How Tandy’s latest record win was a very different victory for Porsche

Nick Tandy, Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor made it two from two in the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship last weekend. The Porsche Penske Motorsport trio completed the ‘Florida 36 Hours’ when they added victory at Sebring over 12 hours to their 24-hour triumph at Daytona in January. And with it came another record for Tandy: he joined the select group of drivers to have claimed the unofficial triple crown of endurance racing by adding an overall Sebring crown to his Le Mans and Daytona successes.

On the face of it, Sebring looked like a repeat of Daytona: the same PPM Porsche 963 LMDh took the victory, the sister car was in the top three (second, not third this time) and an Acura claimed the other podium spot. That’s not to forget another sublime performance from the factory Penske squad. “Just like Daytona we didn’t get any penalties, have any contacts or any technical problems,” said Tandy. “It was another flawless race.”

Yet this was in fact a very different race. The Porsche was the fastest car around the 3.74-mile Sebring International Raceway, nip and tuck with the best of the entries from Cadillac for much of the way but then with a clear advantage when it mattered in the cooler temperatures after darkness had fallen. That wasn’t the case at Daytona: BMW, remember, could and arguably should have won the IMSA season-opener.

PLUS: How BMW’s Daytona disappointment created a lopsided Porsche win battle

And this time, the winning #7 factory Porsche had a significant edge over the sister car shared by Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Kevin Estre, a car that didn’t lead a lap at Sebring. Seven weeks previously on the high banks of Daytona, #6 was at least its match, the chance of victory effectively disappearing when PPM opted for a strategy split at the last pitstop.

It would be churlish to say it was easy for Tandy, Nasr and Vanthoor, not when the gap between the two Porsches at the chequered flag was just 2.2 seconds. But there was none of the jeopardy of Daytona, no real threat from the sister car or another manufacturer in the final dash to the line.

When the race went green after the seventh and final safety car – which compared with last year’s 12 – Nasr was able to edge away from Jaminet, who in turn had the measure of Nick Yelloly aboard the #93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 LMDh. Porsche’s big challenger for much of the race wasn’t in the mix.

That car was the Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh shared by Earl Bamber, Jack Aitken and Frederik Vesti. It led almost as many of the 353 laps on Saturday as the winning Porsche — 155 versus 166 – but a divergent strategy over the final hours left it fifth in the queue in Bamber’s hands at the final restart and then fourth at the flag.

Vesti had led out of the pits during the penultimate pitstop with three hours to go, but stopped eight minutes before Tandy. The car’s next stop was nine minutes earlier after Bamber had taken over. That left it fourth behind the two Porsches and the #25 Rahal BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh with Marco Wittmann at the wheel prior to the final set of yellows.

That was a net third, given that the BMW needed to splash for fuel. Action Express opted to bring in Bamber, too, in the hope that with fresh Michelin rubber under him he might be able to do something against the Porsche.

“We’d looked at last year’s race and boxed thinking that new tyres was the right option and would give us enough of an advantage to come back at the Porsches,” explained Bamber. “But we just couldn’t make our way through.” His problem was that he took nine laps to get past Neel Jani in the privateer Proton Competition Porsche.

What wasn’t clear is whether the Action car needed to stop for fuel at the final yellow. Its previous pitcall had come with an hour and three minutes left on the clock, which would have meant a splash had the race run green through the last hour. It does appear that there was some kind of fuel system issue, one yet to be clarified by the team or Cadillac, that resulted in shorter stints than earlier in the race when it had enjoyed a clear fuel advantage.

Yet Bamber wasn’t convinced that he could have beaten the Porsches in a straight fight. He reckoned any advantage the Caddy enjoyed during the daylight hours disappeared under the cover of darkness.

“At night they came alive and certainly looked to be the strongest of the manufacturers,” Bamber said of Porsche. “The best we could have done on sheer pace was third, or maybe second if everything had gone absolutely perfectly. Full credit to them: they were really strong and ran a good race.”

The winning Porsche’s dominance was such that it wasn’t headed for the final two hours of the race. After Vesti had got ahead of #7 in the pits courtesy of its fuel advantage, the Porsche, now with Tandy at the wheel, came back at him. It was briefly scored ahead after 10 laps, but Tandy couldn’t make the move stick. Nine laps later, he threw it down the inside into Turn 17 in the last pass for the lead of the race.

The #7 Porsche now has two wins under its belt but Tandy has ambitions of a third at Long Beach

Photo by: Courtesy of IMSA

“I had a few goes at him and was ahead across the line on the outside one time,” explained Tandy. “Then I got a run in traffic down the back straight. That time, I thought, ‘To hell with it, it’s time to go!’”

It was fitting that Tandy should make the move that got #7 into the lead for the final time, notwithstanding Nasr’s job in bringing the car home in the high-pressure final knockings. At Daytona, Tandy became the first driver to win all four of the world’s big 24-hour races outright when he added to his respective 2015, 2018 and 2020 triumphs at Le Mans, the Nurburgring and Spa. This time he joined an illustrious list of names — and a select one – of drivers to have won outright at Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring. He became the 10th alongside greats including Dan Gurney, Hurley Haywood, Al Holbert Jr and Timo Bernhard.

Tandy was chuffed to bits to win at Sebring: he had been talking about what it would mean in the aftermath of Daytona, saying how he wanted to right the wrongs of past years when he might have claimed the other half – or should that be third – of the Florida 36 Hours. That made it difficult for him to choose between his achievements of historical significance in less than two months.

“To be part of a select group who have won the triple crown makes me proud – just look at the names who have done it,” he said. “It holds more history than winning the four 24-hour races, but to be the first person to do something probably gives it something over and above the triple crown.

“It’s all happened in just a few weeks, so maybe people are getting bored talking about these records. All I know is it is good for me and good for Britain.”

PLUS: Why Tandy’s enduro record should be celebrated after his Daytona triumph

Until last weekend, Jackie Oliver and Andy Wallace were the only other British drivers to do the triple – and Wallace the only one to do the quadruple by adding in a win at the Petit Le Mans enduro at Road Atlanta. Tandy has emulated his achievement – he triumphed overall ahead of the prototypes at the wheel of a GT Le Mans class Porsche in the rain in 2015.

So Tandy has victories in all six of what these days can be called the big six sportscar enduros. That begged a question: what next? The answer was matter of fact in the extreme.

“Long Beach is next,” he said pointing to the upcoming third round of the IMSA series. “Records are great for the history books and to look back on, but there’s a championship to win. There will be as much effort to try to win there as at any other race. The motivation and enjoyment comes with the challenge of going out there and trying to beat everyone whether it’s a 12-hour race, a 24-hour race or a 100-minute race.”