SEBRING, Fla. (March 20, 2022) – CORE autosport survived a brutal 12 Hours of Sebring, finishing fifth. The legendary endurance event at Sebring International Raceway has historically been kind to the team, but this year it threw up hurdles at every turn.
All was going well in the initial hours of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race. George Kurtz and Jon Bennett had strong opening stints in the brutal humidity of the morning. Both drivers had the car in the top five before handing it over to Colin Braun who nearly took the lead before a full-course-yellow ended his charge.
Kurtz had no problem keeping the car in podium position for his second stint and Bennett kept the momentum going when it was his turn behind the wheel again.
Then it happened: Bennett suddenly slowed and came to a stop in Turn One. After some initial trouble getting restarted, Bennett did get going again, only for the car to lose power once more. This time the team took the car back to its paddock.
A faulty switch panel was the culprit, activating the engine kill function without any input. After replacing the panel, the No. 54 returned to the track in seventh, 12 laps off of the leader.
There were four hours left, but zero quit in the CORE camp.
Braun returned for another go behind the wheel of the No. 54 CrowdStrike/Flex-Box Ligier JS P320. Minor contact damaged a dive plane on the car’s nose and disturbed the handling. When Braun came in to hand the car off to Kurtz, the crew was able to replace the nose.
Kurtz was on cruise control in his final stint until a steering rack failure in Turn 17. Thankfully, Kurtz was able to keep the car under control enough to bring it onto pitlane. Once again, the car needed to go back to the paddock for the repair.
The team was able to replace the steering rack and return the car to the track with Braun behind the wheel and 90 minutes left on the race clock.
Braun brought the car across the finish line in fifth. A disappointing result perhaps, but a good points haul never the less.
CORE is back on track May 13 – 15 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.
Jon Bennett
Driver: No. 54 CrowdStrike / Flex-Box Ligier JS P320“It’s been a great event, but honestly it’s hard to have fun here at Sebring knowing that so many people are facing incredible struggles in Ukraine. We did have a good start to the day, and I think in many ways we were actually doing better than last year when we won, in terms of pace and fortune. Racing is racing and we began to have a little bit of an engine miss and then a complete electric failure twice. The CORE team did an incredible job diagnosing it and fixing it, but 12 laps was a bit too much for us to overcome. Colin and George’s pace were excellent, but sometimes racing just goes like that. Now we look forward to Mid-Ohio.”
Colin Braun
Driver: No. 54 CrowdStrike / Flex-Box Ligier JS P320“Overall I’m just super proud of the guys. We had to overcome a lot of obstacles. I’m really proud of the guys for hanging in there. It was a great job by Jon and George in the car. We were right where we needed to be; on the lead lap, hanging in there, but it wasn’t meant to be today. We still salvaged good points though and I’m really proud of this CORE autosport team.”
George Kurtz
Driver: No. 54 CrowdStrike / Flex-Box Ligier JS P320“I thought we had a great car and a great shot at the podium. We kept it on the lead lap for seven hours and that was exactly our plan: keep it on the lead lap and hand it over to Colin at the end to do his thing. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way today with a few gremlins.
“That was a difficult stint (his final stint). My microphone wasn’t working, and I couldn’t radio the team with what was going on. The steering rack broke into Turn 17, which was quite a challenge, but luckily, I got it back and nothing happened to the car and we were able to fix it and get back out there. It was really that switch panel that caused the big delay and put us out of contention unfortunately.”