Stat attack: 1000 Miles of Sebring
Ahead of Friday's FIA WEC season-opener, WEC Data (Alex Harrison) has provided FIAWEC.com with some of the key stats ahead of the 1000 Miles of Sebring.
1. Jacques Villeneuve becomes the fourth F1 world champion to compete in WEC after Emerson Fittipaldi, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button
2. Guerrieri, Villeneuve, Ugran, Caldarelli, Kaiser, Lubin, Costa, Beckmann, Kvyat, Costantini, de Pauw, Al Harthy, Dinan, Huffaker, Hardwick and Stevenson all make their WEC debuts at the 1000 Miles of Sebring in 2023.
3. Lynn, Guerrieri, Villeneuve, Cameron, Christensen, Makowiecki, Estre, Vanthoor, Fuoco, Molina, Nielsen, Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi are all set to make their top-class debuts at Sebring.
4. 34% of the grid, or 37 drivers including debutants, have never competed at WEC’s Sebring round before.
5. #1000MSebring 2023, the start of WEC season 11, takes place exactly 11 years to the day since the series’ first-ever race in 2012.
6. Porsche’s Christensen and Estre recorded a perfect weekend at #1000MSebring 2022 - topping FP1, FP2, FP3, scoring pole position and winning the race. This was only the 12th time this had been achieved by a car in series history, and the first in GTE Pro since Spa 2014. The duo make their Hypercar debuts at the race in 2023.
7. Andre Lotterer returns to the WEC for the first time since Le Mans 2019, at Sebring 2023. Lotterer has only competed at Sebring once, back in 2012, having missed the 2019 race, ending his run of competing in all 55 WEC races up to that point.
8. For the third time in the last five seasons, at least three top-class prototypes will make their #WEC debut in 2023 - Cadillac V-Series.R, Vanwall Vandervell 680, Porsche 963, Ferrari 499P. 2021 saw the Toyota GR010, Alpine A480 and Glickenhaus 007 make their debuts, whilst in 2018/19 the Rebellion R13, Ginetta G60-LT-P1 and BR Engineering BR1 all first appeared.
9. Olivier Pla and Christian Ried will contest #1000MSebring 2023, continuing their run as the only two drivers to compete in all of the series' four Sebring rounds, after 2012, 2019 and 2022.
10. Sebring has recorded an 89% finish rate over its three runnings, with 87 of the 98 entrants classified at the flag.
11. The overall #WEC champions have won round 1 of a season four times (2013, 2014, 2016, 2018/19, 2019/20), the same total as in GTE Am (2014, 2016, 2019/20, 2021). Only once have the LMP2 champions won the opening race, in 2015.
12. Prema’s #9 and Hertz Team Jota’s #48 crews both have an average combined age of 25 years old, the youngest average on the grid. Contrastingly, AF Corse #54’s average age of 44 is the oldest in the field.
