Action Express Racing Team Aims to Bounce Back at Sebring

New York Times

11-03-2025

The first race of the 2025 I.M.S.A. WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, run by the International Motor Sports Association, had been going so smoothly for the Action Express Cadillac team. Its car was racing fast and jostling for the lead. But then, about halfway into the Rolex 24 at Daytona, which began on Jan. 25, everything went wrong.
A suspension part on the team's Cadillac V-Series.R car failed, pitching the Danish driver Frederik Vesti into a crash. Repairs followed, but any chance for victory was gone. The team that won the I.M.S.A. teams' and drivers' titles just two years ago had been thwarted again.
But now, as Action Express prepares for round two of the season at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring this week, the team's 2025 race victory and title glory hopes are not lost.
'We ended up ninth at Daytona, but certainly not what we felt like we'd earned,' Gary Nelson, the Action Express team manager, said in an interview last month. 'We're still expecting to win this year, with all this work that we've done on our car.'
Action Express heads to Sebring with a smaller driving lineup compared with the four racers that it entered at Daytona. Vesti will race with Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber.
'More than other tracks, there's a bit of freedom for the driver to try different things and find their own way at Sebring,' Aitken said in an interview. 'The track is brutal, but it's a cool place.'
Action Express knows how to win at Sebring, . The team has won three times in the day-night race since 2015 and had another victory there in the race shortened by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. 'The bigger difference at Sebring than Daytona is how much the track changes with temperature,' Nelson said. 'And over the years, we've kind of learned that one. Each time we've won, we were the strongest at the finish when the track cooled down.'
Although it claimed those two I.M.S.A. titles in 2023, Action Express has not won in the championship since the Sebring race, also in 2023. The team has since faced stiffer competition, but might have won at Sebring in 2024 without a crash with a slower GT car that led to a huge accident.
Nelson puts Action Express' 2023 success down to the team's taking 'a simplistic approach to the new technology' for cars that had been introduced to the new I.M.S.A. Grand Touring Prototype top class that year. Those cars are powered by hybrid engines that use electrical systems, including for braking.
'Most of the teams were struggling with braking in 2023 — regenerating electricity when slowing down to charge the battery,' Nelson said. 'Our group took a more simple approach and said, 'We may not regen as well as other teams, but we'll also not have brake issues that the other teams are having.' It's easy to go to the ice cream store and order one of everything, but it's probably not good for you.'
The team held on to win the 2023 title by 21 points, from a total of 2733. In 2024, it finished fourth and scored no wins after a string of crashes. 'The other teams had also made a step forward,' Aitken said. 'We did as well, but we made too many mistakes. You just have to hold your hands up and say that.'
While the team's 2025 campaign started with a setback, Nelson and his crew are taking inspiration from the team's past, when in the 2021 I.M.S.A. season the Action Express car led early in the first race at Daytona before dropping out of contention with exhaust and gearbox issues. But the team recovered to win that year's drivers' and teams' titles with a late resurgence. 'It came down to the last lap of the last race,' Nelson said. 'We only led the championship from the very last few laps of the season. We don't quit, we don't give up. We just keep pushing and pushing.'