From Daytona wreck to Sebring second row for Pfaff Porsche

Qualifying third for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring seems like a victory for Pfaff Motorsports. Heck, just making it to the race was an accomplishment.

Zach Robichon put the No. 9 Pfaff Porsche/Castrol/Wurth/C17 Media/Orlando Corporation Porsche 911 GT3 R co-driven by Scott Hargrove and Lars Kern on the second row of the GT Daytona class starting grid in Friday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying.

Less than two months ago, Robichon was involved in a multi-car pileup in the Daytona International Speedway trioval. Running in extremely limited visibility on a 9 a.m. restart, Robichon found himself with nowhere to go.

The driver was OK. The car was junk.

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“We had to [strip the car to the bare] tub after Daytona,” Robichon said. “The guys did an incredible job with it, and in three weeks we were here testing.”

After the Rolex 24, the team headed back to the shop at Toronto to basically replace and ground-up rebuild the Porsche. Then, it was back to Florida for the test.

“It was a lot of work, but it was well worth it,” Robichon said. “It’s a long haul back and forth from Toronto, [and] just the fact that the team got it here to the test was incredible. It ran flawlessly. Our only failure was with one sensor, a part we hadn't replaced after the [Daytona] incident.

“After the test, the team [further] refined the car. Now we’re in a good position for the 12 Hours. We’ve been solid in all of the practice sessions, and we’ve got a great starting spot. Obviously it’s a 12-hour race and a lot can happen. But everyone at Pfaff did a great job putting that Porsche back together.”