The 12 greatest Sebring 12 Hours ranked

The 12-hour race at the old airfield circuit at Sebring may no longer be a part of the World Endurance Championship, but it remains one of the most prized events in sportscar racing.

The track's famously bumpy surface is tough on drivers and cars alike, and has traditionally served as a proving ground for manufacturers to test new machines before the biggest race of them all, the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Now a staple of the IMSA SportsCar Championship calendar, the 2020 edition of the race was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and moved to the final round of the series, where the Prototype title is set to be contested between previous winners Team Penske (2008), Wayne Taylor Racing (2017) and Action Express Racing (2015, 2019).

Ahead of this weekend's contest, here is Autosport's run-down of the 12 greatest Sebring endurance races.

12. BMW brain beats Porsche power, 1975

BMW's Jochen Neerpasch reckoned that if the German team was going to beat the hordes of Porsche 911 Carrera RSRs with its 3.0 CSL 'Batmobiles' then it was going to have to break them over the bumps of the Sebring International Raceway. That explains why he sent off a hare at the start of the race.

Hans Stuck, who'd qualified on pole, and Sam Posey were given that role. The best of the Porsches took the bait hook, line and sinker: the Brumos entry driven by Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood made contact with another car as its drivers strove to keep up; and the car fielded by Al Holbert Jr, in which he was partnered by Elliott Forbes-Robinson, was delayed by technical issues.

"Not only was Jochen a great boss, but he was an amazing tactician" Hans Stuck

BMW opted to park the hare after it ran into oil-system issues and moved Stuck and Posey across to the car in which Brian Redman and Allan Moffat had driven the opening stints. The foursome went on to take a decisive victory in the car pictured above in 2015, finishing three laps up on the Porsche of owner-driver George Dyer and his team-mate Jacques Bienvenue.

The best of the more-fancied Porsches, the Dave Helmick car in which he was joined by John O'Steen and John Graves, was a further four laps down, proving that BMW Motorsport boss Neerpasch had played a tactical masterstroke.

"Not only was Jochen a great boss, but he was an amazing tactician," recalls Stuck. "He thought that the way to win was to have one car pushing hard from the start, and it paid off."

11. Fitzpatrick proves his worth, 1980

Sebring 1980 was the setting for one of the great drives by the unsung hero of British sportscar racing. John Fitzpatrick claimed victory together with his boss Dick Barbour (pictured at Le Mans that year) in a race fought out by a flotilla of Porsche 935s.

A five-way battle boiled down to a two-way fight between the Dick Barbour Racing Porsche 935K3 and Bruce Leven's factory-spec car shared with Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood. Leven stepped down from the driving roster early in the race, so Fitz had the task of making up lost seconds on Gregg and Haywood every time he took the car over from Barbour.

The battle was decided in favour of Fitzpatrick and Barbour when Haywood received a penalty for corner cutting and then the car's header tank cracked, which dropped them to an eventual 10th place.

"I remember doing a massive amount of driving, probably two thirds of the race," recalls Fitzpatrick. "It was pretty much flat-out all of the time and definitely a win to remember."

10. Moss's diminutive winner, 1954

An up-and-coming grand prix hope by the name of Stirling Moss only accepted Briggs Cunningham's invite to drive his little 1.5-litre OSCA MT4 because he wanted to see the United States for the first time and, he once said, "to buy some coloured nylons for my girlfriend". Yet he ended up spearheading a David-versus-Goliath victory with Bill Lloyd.

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Moss crossed the Pond "without a hope in hell of winning", but Sebring turned into a race of attrition - the cars competing in the top category, four Lancias and three Aston Martins among them, gradually fell by the wayside.

Moss overhauled the Lancia's lap total over the course of the final hour and ended up winning by five laps

Moss's renowned wet-weather skills came in handy, too, in a rain-affected event.
The quartet of Lancia D24s raced among themselves away from the start but, one by one, they encountered problems. The cars driven by Juan Manuel Fangio/Eugenio Castellotti and Alberto Ascari/Luigi Villoresi both went out with a combination of gearbox and brake problems. The leading Lancia shared by Piero Taruffi and Robert Manzon lasted until the penultimate hour when its engine failed.

Manzon was at the wheel at the time, but Taruffi ran out and pushed the car back to the pits, where it was retired. Moss overhauled the Lancia's lap total over the course of the final hour and ended up winning by five laps from the only one of the D24s to reach the finish.

9. Andretti's best? 1970

Mario Andretti claimed a dramatic win for Ferrari in one of the most famous Sebring finishes exactly 50 years ago. But the 1970 race would probably be even better known today if he hadn't. The reason is that he snatched the win from a car co-driven by Hollywood legend Steve McQueen.

The all-time great puts his performance with Ferrari that day up there among his finest. He'd taken pole and led much of the way with the 512S he shared with Arturo Merzario - they'd been 11 laps up at one point - before the ailing gearbox packed up in the closing stages.

Contrary to the Sebring legend, however, he wasn't itching to get back out there aboard the sister car entered for Nino Vaccarella and Ignazio Giunti in which he went on to seal victory ahead of the Porsche 908/2 that McQueen co-drove with Peter Revson.

Andretti actually wanted to go home. He had his private plane standing by and there was the little matter of a drive in a Sprint Car race in Pennsylvania the following day. It was Ferrari technical boss Mauro Forghieri who suggested he might be needed again.

But it was the words of the circuit commentator that resulted in Andretti taking over the Vaccarella/Giunti 512S with 55 minutes of the race remaining. He was 'bigging' up the efforts of McQueen in the Porsche entered by the movie star's Solar Productions company that was running in second place behind the leading JW Automotive Porsche 917K driven by Pedro Rodriguez, Leo Kinnunen and Jo Siffert. In fact, it was Revson at the wheel of the 908/2.

"Hearing that sort of fired me up," recalls Andretti. "Steve was taking all the credit, but he was actually sitting on the pit counter and Revson had done the lion's share of the driving because he was so much quicker. Giunti was standing there ready to take over from Vaccarella, so I said, 'Do you mind if I have a go?'"

Andretti was a lap behind when he took the wheel, but he hauled the car back on a par with the leaders and was up to second ahead of Revson when Siffert brought the 917K into the pits with its second front-hub failure of the race.

Andretti still had work to do, however. Fifty-five minutes was more than a 512S had managed on a tank of fuel, which explained why the Ferrari pit was signalling Andretti to stop. But it was only when the fuel warning light came on during the penultimate lap that he came in. "In those cars you couldn't cheat another lap," he says.

Andretti is adamant that he came out of the pits behind Revson and had to repass him to seal the victory on the final lap. That contradicts contemporary reports suggesting that the Porsche was just coming around the final corner as the Ferrari screamed back out.
Whatever, it was a stunning performance from Andretti.

"I was like a man possessed once the factory car with Siffert stopped - it was the first time I ever did Turn 1 flat at Sebring," he says. "There was a tremendous satisfaction from that win, but I actually felt a bit sorry for 'Revvie' because he'd done so much work in that car."

8. Dyson misses its chance, 1997

The Sebring 12 Hours was the only big prize in North American sportscar racing to elude the Dyson Racing team. The best of its Riley & Scotts lost out to the winning Scandia Racing Ferrari 333SP by less than a minute in 1997 in one of a number of near-misses.

There had been little to choose between the Italian car shared by Yannick Dalmas, Stefan Johansson, Fermin Velez and team boss Andy Evans and Dyson's Ford-powered R&S MkIII driven by James Weaver, Andy Wallace and Butch Leitzinger. The race swung on a safety car in the closing stages.

Weaver made up much of the lost time, closing to within 16s of the Ferrari before diving into the pits at the end of the penultimate lap for a splash of fuel

Series organiser IMSA had changed its protocols over the course of the race after an error handed the Scandia car an advantage, though one that was quickly corrected by race control. It was then deemed that cars could pit the moment the yellows were thrown. At the final caution, Dalmas was on the back straight when the flags came out and was brought straight into the pits. Dyson didn't react so quickly and Wallace had to complete a slow lap behind the safety car.

Weaver made up much of the lost time, closing to within 16s of the Ferrari before diving into the pits at the end of the penultimate lap for a splash of fuel. That extended the Scandia car's advantage to 47s at the chequered flag. A golden opportunity had been lost.

7. Franchitti makes immediate amends, 2014

Chip Ganassi Racing didn't look like a race winner for much of the going in 2014, less so when Marino Franchitti looped the Riley-Ford EcoBoost DP he shared with Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas late in hour 10. But the Brit made amends, fighting a steadfast rearguard action over the final laps to seal a five-second victory.

Franchitti leapfrogged into the lead at the final safety car with 20 minutes left on the clock when the cars ahead of him pitted. The Ganassi driver made good use of the three cars between him and Extreme Speed Motorsports driver Ryan Dalziel in the queue when the greens flew, setting the Riley's fastest race lap along the way.

Dalziel, sharing ESM's HPD-Honda ARX-03b with Scott Sharp and David Brabham, closed to within three seconds in the final dash to the flag, but it wasn't enough.

6. Home hero denied, 1966

The very beginning and the very end of the 1966 edition of Sebring will be forever associated with the legend of Dan Gurney. The Shelby American Ford GT40 MkII he shared with Jerry Grant wouldn't fire at the beginning, putting the car to the back of the field. And, on the very last lap with victory seemingly in the bag, the engine seized, forcing Gurney to push the car across the line.

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The early delay turned out to be of little consequence. A wound-up Gurney charged through the field, overtaking 20-plus cars on the opening lap and getting into the lead inside two hours. He and Grant would be key players in an early skirmish in the Ford-versus-Ferrari battle of that season, one that raged for much of the 12 Hours.

The versatile American had victory ripped away from him on the very last lap when the Ford's big seven-litre V8 seized going down the back straight

A race marred by the death of Ford GT40 driver Bob McLean turned into a three-way scrap between the Gurney/Grant Ford, the sister car shared by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby, and the factory Ferrari 330 P3 driven by Mike Parkes and Bob Bondurant. It became a Ford-versus-Ford battle around three quarters of the way through, but Gurney had eked out a lead of a full lap by the final hour.

The versatile American had victory ripped away from him on the very last lap when the Ford's big seven-litre V8 seized going down the back straight. Gurney showed the strength of body and mind for which he was famous, pushing the car across the line in second place behind Miles and Ruby.

Gurney's herculean efforts were to no avail. Race officials deemed that pushing the car across the line was outside the regulations. There would be no place on the podium for the hero of Sebring 1966.

5. Unfavoured Audi has its best day, 2009

The R15 is the forgotten Audi of the German manufacturer's 17-year involvement in the LMP1 division, but one night in Florida in 2009 it was good enough to snatch victory away from Peugeot in the Sebring 12 Hours.

The French manufacturer's 908 HDi had the measure of its rival in the heat of the day but, when the temperatures dropped along with the sun, the tables were turned in favour of the car Allan McNish shared with Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello.

But not by much. When McNish got in the car for the run to the flag, he received a radio message saying that Sebastien Bourdais had just done a 1m43.5s in the leading Peugeot he shared with Franck Montagny and Stephane Sarrazin.

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"OK, I had a heavy fuel load but there was no way I could drag a 43 out of the car at that stage," recalls McNish. "But the team worked with the tools we had, things like tyre pressures and the traction control, to maximise what we had."

What they ended up with was a car that McNish describes as "blinding" and the "best-balanced prototype I ever drove".

That enabled him to build enough of a buffer after he took over at the front when the Peugeot came into the pits for the final time. McNish posted a series of laps below the pole position time in the knowledge that he would have to make a late splash-and-dash fuel stop. Victory was Audi's by an almost comfortable 22s.

4. The 'wrong' Nissan wins, 1990

The NPTI Nissan team (pictured in 1991) only intended for one of its two cars to run through the 12 Hours in 1990. But plans to park one of them had to be ripped up when both cars started to run hot early on. Fast forward to the end of the race, and both of the turbocharged beasts were involved in a thrilling race to the flag as the top three cars concertinaed in on each other.

The Nissan team's focus was on getting lead driver Geoff Brabham as many points as possible in the defence of his IMSA crown, so it switched him from the car he'd put on pole position to the sister entry initially driven by Derek Daly and Chip Robinson. But the plan went awry when Brabham brought the Nissan GTP-ZXT in with a holed radiator, with the loss of seven laps.

That meant it had to keep running its other car, into which Daly had moved to partner Bob Earl. That one wasn't in good shape, however. Daly, who drove for most of the second half of the race after his new team-mate fell ill, was struggling with overheating and a gearbox jumping out of fifth.

That allowed Jan Lammers in the best of the Jaguar XJR-12s to make inroads into the Nissan's advantage as the race entered its final hour. The delayed GTP-ZXT was making up ground in Robinson's hands before star driver Brabham took over for the run to the flag.

"It was the biggest win of my international career, but I knew when I was up there on the podium that it was the beginning of the end" Derek Daly

The Aussie preceded to lap at near qualifying pace in his efforts to catch up. He overhauled the Jaguar Lammers shared with Andy Wallace and Davy Jones, but couldn't get on terms with Daly. The winning margin ended up at 87s in what was the first Sebring in which three cars finished on the same lap.

Daly doesn't recall much about the race, partly he reckons because he completed in excess of seven hours across two cars: "I was so worn out that I had gone onto autopilot at the end."

The strongest recollection of the weekend from a driver who is still the only man to finish first and second in the same race is interesting.

"It was the biggest win of my international career, but I knew when I was up there on the podium that it was the beginning of the end," recalls Daly, who would hang up his helmet after Sebring two years later. "The buzz wasn't quite as big as it should have been."

3. A great drive and one blunder from TK, 2001

Tom Kristensen is, as the Americans say, the 'winningest' driver in Sebring history with a tally of six overall victories. Yet perhaps his greatest drive on the circuit went unrewarded in 2001.

Kristensen took 20 seconds out of race leader Dindo Capello in the sister Joest-run Audi R8 during the penultimate stint. When he didn't take on new tyres at the final round of stops, he leapfrogged into the lead aboard the car he co-drove with Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela.

The problem was that Kristensen's charge had been a little too amazing. He failed to slow enough as he barrelled into the pit entry and was penalised for pitlane speeding. That cleared the way for Capello, Laurent Aiello and Michele Alboreto (pictured) to take the win.

Kristensen has few regrets about the one that got away. Sebring that year would turn out to be Alboreto's final race before his death in an accident in testing later that season. For Capello, "Michele's smiley face up on the podium is one of the best memories of my career".

2. Kristensen versus McNish, 2005

Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish going at it in equal machinery over the final stages of the 2005 race was manna from heaven for sportscar fans. The duo put on the kind of show you would have expected in their respective Champion Racing Audi R8s, ending up just 6.365s apart in what was, at the time, the closest finish at Sebring.

Either might have won a closely-contested race that hinged on a late gamble by the crew of the #1 car Kristensen shared with JJ Lehto and Marco Werner. It turned the race in their favour and against McNish, Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela in the #2 entry.
Kristensen held a narrow lead going into the final round of pitstops, but he needed new tyres and McNish didn't.

"He had the advantage of the fresh tyres and was able to pull away. If I'd got ahead of him I would have been able to take the edge off his new-tyre run, which would have put us in a much better position" Allan McNish

That should have resulted in #2 taking the lead, if not in the pits then out on the circuit as the Dane got his Michelins up to temperature. But the #1 crew opted to short-fuel the car which, combined with a delay for McNish while a camera crew was shunted out of the way, ensured that their man got out of the pits with a small but crucial advantage.

"I needed to get past him before he got his tyres up to temperature," recalls McNish. "I was right on his rear wing through Turn 17 [the final corner], but by then it was too late.

"He had the advantage of the fresh tyres and was able to pull away. If I'd got ahead of him I would have been able to take the edge off his new-tyre run, which would have put us in a much better position."

Kristensen was able to use the advantage of new Michelins to build a gap. It was all but removed at the next stop, but the damage had been done to McNish's bid for victory.

1. Derani delivers for ESM, 2016

Pipo Derani had never so much as seen Sebring before pre-event testing ahead of the 12 Hours in 2016. Yet he left the famous bumpy airfield circuit in Florida as a hero after proving to be the decisive factor in the Extreme Speed Motorsports squad's victory.

The Brazilian, who was teamed with Scott Sharp, Johannes van Overbeek and Ed Brown in the ESM Ligier-Honda JSP2, arguably won the race twice over for the team. He shone on slick tyres on a damp track during the middle portion of the race to bring the car back into contention, and then came from fourth to take the lead in a frenetic 15-minute dash to the flag.

Derani took on the Continental slick tyre before anyone else after the race was restarted following a long stoppage. It proved crucial because, just as much of the opposition went to slicks, light drizzle returned.

"I told the guys on the radio, 'Hey, you said it was going to stop raining'," recalls Derani. "But it actually worked for us, because it wasn't bad enough to come in for wets. So we had the temperature in our tyres. It was a big moment in the race."

It kept ESM in contention for what turned out to be a grandstand finish through a quickfire sequence of three safety cars in the final hour. Derani was given fresh slicks during the middle stop, the Brazilian resuming fourth but 27th in the safety car queue. The final set of yellows shook up the pack and meant the top four were restarted in line-astern formation.

Derani went around the outside of Nicolas Lapierre in the third-placed DragonSpeed ORECA into Turn 1 at the restart, but he struggled to get on terms with the two Action Express Racing Coyote-Chevrolet Corvette DPs ahead of him.

"I thought, 'Now is my chance - when am I going to have the opportunity to win Sebring?'" Pipo Derani

"I was having difficulty getting temperature into the tyres," he recalls. "Those Continentals were difficult to warm up, but we'd decided to go into the final battle with our weapons sharp.

"All of a sudden the tyres came to life and I started to catch the Action cars. I thought, 'Now is my chance - when am I going to have the opportunity to win Sebring?'"

The ESM car went from third to first in the space of three laps as the race entered its final five minutes, passing first Filipe Albuquerque and then Dane Cameron at the Turn 7 hairpin.

"It was a life-changing race for me," says Derani. "I'd won the Daytona 24 Hours two months before, but I never really got the chance to show what I could do."