The Latest Breaking News from Laurens Vanthoor

Despite having the largest presence in the Hypercar field at four cars, three works Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s and an additional customer car for Jota, Porsche's hopes of challenging for victory were wrecked by a series of accidents and reliability dramas.

Taking over the #51 Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar that Alessandro Pier Guidi drove to second in Hyperpole, Calado whisked to a time of 3m27.275s shortly before Jean-Eric Vergne’s #93 Peugeot 9X8 LMH brought out the red flags when it stopped between the two Mulsanne Chicanes.

Urs Kuratle, project leader on the 963, described last Sunday’s Le Mans test day as “definitely satisfying” after a Porsche was in the top three in the times in both sessions on Sunday.

Giovinazzi found two tenths on a second quick lap aboard his Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar to leapfrog AF Corse team-mate Miguel Molina and Kobayashi right at the end of the 15-minute Hypercar session.

After the latest Porsche 992-based iteration of the 911 GT3 R was left way off the pace following the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, IMSA corrected its Balance of Performance for Sebring, and the Weissach machines were back in the hunt for GTD Pro and GTD victory.

The two factory Porsche Penske Motorsport cars finished fifth and sixth in the Hypercar class at the end of eight hours of racing at the Sebring International Raceway, trailing the dominant Toyota GR010 Hybrids by a worrying margin of four laps.

Apart from a pitlane speeding penalty, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Louis Deletraz had a seemingly comfortable race until a series of late restarts embroiled them in a battle with the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport car of Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy and Dane…

Apart from a pitlane speeding penalty, the #10 Acura of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Louis Deletraz had a seemingly comfortable race until a series of late restarts embroiled them in a battle with the #6 Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy and Dane Cameron.

The #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez beat the sister #8 entry of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa at Sebring International Raceway’s WEC opener.