Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais claimed a clear victory in the Sebring 12 Hours for the Action Express Racing team.

The trio’s Coyote-Chevrolet Corvette DP hit the lead in the second hour and went a lap clear before the end of the ninth hour.

That advantage gave no way back for the chasing Chip Ganassi, Spirit of Daytona and Wayne Taylor cars even when the safety car came out for a sixth time with two hours to go, and the Action Express car to take the flag one lap clear in the second round of the 2015 Tudor United SportsCar Championship.

Bourdais said: “It feels great; that was a heck of race and was physically very tough.”

The Wayne Taylor Racing Dallara-Chevrolet Corvette DP finished second in the hands of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and Max Angelelli.

They had to fight back from braking issues that blighted their Dallara’s performance in qualifying and the first third of the race.

Ricky Taylor moved up to third ahead of Richard Westbrook in the Spirit of Daytona Coyote-Chevrolet during the penultimate pitstop sequence and was then able to catch and pass Scott Dixon in the Ganassi Riley-Ford EcoBoost DP.

Westbrook, who shared his Coyote with Michael Valiante and Mike Rockenfeller, then overhauled the Ganassi Riley for the final podium spot with just six minutes to go.

Top LMP2 car was the Krohn Racing Ligier-Judd/BMW JSP2 shared by pole winner Olivier Pla, Nic Jonsson and Tracy Krohn in eighth place.

Pla led during the opening exchanges, but a series of delays, including a stop to address a problem with a loose exhaust, left the car six laps down at the finish.

A high attrition rate among the Prototype class entries allowed the winning Prototype Challenge car to claim sixth place overall.

The class was won by the PR1/Mathiasen ORECA-Chevrolet FLM09 driven by Tom Kimber-Smith, Andrew Palmer and Mike Guasch.

Kimber-Smith resisted a late challenge from Colin Braun in the CORE ORECA before a quicker final pitstop gave him breathing space for the run to the flag.

CORVETTE BENEFITS AS PORSCHE WILTS

Corvette Racing repeated its Daytona 24 Hours victory with Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Ryan Briscoe after the factory Porsche team’s challenge wilted in the closing stages.

The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R took over the lead in Garcia’s hands when Porsche’s Nick Tandy encountered gearbox problems with 40 minutes of the race left to run.

The second Porsche, which had been running second in Frederic Makowiecki’s hands, had an issue with the left rear wheel, resulting in a series of pitstops that left it seventh in class at the finish.

The problems for the CORE-run factory Porsche 911 RSRs allowed the Corvette to come through to take a one-minute victory from the Risi Competizione Ferrari 458 Italia driven by Giancarlo Fisichella, Pierre Kaffer and Andrea Bertolini.

Alex Job Racing claimed its 10th class triumph at Sebring with GT Daytona honours with the Porsche 911 GT America driven by Mario Farnbacher, Ian James and Alex Riberas.

The car came back into contention after a puncture during the final yellow.

Farnbacher was able to take the lead, before going off under pressure from Jeroen Bleekemolen in the best of the Riley Motorsports Dodge SRT Viper GTS-Rs.

Bleekemolen, who had led much of the way together with brother Sebastiaan and Ben Keating, was deprived of victory when engine problems brought the Viper into the pits to retire with just five minutes left on the clock.

RESULTS – 340 LAPS:

Dixon fourth in Sebring 12 hour, Bourdais, Fittipaldi, Barbosa win