Derani: AXR Cadillac has needed only “very small” changes

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Cadillac has won the past two 12-hour races at Sebring and in fact its DPi-V.R model took four of the six Sebring 12hrs run in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s DPi era.

It appears Cadillac’s knowledge of how to make a fast car for this particular course remains intact in the LMDh era, as the V-Series.Rs of AXR and Chip Ganassi Racing locked out the front row for the 71^st running of this classic event.

Derani, who will share the wheel of the #31 AXR machine with Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken, is one of five drivers with three wins in the event.

"I think we’ve been having a fantastic weekend since the beginning,” he commented after his eighth IMSA pole. “It seems we rolled out onto the track with a very competitive car, so the changes have been very small from practice to practice and therefore we keep improving with better lap times.

“I think we came in from Daytona a little behind some of our competitors, but it shows we’ve been able to work well together between Action Express and Ganassi to continue to develop the Cadillac.

"I wanted to say thank you to the whole Action Express Whelen Engineering team and Cadillac for its continued support, the relentless work and hours behind closed doors to try to make this program the best it can be."

Both Cadillac entries in the Grand Touring Prototype class tested on the bumpy circuit last month following the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, and completed a 24-hour test at the track in November.

The Ganassi Cadillac, driven by 2022 pole-winner Sebastien Bourdais, came up just 0.087sec short in the hunt for P1 on this occasion

“It was a great day for Cadillac,” said the former open-wheel legend. “We had just a tiny bit of understeer, but I think it was very close with the lap times.

“We've got a really solid racecar, so we're all looking forward to the grueling 12 hours ahead. Obviously, a lot of it will be about keeping your nose clean, making sure that you execute and don't run into any trouble."