Sebring Race recap

Aculeus Racing’s first race is in the books, as the team took on 45 other cars in the six-hour race at Sebring International Raceway.

Part of iRacing’s Global Endurance Tour, this marked the first competitive race session for Aculeus Racing.

The drivers in the car were:

• Rodney Roberts

• Aaron Fontaine

• Jelle Wils

Rodney Roberts qualified the car 24th out of 46 with a lap time of 2:01.369. He also started the race and managed the car extremely well through first (and second) lap chaos, dropping to 32nd but sustaining no damage.

It wasn’t long before the trend reversed. By the end of the first stint, Aculeus Racing was up to 23rd. After the second pit cycle, it was 21st.

Aaron Fontaine took over and continued the consistency until disaster struck. Aaron took a position from a car at Turn 1 before incidental contact spun him out and put him in the wall. Seven minutes of required repairs ended any chance of a Top 15 finish.

The rest of Aaron’s stints were completed without major incident and the car was turned over to Jelle Wils for the final two stints.

Jelle made significant progress through the field, cutting his way back up to 28th and setting the team’s fastest lap (1:59.659) on lap 139.

QUOTES

Daniel Borgertpoepping, Team Owner

“The possibility for a great result was ripped away from us through no fault of our own, but that’s endurance racing. What really stands out is how the team ran this race. All the markers of a great performance were there. We controlled what we could control and our drivers executed extremely well. This is a great launchpad to push on into 2026.”

Rodney Roberts, Driver

“My qualifying lap was decent. Started mid-pack, but the opening laps proved to be a bit chaotic as usual. Once the dust settled after lap 2 and things got a little more organized, I settled in to a nice pace for the first two stints.”

Aaron Fontaine, Driver

“For a first race for the team, we did fairly well. There was one major incident, but we managed to make the best out of a bad situation and battled back to what was probably the best we were going to do given the circumstances.”

Jelle Wils, Driver

“The race started fine, we lost some positions but got them back by the end of the stint by staying consistent and out of trouble. After we had some trouble in the middle of the race, we lost some places but were able to gain a lot back at the end. Outside of Aaron's unfortunate incident we had a great first race as a team.”