Video: Onboard the fastest lap of Sebring in history with Fernando Alonso
It was due to be Super Sebring this weekend. An incredible amalgamation of the iconic Sebring 12 Hours with a 1,000-mile WEC race served up as an entree the day before. If you’ve never been to Sebring, and I am lucky enough to say I have a few times, it’s an awesome, confusing, wonderful place. Until cars start racing it’s hard to quantify bits of it as a race track. It just looks like big concrete airfield blocks – because it is.
The famous 12 has been running at Sebring for decades, but the WEC arrived last year with the ultra-fast LMP1-hybrid machinery for the first time, and it took very little time for them to frankly obliterate the lap record around this hallowed arena.
And who was at the wheel that day? Just some bloke called Fernando Alonso. Proving that he really is a true all-rounder. His time of 1:40.124 is unlikely to be broken, well, ever. And this onboard is an eye opener as to just how fast LMP1-H cars have become. The bumps of Sebring are legendary, but that’s not to reckon with the Toyota TS050’s incredible suspension systems, which did an amazing job of smoothing them out. And that punch out of the iconic turn seven hairpin just has to be seen to be believed.
Sadly the LMP1-H cars will never return in anger to Sebring. Unless some lucky soul gets hold of one to race at the Classic 12 with our friends at Historic Sportscar Racing. It looks like even if the 12 is successfully rescheduled, the WEC won’t be joining IMSA for the date. What a lost opportunity.
But it makes this one off LMP1 experience all the more special for those who were there.
Video
Onboard
WEC
WEC 2019
Fernando Alonso
Toyota
LMP1
TS050
Sebring
