No. 5 Corvette DP Leads Sahlen’s Six Hours Of The Glen At Halfway

No. 5 Corvette DP Leads Sahlen’s Six Hours Of The Glen At Halfway

· Fittipaldi, Barbosa Extend Action Express Patrón Endurance Cup Lead After First Segment

· Le Mans Overall Winner Tandy Leads GTLM Class In Porsche 911 RSR

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (June 28, 2015) – Taking the lead one lap before the halfway mark of the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa extended its points lead in the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup by scoring the maximum five points in the race’s opening segment.

Barbosa took the lead from Jordan Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP to open up a seven-point lead (32-25) over Jordan Taylor, and his older brother, Ricky, in No. 10 entry.

Points in the Patrón Endurance Cup are awarded at specific intervals throughout each race – at the three-hour mark and finish at Watkins Glen International – with the leader at the end of each segment scoring five points, four points for second, three points for third, and fourth place on back receiving two points.

The No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR driven by overall 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Nick Tandy and co-driver Patrick Pilet scored the maximum five points by leading at the three-hour mark in GTLM. Tommy Milner was second in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R, closing the Patrón Endurance Cup gap to four points (31-27) behind the No. 3 Corvette Racing entry of Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen, who scored the minimum two points at halfway by running fifth.

In Prototype Challenge (PC), the No. 8 Starworks Motorsport ORECA FLM09 of Alex Popow, Mike Hedlund and Renger van der Zande led, but the season-long Patrón Endurance Cup battle continues between the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports and No. 54 CORE autosport teams. Both teams fell outside of the top three and scored the minimum two points, leaving PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ahead of CORE autosport by one point (32-31). The No. 85 JDC/Miller Motorsports team is third with 21 points.

The No. 93 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R team has decided to focus its efforts on the four Patrón Endurance Cup races and drivers Al Carter, Cameron Lawrence and Marc Goossens promptly led the opening segment to extend its lead to four points (32-28) over the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 and drivers Bill Sweedler and Jeff Segal. Sweedler and Segal finished the opening segment in second.

The four-race competition concludes with the 10-hour Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda at Road Atlanta Saturday, Oct. 3.

FOX Sports 1 is airing the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen until 2 p.m. ET, with FOX Sports 2 assuming coverage through the checkered flag. IMSA.comalso has continued coverage throughout the event with race-day live streaming, in-car cameras, timing and scoring and a live IMSA Radio feed.

NEWS AND NOTES

· The No. 5 Mustang Sampling/Cider Tree Corvette DP from Action Express Racing entered the event with a six-point lead in the Patrón Endurance Cup. After scoring the minimum two points in the opening two segments of the Rolex 24, the team has finished first or second in the six segments since. Drivers Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa have completed every mile of TUDOR Championship competition dating back to the 2014 Rolex 24, the first TUDOR Championship event.

· Seven of the eight competitors in the GTLM class remain on the lead lap. The No. 24 IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 GTLM of John Edwards and Lucas Luhr was eighth after Edwards made contact with the tire barrier in Turn 8 at the two hour, 40-minute mark.

· After running up front earlier in the race, the No. 007 Royal Purple/Orion Energy/LaSalle Solutions/PassTime USA Aston Martin Vantage of Christina Nielsen and Kuno Wittmer reported to the pits shortly before the halfway mark with an engine miss.

· A pair of early incidents took out two of the top contenders in the PC class. The first full-course caution of the day was issued following an incident involving the No. 11 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 of Bruno Junqueira after contact with Ozz Negri in the No. 60 Ligier JS P2/Honda from Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian. The No. 38 Performance Tech entry of Conor Daly, James French and Jerome Mee was involved in an incident shortly thereafter, following contact with the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Corvette DP.

· Running on the lead lap for much of the first half of the race, the No. 0 Claro/TracFone DeltaWing Racing DWC13 suffered an issue with the gearbox compressor on a pit stop shortly before the race’s halfway mark. A separate issue with the driveshaft boot has relegated the team to seventh in Prototype.

QUOTEBOARD

Gary Nelson, Team Manager – No. 5 Mustang Sampling/Cider Tree Corvette DP

“We came here with the goal of leading at the halfway point, and we accomplished that. It came right down to the wire, but we’re happy that it happened. Now staying in front at the end is another one of our goals.”

Al Carter, Driver – No. 93 ViperExchange.com Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R

“The way the Patrón Endurance Cup is set up is such a cool thing. It’s like halftime matters in a basketball game. We were jumping around because we had that caution just before [halfway]. It forced us to have a short fuel stop to try to take the lead, and the Scuderia Ferrari did the same thing. We have two races today. We accomplished what we needed to do in race one, now we’ve got to do it again in race two.”

Kevin Buckler, CEO – No. 007 Royal Purple/Orion Energy/LaSalle Solutions Aston Martin Vantage

“Everyone on the team was doing a fantastic job. All of a sudden it went down on power. We’re not sure why, but it looks like something electrical. Christina [Nielsen] is three seconds off the pace – that’s a chunk of power. We’re weighing the value of trying to fix it and go down another lap, vs. going for championship points. We’ll probably keep on going and try to do the best we can.”

Conor Daly, Driver – No. 38 Ric-Man Construction / GO-PUCK / Braille Batteries ORECA FLM09

“There’s a lot of crazy stuff and sadly we were a victim of it. I love these conditions, with the track just between wet and dry. Sadly we’re in the position we are right now, but hopefully we can fix it.”

Ozz Negri, Driver – No. 60 Michel Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian Ligier JS P2/Honda

“I don’t think [Junqueira] saw us rolling on the inside. I went very hard on the brakes to avoid it, but I stuck him in the back. I’m pretty sure he didn’t see me.”

Contact:

Nate Siebens

Senior Manager, IMSA Communications

(386) 310-6568

nsiebens