Van der Zande, Garcia among drivers preparing for ‘Super Sebring’ double duty

Two teams and 13 drivers are in for a physical and mental test this week at Sebring, racing in both the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours and 1000 Miles as part of the 'Super Sebring' double-header.

While it’s not uncommon for drivers to race in IMSA’s WeatherTech championship and one of the series on the support bill, it’s rare that drivers have the chance to race in the two biggest sports car championships in the world -- IMSA and the WEC -- on the same weekend.

Renger van der Zande is one of those drivers, and is just one of a pair (the other being Brendon Hartley) who will be competing for the overall win in both races. The Dutchman will compete with Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA, and fresh from his triumph at Daytona back in January, will be looking to make it two wins out of two races to start the season for the US-flagged Cadillac DPi team.

“It was really nice at Daytona -- people asked me if I was disappointed that it was a red-flagged race, and honestly I didn’t care! We won, and we won in style,” he told RACER. “Now we’re back in Sebring, and last year we finished second, so we want to go one better this year.”

Then on the other side of the huge paddock, he’ll compete with DragonSpeed too, in its BR1 LMP1. His aims with Elton Julian's team -- which is fresh from its IndyCar debut last weekend -- are different and more modest, as the team will be looking to building on its season-best run to sixth last time out  at Shanghai.

Dragonspeed BR1. Image by JEP.

“I'll see the WEC race as a warm-up for Saturday -- a big warm-up!" he chuckled. "I don't think (getting in and out of an LMP1 and DPi all weekend) is going to be easy, but at the same time I believe I'll be OK because during the season I do a lot of GT and prototype racing, and I've never experienced a situation where I feel like I need to spend a great deal of time getting used to different cars again.

"The cars I'll be in here (Wayne Taylor's Cadillac and DragonSpeed's BR1) are similar -- similar speeds -- which may be more difficult than doing a mix of GT and prototypes because you need to make small changes to your driving style.”While van der Zande has spent time lapping Sebring in the Cadillac, last year and in a test ahead of this year’s race on the new Michelins, before today he hadn’t tested the BR1 LMP1, meaning he’ll have to work a little harder to get up to speed, and working on a setup suited to the bumpy surface with his WEC team.

Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi at Sebring. Image by Richard Dole/LAT.

"You have those sessions where the first time you go out you just think, ’Oh no...that’s bad,’ other times, if you’re lucky, you go over the bumps and think, ‘Wow, this is easy!’ That can be the difference, it can be that extreme.”

“The most time around here is found in the damping. You want to be soft on the springs because of the big hits and if you get that balance wrong it puts a lot of pressure on the car.

“On the other hand, on the LMP1 car, sometimes you get it right at the rear but if you can’t match that at the front it starts bouncing from the front end. So even if the car sticks at the rear it’s still bouncing. It’s a very fine line in getting it right and the situation from car to car is never the same.”

Antonio Garcia, meanwhile, will be racing with the same team, in the same car, in both races. The Spaniard is down to race the No. 3 Corvette C7.R in IMSA and the No. 63 in the WEC for the US marque’s guest-entered GTE Pro run.

Because he’s so experienced racing both at Sebring, and in the C7.R, he doesn’t feel he and his teammates Mike Rockenfeller and Jan Magnussen will struggle too much. There are, however, lots of small quirks and changes required to driving in both major races, like managing energy levels throughout the packed schedule and using two different pit lanes!

Garcia in Corvette Racing's C7.R at Sebring in 2018. Image by Michael Levitt/LAT.

“We are using a different car but we are sharing information within the team. Also, it’s not just the challenge in the car: once we get into tomorrow it starts to get difficult attending the different meetings and commitments that we have such as the briefings and things like that. I’m more concerned about that than the races, with the last practice [for the 12 hours] and then the WEC qualifying back-to-back.

“The plan is that we will share information between the cars, so it’s like double the test session. Race engineers will be different for each race, so that is something I’ll have to adapt to -- and then there are the different pit lanes, of course.

“It’s the little things like that which I think could take some getting used to. I’ve asked them if I’m coming in to tell me if it’s WEC pit lane or the IMSA pit lane... especially at Sebring where we have so much familiarity -- in race conditions that could be an easy mistake!

“In the WEC, the other teams are running two cars so that’s twice as much data in the conditions. We can’t be sure how the track will develop, but we have a pretty good idea based on experience.

“We’ve won here several times and that’s a good reference point, but who knows... it’s a new race for everybody.”