DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – First it was a crack in an exhaust manifold, then it was a malfunctioning gearbox. But what happened before those mechanical problems at Daytona is serving as motivation for Sebring.
The speed they showed before the trouble in January at the Rolex 24 At Daytona – including a win in the Motul Pole Award 100 qualifying race – is motivating drivers Felipe Nasr, Pipo Derani, Mike Conway and the crew for the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R as they prepare for next week’s 69th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts.
“All in all, I think we’re going to be in good shape,” Nasr said. “It was just a misfortune (at Daytona), but I’m pretty sure Sebring will be a different story and we’re going to have a pretty competitive car. … I can’t wait to show up next week and prove it all.”
That confidence comes from the team’s recent success at Sebring International Raceway and an encouraging test last week at the 17-turn, 3.74-mile circuit.
“We’re taking the race pace at Daytona together with the fact that we’ve always been quick at Sebring and had a good test last week,” Derani said. “We’re turning that into positive thinking.”
The team had already worked through the exhaust problem in the opening hours of the Rolex 24 on Jan. 30-31 and didn’t find it a threat to contending for victory. But as Nasr shifted from third to fourth gear early in the morning, the car emitted a loud noise and lost drive.
“It came without warning,” Nasr said of the gearbox issue that necessitated a lengthy repair and saddled the No. 31 with a sixth-place Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class finish, 24 laps off the pace. “It was just one of those days. Racing can go both ways. It was hard to accept it. I’ve been around racing for a long time, and sometimes you just don’t have control over these things.”
A few weeks later, they’ve regained control. The two-day test last week at Sebring went well, with no recurring issues and the No. 31 car’s typical speed.
“It was good to go out testing last week,” Nasr said. “We were able to check off some of those boxes and take away any uncertainty about parts we have in the car. Everything ran pretty smooth.”
It’s not uncommon for the Nasr, Derani and No. 31 Action Express Racing entry to be smooth at Sebring. Derani has won the race three times – in 2016, ‘18 and ‘19 – and Nasr teamed with Derani in the No. 31 Cadillac to win in 2019. Last year, they won the Cadillac Grand Prix of Sebring sprint race in July and were in contention for much of the Twelve Hours in November.
“It’s a place any driver loves to drive, and we’ve had success there in the past – not very long ago, to be exact,” Derani said. “We were fighting for the lead last year almost until the end. It gives us the confidence and boost that we need to go get another win at Sebring.”
Cadillac, too, knows success at Sebring, having the 2019 victory and a 2017 victory by Wayne Taylor Racing to its credit. The car, drivers say, seems to have a knack for Sebring’s notorious bumpy surface.
“The bumps help a little bit,” Derani said. “We have a little bit of extra weight, so I think it helps us cope with the bumps better. It seems like we have a good car at Sebring, so we need to take advantage of that. The competition is very high and difficult, of course, so you don’t take anything for granted.”
In other words, it’s back to business as usual.
“I don’t think the objective is going to be any different,” Nasr said. “It’s to show up there and show the strength of our car.”