She became the first woman to win at Sebring for 10 years... in a Ferrari that had accumulated 3 penalties.

This weekend, the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo took its first victory. And the Lamborghini Temerario made an encouraging debut.

It was a weekend of firsts. On the occasion of the 12 Hours of Sebring, second round of the North American IMSA championship, Ferrari and Lamborghini were able to post positive results.

On the Maranello side, the 296 GT3 Evo took its first competitive victory in the GTD category, two months after its debut at Daytona. On the Sant'Agata side, the Temerario GT3 finished a solid race, in its first race.

12 Hours of Sebring 2026

1. Porsche n°7 (Andlauer, Heinrich, Nasr)
2. Porsche n°6 (Campbell, Estre, Vanthoor)
3. Cadillac n°31 (Aitken, Bamber, Vesti)

 LMP2 winners: Oreca-United no. 2 (Fayer, Jensen, McElrea)
 GTD Pro winners: Porsche no. 911 (Bachler, Feller, Preining)
 GTD winners: Ferrari n°21 (Fuoco, Mann, Wadoux)

Fuoco in the sprint

The 296 GT3 Evo, a modified version of the berlinetta entered since 2023, took its first victory at Sebring. Simon Mann, Lilou Wadoux and Antonio Fuoco won by a whisker at the wheel of the N°21 car run by the AF Corse USA team.

The journey of this car was not an easy one. The 296 GT3 was in first place for three quarters of the race. In the last three hours of the race, under the fading sun and then at night, the car was delayed by three penalties.

Official Ferrari driver in both Hypercar and GT, Antonio Fuoco received his first penalty for contact with Ben Barker's #64 Ford Mustang. This was followed by a penalty for an infringement of refuelling procedures. Finally, it was delayed by a final penalty after contact with another Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo driven by Miguel Molina.

In 7th place with 30 minutes to go, Antonio Fuoco worked his way up through the field to take 2nd place going into the final lap. The N°27 Aston Martin driven by Tom Gamble was now in first place. Put under pressure by Fuoco, the Briton crashed out with less than 3 km to go, opening the door for the Ferrari to take the chequered flag.

A few minutes after his feat, the Calabrian pilot appeared all smiles at the microphone of NBC Sports:

«It was a really chaotic race, with little mistakes, but in the end we managed to put it all together, I want to thank because we pushed and believed in this race.»

«I saw a small mistake on the last lap, at Turn 10. I saw the opportunity and tried to go to the outside. It was a tough but fun race.

Wadoux victorious

Official Ferrari driver Lilou Wadoux of France is the first woman to win the 12 Hours of Sebring since Christina Nielsen. The latter won the race in the GTD category in 2016 aboard a Ferrari 488 GT3.

«In free practice, we had a few problems. We weren't really ready for the race,» Lilou Wadoux told Endurance Info. But in the end, the team did an incredible job, as did my team-mates. We had a very good car for the race overall, not just at night.

«After the car's debut at Daytona in January, we achieved a remarkable result at Sebring in the highly competitive GTD class,» enthused Antonello Coletta, Ferrari's Global Head of Endurance and Corse Clienti. Our drivers put in an extraordinary performance right up to the final laps to achieve this historic milestone".

Satisfaction at Lamborghini

Saturday also marked the competition debut of the Lamborghini Temerario GT3. The one-off, operated by Pfaff Motorsports, was entrusted in the GTD Pro class to three of the brand's «factory» drivers.

Car no. 9 finished the 12 Hours in 10th place in the GTD Pro class, one lap behind the winning Porsche in this highly competitive class.

Andrea Caldarelli, Franck Perera and Sandy Mitchell shared the steering wheel without encountering any major problems on a bumpy circuit renowned for its intractable mechanics.

Only a slight brake problem was reported in the final sprint on NBC Sports, the US broadcaster of the race. The car remained in its box for 4 minutes and 30 seconds at the end of the race. A minor problem which does not cast doubt on the encouraging nature of this debut.

In the long stints, the Lamborghini came within about 1 second of the best, despite a rather unfavourable balance of performance (BoP). Remember that this system is designed to balance the chances of very different cars.

Organizers tend to be cautious about new cars, as was the case earlier this year with the Ferrari «Evo» in the opening round at Daytona.

This weekend's «Lambo» weighed in at 1,351 kg, compared with 1,335 kg for the Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, and 1,323 kg for the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The new car was largely designed in-house, whereas its predecessor, the Huracan GT3, shared many components with the Audi R8. The car had covered 15,000 km at Vallelunga, Monza, Imola, Daytona and Sebring before this first competitive engagement.

One of the challenges of the coming months will be to adapt the new car to its tires. In IMSA, Michelin has a partnership with the organizers that runs until 2035. In other championships, the Lamborghini will use other tire brands.

This year, Bibendum launched its Pilot Sport Pro GT H1+ range of advanced tires for the GTD and GTD Pro categories of the North American championship.

The brand will therefore have to work on the behavior of its new car with this tyre. Temperatures, consistency and degradation will be carefully monitored, and will feed
simulation models for future releases.

Lamborghini took advantage of the event to announce the arrival of Andrea Reggiani as head of its motorsports department. His first mission - to make the Temerario GT3 a benchmark on the competition-customer side - seems to be off to a good start.