As it has become in recent years, the battle for top honors in GT was some of the most entertaining, especially mid-race, which saw a four-way battle between Corvette, Ferrari, Viper and BMW for the lead.

In the end, Corvette Racing broke through to take its first Sebring class victory in the GT(2) division, following an impressive late-race charge by Tommy Milner.

The defending series champion passed the No. 62 Risi Competizone Ferrari F458 Italia of Matteo Malucelli with 15 minutes remaining after the Italian ventured off-course.

ALMS rookie Malucelli was brought in to relieve Gianmaria Bruni, who suffered back pain and was unable to complete his final scheduled stint. It resulted in the Italian crossing the line 2.702 seconds behind Milner, denying the Houston-based team a fairytale-like class win in its comeback race.

Instead, top honors went to the No. 4 Corvette C6.R of Milner, Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook, which overcame a two-lap deficit after suffering dashboard-related electrical gremlins in the fourth hour, as well as a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty for avoidable contact with a GT-class Ferrari.

"I'm still a bit lost for words," Milner said. "The last two stints there were tough for sure. After my first stint there, I think we were one minute behind, or a bit less. It seemed like the gap was consistent and I wasn't able to close on the Ferrari too much.

"Then the Corvette guys had an absolutely unbelievable two pit stops. The first one got us 20 or 30 seconds and the next one 10 seconds. Each pit stop gave me more confidence and more adrenaline to keep pushing. I knew I had to [tighten] up and do my part. It was an unbelievable finish."

Team Falken Tire’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Bryan Sellers, Wolf Henzler and Nick Tandy came home third in class following a steady and relatively trouble-free run. It marked the team’s first podium finish that did not result in class victory.

BMW’s race debut of the Z4 GTE ended with a fourth place class finish for the No. 55 machine of Bill Auberlen, Maxime Martin and Joerg Mueller. Team RLL’s No. 56 car led early but lost nearly 10 laps due to a broken shock.

The surprise of the race came from the strong performance by SRT Motorsports, which saw its No. 91 Viper GTS-R lead on multiple occasions and in contention for the class win. However, electrical gremlins saw the Ryan Dalziel, Marc Goossens and Dominik Farnbacher-driven car drop four laps behind in the final quarter of the race.

The Viper, however, salvaged a fifth place finish, making it five different brands in the top-five.

The battle for top honors in PC came down to the wire as well, with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports taking the win in the spec prototype division.

A late rally by David Ostella, making his sports car racing debut, saw the open-wheel driver pass fellow Canadian Kyle Marcelli for the lead with 15 minutes to go and bridge out to nearly a 16-second victory at the end for the Bobby Oergel-led team.

Ostella shared the win with co-drivers David Cheng and Michael Guasch, who became a two-time Sebring class winner after his PC victory here with Genoa Racing in 2011.

"It was an awesome strategy by Bobby, bringing us in to get tires and fuel early," Ostella said. "So in the end, we just had to bring it back in for a quick splash and go and were able to stay ahead of Kyle [Marcelli] coming out of the pits. We just tried to maintain the gap and lay down perfect laps."

The No. 8 BAR1 Motorsports Oreca FLM09 of Kyle Marcelli, Chris Cumming and Stefan Johansson came home second, with the Performance Tech entry completing the podium in one of the hardest-fought class battles of the race.

After taking class honors at the Rolex 24, Alex Job Racing backed it up with another Sebring win in an equally enthralling fight in GTC.

Jeroen Bleekemolen, Cooper MacNeil and Dion von Moltke took the No. 22 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car to victory lane, marking the Florida-based team's ninth class win at Sebring.

The team bounced back from a puncture and a problem with the rear view mirror to take top class honors.

"We were unlucky with the puncture when Dion was in the car, but we were able to come back from that and get back to the lead," Bleekemolen said.

The No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche came home second, while the No. 30 NGT Motorsport entry inherited third after the No. 66 TRG Porsche of Damien Faulkner ran out of fuel on the final lap.

RESULTS: Twelve Hours of Sebring

John Dagys is SPEED.com’s Sportscar Racing Reporter, focusing on all major domestic and international championships. You can follow him on Twitter @johndagys or email him at