Magnus Racing Struggles to Get into Gear in Austin

AUSTIN, Texas (September 21, 2015)- Headed into Saturday’s Lone Star Le Mans, the penultimate round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, Magnus Racing’s hopes for a return to form were cut short within the opening laps as the team experienced gearbox problems. While the team would ultimately manage to get back on track after lengthy repairs, the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America would be classified 12^th in the GTD class and 23 laps down.

“The event was pretty indicative of our season,” stated Magnus Racing team owner and co-driver John Potter. “We had a fast car all weekend and were optimistic for the race, but unfortunately we lost drive early on, and that was that. There were still a lot of positives on the weekend. We were one of the fastest cars in practice, I think we had a good qualifying run, and I know we keep saying it but I believe with a couple different changes of fortune we would have had a really good race. Petit Le Mans is next and that’s one we all want to win, and I think we’re well prepared for it.”

After one of his best qualifying performances of the season, Potter would start from the sixth position for the two-hour, forty-minute race. After repeatedly setting the fastest lap during Thursday and Friday practice, and having finished second during the previous two visits, the team was optimistic on their chances. 

Unfortunately, after making a strong start, Potter would lose drive after the second lap, immediately pulling into the pits as the team looked for a quick cure to the problem. After a lengthy examination of the car’s rear-end, it was clear the car would have to be rolled back into the paddock for further analysis and repair. Eventually, the team discovered a terminal issue in the gearbox, having to switch to a backup and effectively losing nearly an hour in the process.

In typical Magnus fashion, the crew did a stellar job given the challenges of swapping a gearbox, and the Porsche would go back on track within an hour. With no hope of a good finish, the focus simply became on ensuring Potter drove his minimum drive time to score points on the day.

Once Potter clicked off his required time, the team would put teammate Andy Lally in to finish the race, with the Long Island native driving the final 40 minutes to take the car to the checkered flag.

“Yup,” stated Lally. “…..” 

With only one race remaining, the entire TUDOR Championship will head to the final race of the championship, Petit Le Mans, in less than two weeks. As a 10-hour race, taking place at the scenic Road Atlanta, the team is looking forward to the opportunity to repeat their podium performance from last year. Practice begins on Thursday, October 1, with the race taking place on Saturday, October 3. The full broadcast schedule will be revealed in an upcoming 

Magnus Racing Looking to Finish Season Strong in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (September 17, 2015)- With only two races remaining in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, Magnus Racing will head to this weekend’s second-to-last round in Austin, Texas, looking to close their season on a high. With practice for the Lone Star Le Mans at the famed Circuit of the Americas beginning this morning, the team is looking to continue a podium streak at the venue that began in 2013.
 
“Circuit of the Americas is a great circuit to visit,” stated Potter. “Everyone talks about it being a Formula One circuit, and the quality of the facilities and aesthetics certainly shows that. We’ve been lucky to be on the podium every time we’ve come here, and our work is certainly cut out for us if we’re going to repeat that. We’ve had an incredibly fast car for the last several races, we just haven’t had the breaks we needed during the race, but hopefully our good history here can continue.”
 
First visiting the circuit in 2013, Magnus Racing has been fortunate to have seen the podium in every year they’ve come. In 2013, the team just narrowly missed out on victory to finish second, repeating the same effort in 2014 utilizing a combination of strategy and patience.
 
With the track providing notoriously close racing, and strategy often coming in to play, the team knows the chance to see their second podium of the season is strong.
 
For Andy Lally, hopes for a return to form are high.
 
“We’ve been one of the quickest cars at nearly every track during the last few events,” stated Lally. “This field is so competitive that if just one little thing doesn’t go your way, the race can turn on you, and we seem to keep getting caught out by that. Circuit of the Americas has traditionally been a great place for us in the past, so we’re hoping this will be a weekend to finally reward the guys for their efforts.”
 
With practice having already begun for the event, Saturday’s race will take part as part of a combined event with the World Endurance Championship, with the TUDOR race beginning at 12:30PM ET. Live television coverage can be found on FOX Sports 2, with FOX Sports 1 re-airing the broadcast on Sunday at 1:30PM ET. 

Tire Woes End Day Early for Magnus Racing at VIR

ALTON, Virginia (August 25, 2015) – Despite repeatedly setting some of the quickest times in practice and looking like a strong contender for Sunday’s TUDOR United Sports Car Championship race, a series of tire and mechanical woes would end the Oak Tree Grand Prix early for Magnus Racing. Despite the race retirement, the team would still be credited with ninth in the GTD category.

“It’s disappointing to end another race early, but we feel as though we did it for the right reasons,” stated Magnus Racing team owner and co-driver John Potter. “At a certain point you just have to look at the merit of running vs. the risk, and in our case it unfortunately made sense to retire the car and look deeper into what was going on. It’s frustrating because we’ve all been working hard on this season and we know the quality of what we have, we just couldn’t find the luck we needed.”

Taking starting duties in the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America, John Potter would take the green flag in seventh, with all eyes focused on the field in front of him. Knowing how strong the car had been, it was up to the Salt Lake City resident to manage his car carefully, doing an excellent job of maintaining a pace with the lead pack without putting the car in unnecessary risk.

As the laps continued, John had managed to move the car up to fifth with only two laps to go before pitting for teammate Andy Lally, when a sudden tire deflation through the tricky uphill esses would send the Porsche understeering wide past a right-hand turn and in to the grass, with Potter doing an excellent job to keep the car from contacting anything. He would manage to recover without significant damage, however, he would need to limp to the pits given the issue with his tire.

Upon further analysis from the team, the data did show a sudden loss of tire pressure on the left front, illustrating Potter’s quick thinking to get himself out of trouble once the incident began.

“When I went into the right hander on the esses, all of a sudden I saw the wall coming at me,” continued Potter. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ve seen this before,’ and jumped on the gas to get the car to turn around… luckily it worked perfectly. It was frustrating to have that kind of surprise, but I’m glad I was able to keep it from being anything more serious.”

Following a quick stop to evaluate damage and replace the tire, all signs were that the car was fine, their only real penalty being time lost from the spin and time in the pits. One lap later when Potter would eclipse the required minimum drive time, John would pit in favor of teammate Andy Lally.

With Lally in the car, all focus was on trying to get the car back on the lead lap and back on strategy, chasing down the race leaders as the laps went on. Unfortunately, just 13 laps later, a similar fate would hit Andy with another tire going down.

The crew would once again replace the tire, and after evaluating the car went back to action. Unfortunately, as the laps went on Lally felt a nagging vibration, with the team eventually pitting him again to examine the whole car.

Eventually, with the team effectively out of championship contention and with no way of winning the race, the decision was made to retire in the interest of safety.

“It’s disappointing for all of us,” stated Andy Lally. “This was another one of those weekends where we had the car to win, but it just wasn’t meant to be. It’s so disappointing for this team, because we have all the pieces to win. At the end of the day I do agree it was the right choice, I don’t think of any of us wanted to write off the car, put ourselves at risk, or screw up another team’s championship.”

With nearly a month until the next round at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, the team will have several weeks to make an extensive evaluation of the car. Practice for the Lone Star Le Mans will begin on Thursday, September 17, with the race action taking place on Saturday, September 19. 

Magnus Racing Heads to VIRginia International Raceway in Pursuit of Victory

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (August 20, 2015) – With the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship entering the final stages of the 2015 season, Magnus Racing is looking to close out the season with one goal in mind, winning. Headed to this weekend’s Oak Tree Grand Prix at the scenic VIRginia International Raceway (VIR), the team is in a “must win” position to have any shot at the tightly-contested GTD category championship.

“We’ve definitely found our pace over the last few races, it’s just a matter of having all of the pieces come together,” stated team owner and co-driver John Potter. “Headed to the end of the season, especially when we still have an outside chance at the championship, it would be great to deliver our best results. Everyone on the team has earned a top finish with the time they’ve been putting in for testing, etc., so we’re definitely hoping to deliver.”

As the season’s lone GT-only event, featuring the series’ GTLM and GTD categories in a stand-alone event, the 3.27-mile circuit will create a scenic backdrop for the ninth round of the championship. With only three races remaining, the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America team still holds an outside chance at both team and driver’s championship, although at a 17-point difference, the chances are increasingly slim.

Having taken the fastest lap times throughout much of practice during the previous round at Road America, the long straights, hills, and fast corners of VIR promise to offer a similar set of opportunities for the team.

For Andy Lally, a previous winner at the circuit, the preparedness of the team is clearly there.

“The team is definitely ready and as cohesive as ever,” stated Lally. “VIR should be a good fit for us. We had an excellent setup at Road America and we proved it by repeatedly setting the fastest lap times in practice. Hopefully everything can come together for us in Virginia, we’d really like to deliver for our amazing crew.”

Practice for this weekend’s Oak Tree Grand Prix begins on Friday, October 21, with LIVE race coverage on Sunday, October 23, on FOX Sports 1 at 1PM ET.

Quiet Run to Fifth for Magnus at Road America

ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin (August 10, 2015) – With hopes of erasing several past memories of the historic circuit, Magnus Racing enjoyed a fairly quiet run during Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase to take fifth place in the GTD category at Road America. In spite of this, the team remains only 13 points out of the championship lead, part of a remarkably tight GTD championship battle among seven teams.
 
“Just make up whatever quote you want,” stated Magnus Racing team owner and co-driver John Potter. “We finished fifth, not really sure what I’m supposed to say, it was fine. I do hope everyone at The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank enjoyed their experience with us, and certainly we would have hoped to have had a better result, but there wasn’t anything that really went wrong during the race, we were simply fifth.”
 
Starting the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America from the fourth row, Potter would take the reigns of his machine with a goal of simply running clean through his one-hour stint. With an early yellow mixing up the race strategy for the entire field, the team elected to stay out with Potter coming into the pits after his mandatory 50-minute drive time had finished.
 
Following another faultless stop from the team, it was now time for Andy Lally to take to action with a firm aim of moving to the front. While the team would demonstrate some of the fastest laps in the field, and yet another excellent team pit stop, an extended series of green flag runs until the end would give Lally an insurmountable gap to make up to the field in front of him, eventually gaining positions between attrition, altering strategies and a few late on-track passes to take fifth.
 
“We finished fifth,” stated Lally. “Yup.”
 
Achieving success off the track, the team was proud to host over a dozen guests from The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank, a special division of the bank catering to the needs of their high net worth clientele. With Magnus Racing handling their every need over the weekend, the team was proud to immerse their guests in everything that sportscar racing has to offer, presenting a behind-the-scenes experience like no other.
 
The team will return to action in just two weeks’ time, competing in the Oak Tree Grand Prix at VIR, a very unique GT-only race taking place at the historic VIRginia International Raceway. Practice begins on Friday, August 21, with the race taking place on Sunday, August 23.