The B Pillar put together this incredible box plot of lap performance at the Sebring 12. Keep in mind, it looks like this data was generated from each driver's top 20 laps.
Source:
My thoughts:
Alexander Sims might be the most underrated driver on BMW's roster. I forgot the poor guy's name when I met him at Rolex 24. He extracted more performance from the #25 car than some other BMW drivers with very strong credentials. Let's hope BMW can hold on to him.
The #24 and #25 car suffered dismal performance in the race. Only Sims was able to salvage anything that could even challenge the bottom half of the GTLM line-up.
Antonio Garcia's 20th fastest lap is faster than any lap turned by a BMW M6 GTLM the entire race. The M6 GTLM is the only car on the grid that was shut out under this criteria
In GTLM, the fastest lap of the race was 117.8 seconds, set by Patrick Pilet in the #911 car. Looking at fastest laps the spread was:
- +0.00s : #911 Porsche 911 RSR (Patrick Pilet)
- +0.10s : #68 Ford GT (Stefan Mucke)
- +0.20s : #66 Ford GT (Joey Hand)
- +0.30s : #3 Corvette C7.R (Antonio Garcia)
- +0.30s : #67 Ford GT (Richard Westbrook)
- +0.40s : #4 Corvette C7.R (Tommy Milner)
- +0.60s : #912 Porsche 911 RSR (Kevin Estre)
- +0.70s : #62 Ferrari 488 GTE (James Calado)
- +1.10s : #25 BMW M6 GTLM (Alexander Sims)
- +1.30s : #24 BMW M6 GTLM (Nicky Catsburg)
Just
look at Patrick Pilet's laps when he's pushing. The #911 car's fastest qualifying lap was 116.4 seconds (set by Dirk Werner; a former BMW driver, btw). Pilet put in some real hero laps towards the end.
This is Vanthoor's first year driving for Porsche. While Porsche are renowned for winning races, they're also renowned for requiring a slightly different driving style. Looks like Vanthoor might be finding his footing.
The spread in lap time distribution between Antonio Garcia and the rest of the #3 team is... uh... striking.