3.

Sellers led into the final round of pitstops, but then had to pass Jeroen Bleekemolen's Riley-run Mercedes-AMG GT3 to seal the victory.

Result - 344 laps