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Created on Monday, 17 March 2014 11:03

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• Rojas, Pruett and Franchitti score big win at 12 Hours of Sebring.

• CORE autosport wins back-to-back races in 2014.

• Teams challenged by changing track conditions.

Sebring, FL – March 15, 2014.   In a race marred by cautions (11 total full course cautions), track conditions proved challenging for all teams with changing temperatures, a mix of different tire rubbers, marbles and debris.  Performance and confidence remained consistent among teams sporting Continental tires as the tires provided the grip and durability needed for teams to complete 12 grueling hours at the famed Sebring International Raceway.

It was the Chip Ganassi Racing trio of Memo Rojas, Scott Pruett and Marino Franchitti who claimed victory in the No. 01 Telcel Ford with the new Ford EcoBoost motor.  Franchitti took the lead from Ryan Dalziel, driver of the No. 1 Tequila Patron Extreme Speed Motorsports machine, on pit road during a late race caution.  With less than 15 minutes to go, and buried in traffic, Dalziel couldn’t reach Marino for the win so he, along with teammates, Scott Sharp and David Brabham, would settle for second in Prototype (P) competition.

Colin Braun and co-drivers, Jon Bennett and James Gue claimed the 36 hours of Florida when they won the 12 Hours of Sebring in the Prototype Challenge (PC) class just a month after their Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona win.  The only team to claim back-to-back wins in 2014.  In Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) action, the No. 44 Magnus Porsche bounced back from a rough Daytona outing to garner their first win of the season with drivers Andy Lally, John Potter and Marco Seefried.

Click here to see our Tudor United SportsCar Victory Lane photo gallery

TIRE NOTES

• Numerous teams double stinted on their Continental tires and a few teams even triple stinted.
• Ryan Dalziel was leading the field with 52 minutes to go and ran his quickest lap of the day at a 1:52:75 on old tires.
• Continental Tire process roughly 7,500 tires throughout the Tudor United SportsCar Championship and Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge races.

QUOTES Ryan Dalziel, driver No. 1 ESM P2 (finished second in P) – “I think the track got better.  It’s the first time we’ve ever come to Sebring and had the GT, GS, ST, Cooper Lights, etc. here and I think with all the different rubbers, every time we got on track, it took us like an hour to get the track back to where it was optimal for us.  But we did a good job with the car all weekend.  We just chipped away at things and by mid-race we were pretty confident about where the car was.  We were really good on tires, we could have done a triple stint at the end on tires but we decided not to.  We figured under yellow, it would be a smarter decision to just take stickers.  But all-in-all, we rebounded from a disappointing Daytona and we got good points for the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Championship, which is obviously pretty important to help keep the boss happy.  It’s one of those things.  Sometimes seconds are enjoyable and sometimes they are hard to swallow and unfortunately, this is one of those ones that is going to sting for a couple days.”

Colin Braun, driver No. 54 CORE autosport (finished first in PC) – “The tires were really good.  It was challenging conditions by the end of the race with all the pick-up.  There was so much pick-up out there it was tough to keep the tires clean, it took a lap to get the rubber off but once the rubber was off, they had really good grip.  We were just driving the car so hard at the end, I think we were running laps within about a second of what we qualified during the last stint.  Pretty impressed these tires could keep up and just really happy for all the guys.  They did such a good job and it’s such a good team.”

Andy Lally, driver No. 44 Magnus Racing Porsche (finished first in GTD) – “It was crazy.  The track conditions, as it cooled off, were something you had to adapt to as a driver.  The light was the biggest pain in the neck.  A lot of the guys, at the end of that race, were shooting oil out and coating our windshield and making a mess.  But, just amazing, these Continental tires hung on really, really well for us and let me go hard, really full-tilt at the end of that race.  If you got off-line, it was tricky.  So getting by lapped traffic and getting by smooth, that was huge.”

Jeff Segal, driver No. 555 Aim Ferrari (finished second in GTD) – “The track conditions were really, really difficult.  With the temperature swings that we had through the week, the car was wildly different from one session to the next.  We set up for the nighttime and I think that was the right decision, it was the logical decision.  But the car was pretty damn good during the day as well.  A lot of debris on the track, a lot of marbles, a lot of buildup but we got really good life out of the Continental tires, we’re really happy with that.  We just hung around trying to stay out of trouble, and that’s exactly what we did.  Then at the end, we were scrapping with the leaders for the win.  We were under two seconds for the win so it hurts a little bit but I can’t complain about a podium.”

CONTINENTAL TIRE SPORTSCAR CHALLENGE The Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge tackled Sebring International Raceway for the first time on Friday with some spectacular racing.  Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis co-drove the No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro Z28.R to its first win in just its second race in Grand Sport (GS) competition.  Liddell was engaged in a battle for the lead with former teammate, John Edwards, in the No. 46 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3, but a late-race caution forced a yellow/checkered finish.  This forced Edwards and co-driver, Trent Hindman to a second-place finish.  In the Street Tuner (ST) class, it was the duo of Randy Pobst and Andrew Carbonell who drove their No. 26 Freedom Autosport Mazda MX-5 to the win.

View our Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge photo gallery

Robin Liddell, driver No. 6 Stevenson Camaro Z/28.R (finished first in GS) – “I did struggle a little bit in the first stint but I was fighting pretty hard with the No. 9 car and I was working the tires a bit too hard, more than I really wanted to.  I thought we were a touch quicker than the No. 9 but he wasn’t just going to let us by and finally, I had tried to get by a couple of times and he chopped me a little bit, I just said to the guys on the radio, ‘hey we’re teammates and I don’t just want him to let me by but I don’t want him to take me out, or take us both out either.’  So he wasn’t going to let me by and we came into the pit in that order anyway.  I struggled a bit with rear grip towards the end of that stint but I think that was largely just the way I had been pushing hard to stay up with them and trying to get past him and tighten my line in the corner and that sort of thing.  But I think the track was decent until we had that big incident, it was a bit of a mess, but we never went back to green anyway.  I was very happy with the performance of the car over the stint.  It more or less did what I expected it to do.  I think I could have managed that a bit better and help the tire life a bit better.  But in the end, due to the fact that I was just battling hard for a whole green stint, which we don’t often see in this series, I think I probably just used the tires up a bit more.  But they were consistent times and no massive fall-off, it was cool.”

Chad McCumbee, driver No. 5 CJ Wilson Mazda MX-5 (finished second in ST) – “It was hot and slick out there and I was so hoping for that.  We were just so good on the Continental tires and the Continental tires were so good.  They just lasted.  We made a tire change but quite honestly, we didn’t have to.  Stevan (McAleer) did a phenomenal job getting the thing to the front and all I had to do was just cruise it home.  It was just so good.  It’s a blessing to be part of this organization.  I want to say our thoughts and prayers are with Marc Miller, we’re thinking of him.”

Eric Foss, driver No. 56 Murillo BMW 328i (finished third in ST) – “It was one of the hottest days we’ve had all week.  But honestly it didn’t affect our performance at all.  The only thing we were worried about was fuel but tires, we had no issue with.  Actually they were kind of joking as we got deeper into the session, I was trying to conserve a little bit of fuel by pushing the tires harder and they were just staying with us.”

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