BMW Team RLL qualified a strong second and third for tomorrow’s Twelve Hours of Sebring, the final race of the 2020 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. With a lap of 1:56116-minutes around the 3.74-mile, 17-turn Sebring International Raceway, Connor De Phillippi qualified the No. 25 MOTUL BMW M8 GTE on the outside of the GTLM class front row. De Phillippi will co-drive with Bruno Spengler and Colton Herta. Jesse Krohn qualified the No. 24 MOTUL BMW M8 GTE in the third starting position with a lap time of 1:56.316-minutes. He will co-drive with John Edwards and Augusto Farfus. The BMWs qualified within .660 and .860 seconds respectively of the polesitting Corvette C8.R.
With the GTLM class title decided in the last round, BMW has its focus set on a strong runner-up finish in the championship standings as well as winning the Michelin Endurance Cup title. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the third season of IMSA competition for the BMW M8 GTE has been an outstanding one with a total of nine podium finishes, including victories at the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the six-hour Tirerack.com Grand Prix at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Robby Foley qualified the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 in the seventh GTD class starting position with a 2:02.210-minute lap – 1.366-seconds behind the polesitting Porsche 911 GT3 R. With Bill Auberlen scratched from the line-up due to a possible Covid-19 exposure, Nick Yelloly will co-drive with Foley, joined by the usual Turner third driver, Dillon Machavern.
The 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled to take the green flag at 10:10 a.m. EST tomorrow and will be broadcast live flag-to-flag on NBC’s Trackpass, a subscription streaming service. The race can be viewed on television from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. on NBCSN, from 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. on NBC, and from 6:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. on NBCSN. Follow us on Twitter @BMWUSARacing for news from the pit box and get live scoring and in-car camera views at IMSA.com.
Connor De Phillippi, driver No. 25 BMW M8 GTE (P2): “P2 is certainly a good place to start the 12 Hour. We have focused primarily on race pace this week and hopefully all our efforts will translate into the result we want – the win.”
Jesse Krohn, driver No. 24 BMW M8 GTE (P3): “We can be satisfied with today’s qualifying effort, but the results show we are still lacking a bit of pace to the Corvette. To echo what Connor said we have also focused on our race pace and it is nice to see we could run towards the front of the grid in today’s qualifying session.”
Source. BMW
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