Chip Ganssi Racing and Porsche North America were the big winners in the pro classes at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Marino Franchitti took the No.01 Ganassi machine to victory lane – holding off fellow Scotsman Ryan Dalziel in the ESM HPD entry. Franchitti also won here last year in LMP. He is joined in victory lane by veteran Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.

The Ganassi crew were able to pit before the final safety car period, allowing them to gain vital track postion. On the restart, Franchitti was chased by Dalziel but held on to the finish.

“This is a team effort, 12 hours, all the guys working together,” veteran Pruett said.

“The car was a wreck for a while, just trying to hang on to it. The last time I won in class was with Ford in ‘86 and to come back and win with Ford is special. This is a special win because its not one that I’ve been able to win. And sometimes you think you’re not going to get a chance, but to come with this team and put in all the effort. You could see we struggled at Daytona, and we started putting in the effort.

“Our guys have been working 14 hours a day for 7 days a week, they gave up Christmas and New Years just to be ready for this season and get this car ready. This is far beyond the traffic of Daytona for 24 hours. It’s quite challenging and narrow. And if you look at the caliber of the drivers out there, some of what we saw was really shocking. Technically Daytona is easier, and its wide, and you can rest a bit on the banking.

“Here you have to be on your toes, you have to stay alert, and you can lose it coming in and out. I think it might be difficult for the fans because of all the yellow, but when you start this many cars on this kind of track, I was expecting this because with this many cars, there is that much differential in speeds and abilities.”

Porsche North America’s brilliant start to the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship continued at Sebring with the No.912 victorious in GT Le Mans. After missing out at Daytona, this time it was Pat Long, Joerg Bergmeister and pole winner Michael Christensen in victory lane.

They held off the SRT Viper of Jonathan Bomarito, Kuno Wittmer and Rob Bell with the BMW of Joey Hand, Bill Auberlen and Andy Prixaulx in third place.

Other class winners included CORE autosport in PC who took their second win in a row for Jon Bennett, Colin Braun and James Gue. The GT Daytona winners were the Magnus Racing Porsche of Andy Lally, John Potter and Marcus Seefried.

[results date=”Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, FL March. 13-15″]
GTLM||Long/Bergmeister/Christensen||#911 Porsche North America – Porsche 911 RSR-Michelin
P||Pruett/Rojas/Franchitti||#01 Chip Ganassi Racing – Riley Ford Ecoboost
PC||Bennett/Braun/Gue||#54 CORE autosport – Oreca FLM09
GTD||Potter/Lally/Seefried||#44 Magnus Racing – Porsche GT America
[/results]