A year ago at this time, Fred Poordad was in the early stages of recovery after he was injured in a crash at the Bathurst 12-hour race in Australia.

“I ran a Nissan GT-R at Bathurst in the 12-hour last year, and really didn’t have much time to get into the car before the event,” Poordad recalled on Tuesday at Sebring International Raceway, where he was testing the No. 20 Wright Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup machine. “In fact, not at all before the event, just the practice there. So, it was a new car, new track and I’d never been there before.

“I was having a really awesome time and a great run until I had a little mishap coming down the mountain and clipped a wall and went into another one. Unfortunately, it left me with some back and neck injuries and I spent six months rehabbing.”

Poordad admitted there were times along the way where he didn’t know if he’d ever return to the cockpit, but there he was on Tuesday, preparing for the upcoming Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama season, which opens next month at Sebring International Raceway. And beyond just turning laps in the car, the Platinum Cup Masters driver was right on pace with some of the quickest drivers on the racetrack.

“I’m feeling pretty good now,” he said shortly before the start of the day’s second session of the test day. “I wanted to get back in the car to see if the passion and energy were still there. So far, so good. I’m enjoying it. There’s nothing like being in a Porsche.”

Poordad was getting acclimated to the new Antilock Braking System (ABS) that will be used by Platinum Cup Masters drivers this season. He was skeptical going in, but is optimistic that by adding ABS, it could raise the level of competition throughout the series.

“I was actually one of the guys that was disappointed that we were going to bring ABS onboard, but I think if it makes the series better and makes people more competitive, then I think it’s a good thing overall,” Poordad said. “I think it’ll take a couple of events to really understand it and change your driving style a little bit. I think it’ll be a positive. We’ll see how the young guys who don’t have ABS, what they think of it if some of the old guys are mixing it up with them.”

The Sebring Test is open to the public. There is no admission charge on Wednesday, and admission is $10 per day on Thursday and Friday. Fans who have purchased tickets for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring will be admitted free.

P1 Motorsports Tops IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda Charts On Opening Day of Sebring Test

With it’s shop located just over 100 miles southeast of Sebring International Raceway in Coconut Creek, Florida, P1 Motorsports used a little hometrack advantage to hit the ground running Tuesday on the opening day of a two-day IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda test at the historic circuit.

One week after conducting a private test at Sebring with the team’s No. 25 Ligier JS P3, Joel Janco and Kenton Koch unofficially posted the top time in each of the day’s two practice sessions. Eight prototypes from the LMP3 and Mazda Prototype Challenge (MPC) classes turned laps on the day.

“It was kind of the perfect place to test before a test, and then the race,” said Koch. “For the most part the car was hooked up at the end of that test. We tried some little things in the morning today and ended up just going back to where we were.

“I’m really happy with everything, the car’s really hooked up and Joel’s doing great too. All the practice is really paying off. I’m happy to be a part of it, it’s really been a treat to be a part of this program.”

The day’s lone incident came early in the first session when the No. 44 Ave Motorsports Ave-Riley AR2 of Gary Gibson made contact with the tire barrier in Turn 16. The team made repairs and returned to the track midway through the afternoon session.

The series will have one final session tomorrow at 8 a.m. before returning for the Sebring race weekend March 14-16. The second round of the IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda is Friday, March 16 at 9:20 a.m. ET, live on IMSA.com.

Dontje Making Most of First Sebring Visit, Continental Tire Challenge Opportunity

While most IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge drivers in attendance for this week’s test at Sebring International Raceway have raced or tested at the iconic circuit previously, it’s a whole new experience for Dutch driver Indy Dontje.

But that’s not stopping him from making an early first impression in the Grand Sport (GS) class. Driving the No. 57 Winward Racing/HTP Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4, Dontje unofficially posted one of the top five times in Tuesday’s morning practice session, the first of three scheduled for the Continental Tire Challenge across two days.

“I got my rhythm and put a good lap time together and it’s quite bumpy in some places, but it’s a nice, quick track and I think this will suit the Mercedes a bit more than Daytona,” said Dontje. “I was really happy with my pace and I’m really excited to be here in Sebring. I’ve heard a lot of stories about it, so I wanted to know the track and see and hear everything.”

As of now, Sebring is one of four races in 2018 that Dontje will contest for Winward Racing/HTP Motorsport. His first was the BMW Endurance Challenge last month at Daytona in which he and co-driver Bryce Ward brought home a fifth-place finish.

His background includes go-karts, Formula 4, Formula 3 and then GT racing in GT3 endurance races and GT Masters. Dontje was approached by HTP to test the new Mercedes-AMG GT4 in 2017 and made his United States debut at the 24-hour race at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas last October.

“Sometimes it’s a bit difficult if you look at regulations, and I experienced everything at Daytona,” said Dontje, on adjusting to racing in the United States compared to Europe. “The team itself, it’s good because we have a partnership with HTP, so there are some European mechanics here with me…We have a sort of mixture of all the guys. We have the experienced guys from Europe, we have the experienced guys from the U.S. It’s cool, you know?”

And to help with any learning curve that comes with driving the American circuits, Dontje has already found his go-to guy.

“Sometimes I use the experience of (teammate) Damien (Faulkner),” said Dontje. “He’s an experienced guy here, so sometimes if I felt like I have a big question, I ask him because he knows his way around.”

Two-time Formula 1 champion was taking the positives away from his first appearance in a sportscar race, despite only finishing 38th in a trouble-filled Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The Spaniard had a strong start to his first endurance race, leading briefly during the early pit-stop phase and running fifth as night fell over Florida. However, a puncture which caused other damage and then brake problems during the hours under lights dropped him and his team of fellow McLaren driver Lando Norris and Phil Hanson down the order.

Eventually, their United Autosports Ligier would end 90 laps down on the winning Action Express Cadillac, who set a new distance record in the process, but that didn't deter Alonso who recently rated a run at the Le Mans 24 Hours later this year as 50/50.

"I think have a positive feeling and a positive situation about the race. I think unfortunately we had too many issues that were out of our control, some unlucky situations," the 36-year-old said in reflection.

"It was a very nice experience, the whole event, the test, qualy, the restarts, the stints, the fatigue, at night, the transition from night to day. It was one of my stints, it was very nice being on-track at that time. I really enjoyed the traffic management and the car itself."

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Alonso felt a podium could have been within grasp without the problems, which at one stage saw his brakes fail at 190mph as he prepared to enter the infield section of the oval.

"It was a little bit of a surprise, a little bit unlucky. Even our sister car could have been on the podium, clearly," he claimed. 

"We could have been there, even one lap ahead of them in that moment, so I think we lost our opportunity here, but I have a positive outcome, even with all the issues. I really did enjoy it a lot.

"I love driving, and when you drive for eight or nine hours in one race, it’s much better than one. That’s a very good feeling, driving 24 hours."

Asked about those moments at the end of the oval banking, he added:  "It happened two times at the first corner, so you are at 300, 310 kph, and then you hit the brakes and there are no brakes. Luckily there is the shortcut there.

"At night you don’t see clearly the tyre wall and where there is this escape road, so that was even more scary. It is the way it is.  tried to get the car back to the garage because you know the next race they have and the mechanics will sort the problem."

While the Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts is slightly less than a month away, Sebring International Raceway will host a plethora of IMSA competitors this week with a four-day test that begins Tuesday.

Tuesday and Wednesday will feature race cars from the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama and the Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama. The cars and stars of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be on track Thursday and Friday.

A total of 18 cars have been entered for Continental Tire Challenge testing – 16 from the Grand Sport (GS) class and two TCR machines. There are six Mercedes-AMG race cars on the GS entry list, four Ford Mustang GT4s, three McLaren GT4s and one each from Porsche, BMW and Aston Martin. In TCR, there is one Volkswagen and one Audi. There will be a total of three Continental Tire Challenge sessions this week, two on Tuesday and one on Wednesday afternoon.

The Continental Tire Challenge entry list features eight Floridians: Guy Cosmo in the No. 4 Team TGM Mercedes-AMG, who hails from Palm Beach Gardens; Alan Brynjolfsson from Tampa in the No. 7 VOLT Racing Mustang; James Cox, of Nokomis, in the No. 38 BGB Motorsports Porsche Cayman GT4 MR; Orlando’s Paul Holton in the No. 76 Compass Racing McLaren; Tyler Cooke, of Ft. Lauderdale, in the No. 82 BimmerWorld Racing BMW M4 GT4; Ramin Abdolvahabi in the No. 09 Automatic Racing Aston Martin Vantage; and a pair of Floridians sharing the No. 75 Compass Racing Audi RS3 LMS TCR, Roy Block from Winter Park and Pierre Kleinubing, who hails from Coconut Creek.

The IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda, which opened its season with a one-hour, 45-minute race at Daytona International Speedway during the Roar Before the Rolex 24 At Daytona last month, will have eight entries for its three on-track sessions at Sebring. There will be six LMP3 cars and two Mazda Prototype Challenge (MPC) entries, with one Floridian – Joel Janco, from Key Largo, in the No. 25 P1 Motorsports Ligier JS P3.

The Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA and Canada series will run together for three sessions at the test on Tuesday and Wednesday – just as they will when they kick off their respective 2018 seasons next month at Sebring – with a total of 11 entries between them. Canadian driver Roman De Angelis, who won the season-opening IMSA Prototype Challenge Presented by Mazda race at Daytona, and 2018 IMSA Hurley Haywood Scholarship winner Max Root – of San Diego, California – highlight the GT3 Cup entries.

A total of 35 WeatherTech Championship cars are expected when testing kicks off Thursday morning, led by 14 Prototype class entries. Among them are 2018 Rolex 24 At Daytona winners Filipe Albuquerque, Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R and 2017 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Prototype winners Jordan and Ricky Taylor.

Jordan Taylor will share the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R with his new-for-2018 full-season co-driver Renger van der Zande, while Ricky Taylor has moved to the No. 7 Acura Team Penske Acura ARX-05 DPi race car with three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and IndyCar star Graham Rahal as his co-drivers.

The GT Le Mans (GTLM) class includes eight entries at the test, including 2018 Rolex 24 At Daytona class winners Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook and Scott Dixon in the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT. Corvette Racing, which has won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring the past three years, is bringing one car to the test, the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R for co-drivers Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler.

The GT Daytona (GTD) class features a 13-car entry list, led by the No. 93 Michael Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 with 2017 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring GTD winner Mario Farnbacher co-driving alongside Justin Marks – fresh from a 12th-place finish in Sunday’s Daytona 500 – and Lawson Aschenbach.

Also on the GTD entry list are two-time defending series champions Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan – who also are past Sebring winners. Nielsen will share the No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R with Patrick Long, Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet, while Balzan is in the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 with Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette.

The WeatherTech Championship will have a total of five sessions – three on Thursday, including the inaugural night session of the annual February test from 7 to 9 p.m. ET, and two more on Friday.

The strong pace shown by Cadillac, which led every session throughout the first two days of the Roar Before The 24 At Daytona test, carried into Sunday’s inaugural Roar qualifying session.

The new-for-2018 qualifying sessions establish the garage and pit locations each team will use during the Rolex 24 At Daytona race weekend on Jan. 25-28.

Leading the way in a back-and-forth 15-minute session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype class was Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R with a best time of 1 minute, 35.806 seconds (133.764 mph). Nasr was first in a top-four sweep for Cadillac, which is looking for its second consecutive Rolex 24 win after taking its debut race last year.

“All I have to say, is we as a team, Action Express and Cadillac, we brought the car out there to run the most amount of laps,” Nasr said. “We were really getting into it and preparing for the race, because we know this weekend is more a part of what is going to come at the end of the month. We all felt pretty confident. We felt the car was behaving well.

“Today in qualifying, all I have to say, is myself and Filipe (Albuquerque), that was driving our sister car, we gave everything we had. The times were pretty close. There are some cars out there that aren’t showing fully what they can do, but I know we are. I’m pretty happy with what we have right now.”

Nasr is pleased to be back racing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, a race that put him on the map somewhat when he earned a ride in the 2012 race as winner of what was then the “Sunoco Rolex 24 At Daytona Challenge” by taking the 2011 British Formula 3 title.

His performance in that race, which netted a third-place result, was impressive and paved the way for a career that ultimately took him into Formula 1. This year, he will race full-time in the WeatherTech Championship alongside 2016 Prototype champion Eric Curran in the No. 31 machine. For the Rolex 24, they welcome Mike Conway and this year’s Sunoco Whelen Challenge winner, Stuart Middleton, who is following in Nasr’s footsteps.

“There’s so many other things I got to experience here in a positive way – the racing, the people – it really opened up the doors for me here,” Nasr said. “I became friends since then with everyone. I knew with a phone call to my American friends that I could be coming back to the race and that’s what I thought early on. As soon as I had a brief adventure in F1, let’s put it this way, I had great fun, but I knew this championship was always going to go up.

“I feel this year we have such a strong lineup of teams and drivers and everyone pushing each other that it’s going to be great. For a racing driver to be in an environment like this, and teams pushing each other, there’s nothing better than that. It’s really great to be involved.”

Second quickest in Prototype qualifying was Tristan Vautier in the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R with a time of 1:36.037 (133.442 mph). While the team has participated for several years in the WeatherTech Championship Prototype class, it is a newcomer to the Cadillac camp in 2018 after fielding LM P2 race cars last year. Vautier is sharing the car with full-season teammate Matt McMurry and endurance driver Eddie Cheever III.

“It was good,” Vautier said. “All the Caddy teams, we came here with a good spirit. We want to show IMSA what we have and we pushed flat out the whole test, just because we want to maximize everything for the race and we think it is the right thing to do. We all pushed each other. I think it’s good because it helps us all to learn about the car and go get those last tenths we can find in the setups. For us at Spirit of Daytona, it’s been good, because the first time the car hit the ground was January 2. Things have been pretty straightforward.”

Albuquerque was third in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac he shares with Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi with a best lap of 1:36.135 (133.306 mph). Renger van der Zande was fourth at 1:36.481 (132.828 mph) in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac, co-driving with past IndyCar champion and Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay, and defending race and series champion Jordan Taylor.

Dane Cameron rounded out the top five in the No. 6 Acura Team Penske Acura ARX-05 DPi car. Cameron’s best lap was a 1:36.988 (132.188 mph) in the car he shares with Juan Pablo Montoya and Simon Pagenaud.

Hand Leads GTLM Roar Qualifying in No. 66 Ford GT

In three weeks, Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller and Sebastien Bourdais will go for their second consecutive Rolex 24 At Daytona victory for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing in the No. 66 Ford GT. The title defense got off to a strong start at the Roar, as Hand was the fastest qualifier in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class with a best lap of 1:43.610 (123.688 mph).

“You’re always trying to win practice, but especially trying to win qualifying,” Hand said. “We went for it. We struggled with our balance of the car a little bit this weekend from the December test. We really liked it. Dirk and Seabass (Sebastien Bourdais) and I were just bouncing it all weekend. We got it closer this morning, we think maybe it’s the temperature, and we made a change right between the practice and qualifying.

“We wanted to see how aggressive we could get. It was a better car, but it still needs to be a better race car. We’re happy with the progress. To finish out the Roar, I think we’re OK looking to come back. You never know what temperature you’re going to get when you come back, so you don’t want to really tune too much here, but you do want to learn some things that are right and wrong, but yeah, I’ll take it. Somebody’s got to do it, so I guess I can handle it.”

Oliver Gavin posted the second quickest time in GTLM, turning a 1:43.640 (123.653 mph) lap in the No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R he’s sharing with Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler. Ryan Briscoe was third in the No. 67 Ford GT at 1:43.714 (123.564 mph), followed by Earl Bamber in the No. 912 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR at 1:43.888 (123.357 mph) and defending WeatherTech Championship GTLM champion Antonio Garcia at 1:43.998 (123.227 mph).

The top six GTLM cars qualified within one second.

Lamborghini Maintains Torrid GTD Pace as Bortolotti Qualifies Fastest

Lamborghini Huracán GT3s have been at or near the top of the time charts throughout the Roar Before the Rolex 24, including the class’ fastest overall lap of the weekend of 1:47.104 (119.653 mph) set in Friday’s first session by Rolf Ineichen in the No. 11 GRT Grasser Racing Team entry.

It was more of the same in Sunday’s qualifying session in which Ineichen’s teammate, Mirko Bortolotti, posted the fastest time of 1:47.374 (119.352 mph), securing prime garage space and pit selections for the No. 11 team that also includes drivers Franck Perera and Rik Breukers.

“It’s good to be back at Daytona,” Bortolotti said. “We are not a regular team for the season, but for me, it’s already the third time coming back to Daytona, so it’s always good to be here. For the team, it’s the second time after the race we did last year. We’ve got a good garage spot for the race. Let’s see what kind of benefit we will have out of it.

“Obviously, the race is in two-and-a-half, three weeks’ time, so we’ve got a lot of work in front of us. Hopefully, we can keep this up and go for a strong result.”

Andy Lally qualified second in GTD in his return to the No. 44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 after spending the 2017 WeatherTech Championship season with Michael Shank Racing’s Acura NSX program. Lally posted a best time of 1:47.436 (119.284 mph) in the car he shares with owner/driver John Potter, endurance teammate Andrew Davis and Audi factory ace Markus Winkelhock.

Patrick Long was third in GTD at 1:47.481 (119.234 mph) in the No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. This lineup includes two-time and defending WeatherTech Championship GTD champion Christina Nielsen, along with Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet. Alvaro Parente was fourth in the No. 86 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura NSX GT3 at 1:47.605 (119.096 mph), followed by Ryan Eversley in the No. 69 HART Acura NSX at 1:47.665 (119.030 mph).