SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (May 2, 2014)- Furthering the team’s reputation for providing intimate, all-encompassing experiences for team guests, Magnus Racing will partner with Credit Suisse during this weekend’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix. Coming to the race as not only the most recent GTD category winners in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, but also the defending winners of last year’s event in the Rolex Series, the team looks forward to hosting a number of notable guests and clients.“We’re very excited to have everyone at Credit Suisse join us for this weekend,” stated team owner and driver John Potter. “With an event so close to Monterey and Carmel, it’s always a favorite and I’m sure everyone will enjoy coming out. I like to think we’ve built a reputation for creating truly unique and once-in-a-lifetime experiences for our partners as we’ve demonstrated over the years for a variety of guests. As the first sprint race of the season for our class, it should be a really exciting one to watch.”
With the GTD class having not been on track since the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, the team has done anything but relax using the six-week break to test and further evaluate the No. 44 Porsche 911 GT America. As an all-new car, both team and manufacturer have been hard at work to develop both the speed and reliability of the machine.
While the team may have won at Sebring, the challenge of outright speed heading into the “sprint season” of the championship will be an interesting one. With strong competition from, not only, fellow Porsche competitors but also Audi, Ferrari, BMW, SRT and Aston Martin, the 2.2-mile circuit at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will provide an excellent insight into the outright pace of each car.
For Andy Lally, running in the first sprint race of the season will require a strong focus throughout the short weekend.
“The weekend is going to be flat out,” stated Lally. “We don’t begin practice until Saturday afternoon, and after two short sessions we’ll be qualifying. No one is going to have a lot of time to sit and think about what they need to do so coming in having done your homework is going to be crucial. The Magnus guys have been pushing really hard to get us ready and we’ll be as prepared as ever.”
Practice and qualifying for the event begins this Saturday, May 3 with the race taking place the following morning, Sunday, May 4. Due to pit space, the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship will take the interesting step of dividing the four-class series in two, running the Prototype Challenge (PC) and GTD categories in their own race on Sunday at 1PM ET followed by a second race featuring the Prototype and GTLM categories at 5:30PM ET. Live coverage of both events can be found on Fox Sports 1.