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LEO PARENTE: Welcome to Sebring 2012, the start of two
racing seasons--
the World Endurance Championship and the America
Le Mans series.
You know, this year Sebring is bigger than
just the Audi story.
But they did bring three R18s, getting ready for their attack
at Le Mans.
A lot of people call this race the Nurburgring of America.
And I kind of get the connection.
It's a unique track.
It's got big and great crowds.
And it's the perfect venue to challenge teams and drivers.
Plus there's an elevation change story.
Oh sure, at Nurburgring it's 1,900 feet of elevation
change, and here the elevation is really 19
millimeters, all the bumps.
But that kind of sets the tone for this race and
what it's all about.
We'll talk a lot of that.
We'll look at the new teams and all the challenges that
are going on.
This is Shakedown.
The World Endurance Championship is the FIA's
return to a global sports car series, just like the glory
decades of the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
In fact, when Sebring opened in 1952, that second year
event, 1953, was an FIA World Championship race.
This is fascinating and fantastic, the first World
Endurance Championship race.
Tell me what this represents for the future of sports car.
JEAN TODT: It just shows the interest of the FIA to have
organized together with ACO the World Endurance
Championship.
And I'm very happy to see so much
enthusiasm for this event.
LEO PARENTE: The race for Sebring for the Falken Tire
team started before the green flag, when in warm-up they
discovered an engine power train malfunction and needed
to replace the entire unit.
That became a race against time for the crew to get the
car ready for the green flag.
Seriously, what are the implications now?
There's no way to shake the car down or just [INAUDIBLE]?
MALE SPEAKER: No, it's just blow and go as we say.
LEO PARENTE: Do they drive any differently or just pray and
hope we all did it right?
MALE SPEAKER: No.
I think they're all too professional, you know.
They know what they're feeling and if everything feels good,
they're going to race until somebody tells them otherwise.
LEO PARENTE: And I hate to say it this way, but
your crew is seasoned.
They've been through this slog before, so--
MALE SPEAKER: Yes.
Well, that's what they do.
They deal with everything that comes along, good or bad.
LEO PARENTE: Obvious question, but answer why has this place
become so special?
How did it become so special as a racing driver and team?
What makes Sebring work?
TOM KRISTENSEN: Sebring is a legendary race now.
I mean, it has a lot of history.
A lot of very great teams and drivers have come
here over the years.
And now we are at the 60th anniversary.
Why it's special?
It's legend.
It's different.
I think that's part of it.
It's run on more or less a runway.
It's very bumpy, different kind of tarmac.
So it's a tough race.
You need a tough car and you need a tough attitude.
LEO PARENTE: Green flag, 12 hours to go.
But Audi one, two, three into turn one.
Did we just see the entire race just happen?
Hans Herrmann, Porsche legend and Sebring winner in both
1960 and '68, said the Europeans came to this
American track for the safety and the girls.
I guess the expansive empty airport runways gave more
margin for error versus hitting a tree in the
Nordschleife woods.
But I think we have a translation issue here,
because safety was the old school
terminology for rubbers.
How would you describe the difference between driving the
F1 car and this?
KARUN CHANDHOK: Very different.
Obviously you've got a car that's another 400 kilos in
weight, less power.
Yes, it's very different.
There's a lot more weight to manage.
LEO PARENTE: Is turning similar, or no?
KARUN CHANDHOK: No, it's very different.
A Formula 1 car is very agile, very light, very nimble.
This one's a bit heavier.
LEO PARENTE: But they still want you to go, go, go, right?
They still want you to go.
KARUN CHANDHOK: Yes.
Absolutely.
The main thing is the traffic.
You know, you still have to--
you have to be aggressive and you have to attack to find
space in the traffic, otherwise you
lose too much time.
LEO PARENTE: Do they run you on a pace?
Do you race to predictive or are you just
doing what you feel?
KARUN CHANDHOK: You've got to manage the field a little bit.
But generally what I feel seems to be working OK.
LEO PARENTE: This race has been positioned as a meeting
of the world sports car brands via the WEC teams coming to
the America Le Mans series premiere event.
But there were as many cracks in that logic as there are in
the Sebring front straight.
Each series would be counting their own points, so really we
have a race within a race, two separate races, really.
64 cars in total took to the grid, pretty much a 50/50
split between WEC and ALMS cars.
But WEC dominated the P1 and 2 classes.
18 cars [INAUDIBLE] for ALMS.
[ENGINE NOISE]
It seems the technology of contemporary race cars has
pretty much neutralized DNS, due to the bumps, not that the
cars aren't designed with such stresses in mind.
No, the bumps are a suspension set-up challenge that results
in amazing chassis compressions, right down to
the track surface, major league wheel hops because of a
stiff car, that's still the quickest, and a lot of
steering input to keep your race moving down the track,
not off into the tire walls or into the competition.
And I'm saying it again, the R18 whoosh sounds positively
hypertech and makes the V8 grunt of cars like the
Corvette, the BMW, and the ALMS PC cars sound positively
old-fashioned.
In the end, Audi proved its strength in P1 racing, as that
race was in their control the whole 12 hours.
[ENGINE NOISE]
This Sebring race was phenomenal.
And I've got to tell you, through the entire race, it
really didn't show its hand as to what it was going to be.
At the very end, it all came true.
This was a WEC versus ALMS battle.
WEC dominated P1, P2.
But in GT, ALMS should thank BMW and Corvette for saving
face and getting the win and the P2 in that class.
So that's it from Sebring 2012.
I've got to tell you, there were beautiful images.
It was a great race to see.
The cars came alive.
But it was a tough race to cover.
The information was not available here at the track
for the fans, and even for the professionals.
Up in the press room, they had to pirate the European feed to
follow the action and the standings.
That's not right.
I've got tell you, if global racing, global sports car
racing is going to work, all that stuff needs to be fixed
to make it an enjoyable event that it deserves.
That's it.
We're moving on.
You're going to be with us.
See you next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]