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Nasr Delievers, Wins 12 Hours of Sebring in Porsche 1-2Porsche Motorsport / X
Felipe Nasr won the 12 Hours of Sebring in the No. 7 Porsche Penske 963 ahead of his teammate Kevin Estre in the No. 6 963 Saturday evening after some heated moments following a command to switch positions.
Nasr and his two new teammates for 2026, Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich, drove the No. 7 Porsche Penske to its second consecutive victory of the 2026 season, with Nasr winning the unofficial ‘Florida 36 Hours’ for the second year in a row. Nasr was behind the wheel of the winning No. 7 Porsche Penske 963 for its win in the 2025 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring, and he’s matched it this year to bring the team their 19th and 20th overall victories.
Coming into the final stint, the Porsche Penskes made a strategy split, with the No. 7 of Nasr pitting first and maintaining the lead as the No. 6 of Estre got fresh tires. Nasr was running up front when the garage radioed him to tell him to pull away from the field with the sister car and then switch, putting the No. 6 car in the lead.
The request to move did not go over well for Nasr, but the switch was made. Later in the run, the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series. R was cutting into the lead of the two 963s.
While Estre had the tire advantage and the go-ahead, Nasr had the lap times to prove the No. 7 car deserved to be in the lead.
“Do you want to lose this race?” Nasr said over the radio.
With an hour and five minutes remaining at the first opportunity post swap, Nasr passed Estre for the lead. Now in second place, Estre found himself in trouble with Jack Aiken, battling for the second spot to ruin a marquee day for the Porsche Penske team.
When asked about his decision to battle Estre and reclaim the lead after the swap was made
"Well, I have the rights to say I wasn't happy and I did everything they said to do and we had people coming and I don't want to lose the race," Nasr told Peacock. "I want to win for the team, and that's what I did today."
Estre nearly lost it while running second through traffic with Aiken chasing. A few minutes later, battling more.The No. 6 was handed a penalty for short-cutting the course and was told to switch positions with the No. 31 Cadillac in third.
Estre then had to battle the No. 31 Cadillac Wheelen, and in doing so opened up an opportunity for Sheldon van der Linde to nudge in the nose of his No. 24 BMW M Team WRT and try to make the battle three-wide. Estre returns to second with his teammate now five seconds pulled ahead.
With 32 minutes remaining, the No. 912 Porsche GTD entry brought out what would be the final caution of the race, setting up Sebring as a sprint to the checkers for the four classes.
The racing resumed with 17 minutes remaining, with the top three of the Porsche Penske 963 and the Whelen Cadillac unchanged. The Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillacs were able to improve their positions to fourth and fifth ahead of the restart after a quiet 11 and a half hours.
Ultimately, Nasr finished the race 1.515 seconds ahead of his teammate Estre. On the final lap, the No. 10 WTR Cadillac passed its technical partners in the No. 31 for the final spot on the podium. Aitken and the No. 31 team fell to fourth following their runner-up finish at Daytona and pole for Sebring.
In the final 30 minutes, Tom Blomqvist powered the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 to fifth, ahead of van der Linde in the No. 24 BMW and the No. 40 Cadillac.
United Autosports also achieved a 102 finish at Sebring in the LMP2 class with the No. 2 of Fayer beating the No. 22 sister ORECA LMP2 07 car.
Following the issues with its sister car that brought out the final caution, the Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R beat the fellow No. 77 Porsche of AO Racing for the GTDPro victory.
In the most exciting of the four classes, Antonio Fuoco rebounded from three penalties, two of which were drivethroughs, to win the GTD class driving the No. 21 Ferrari 296 GT3 EVo like a man possessed for the final 17 minutes from seventh to victory.
Fuoco hunted down Tom Gamble, with under two minutes before the white flag waved, and attempted to make a pass in turn 17, but was unable to secure his lead out of the corner. On the final lap, it looked like Gamble was going to be able to hold off the hard-charging Ferrari, but he made a small bobble in turn 10 that Fuoco could convert into his race-winning pass.
"On the last lap, they had only a small mistake in turn 10. I saw the opportunity, and I tried to go on the outside," Fuoco told the Peacock broadcast. "So it was a really tough and fun race."
The four classes will all race next on April 16th as the run companion with IndyCar at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
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