Magnus Racing Takes Victory at Sebring

SEBRING, Fla. (March 16, 2014)- Following one of the most up-and-down races in the history of the event, a complete team effort by Magnus Racing would overcome a number of obstacles to take victory at the 62nd Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Acting not only as the first Sebring victory for the team, the feat would also take the honor of becoming the first-ever victory for Porsche in the GTD category of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

“It’s still very surreal to be here,” stated team owner John Potter. “Having so many challenges throughout the race made for a very exciting 12 hours, and I’m still in a bit of shock that we came away with a victory. It’s a perfect testament to the work of not only Andy and Marco, but especially this fantastic crew. The guys had no shortage of challenges yet their preparation kept us in contention, and that’s why we’re here today. It’s also great to finally get a big victory for Flex-Box who have been with us for many years looking for this type of result. It’s just amazing.”

Starting the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America in tenth spot, Potter would take opening duties as the green flag fell. Shortly into the race, when the No. 33 Viper GT3-R brought out a lengthy caution due to a car fire, it became clear that the round-the-clock event was going to be a unique one, and the race failed to disappoint.

After a clean opening stint, the Salt Lake City resident was comfortably setting a pace on par with the leaders with the team quietly waiting for the race to unfold. Unfortunately, halfway through his second stint the No. 94 Turner BMW of Dane Cameron would make contact with the left rear of the Magnus Porsche sending Potter spinning into the dirt, but luckily avoiding contact with any barriers. The impact with Cameron, and more importantly a large patch of dirt, was significant enough to damage the right-front grill, but luckily the team avoided more significant damage.

Able to stay out until his fuel cycled through, Potter would eventually make his second scheduled pit stop swapping out for team newcomer Marco Seefried. Amazingly, as the driver change occurred the team was able to repair the front grill with minimal time loss and Seefried resumed competition on the lead lap.

Climbing his way through the field, the experience of Seefried, hailing from Germany, proved critical. Unfortunately, as Seefried continued to push, the damaged right-front grill continued to be problematic as the team’s efforts to repair the area quickly meant that continued service would be required in subsequent stops. Luckily, an unusually high number of caution periods allowed the team to continue to work on the area without major consequence.

With Seefried cycling through and climbing into the top five, the team elected to put John Potter back into the car for the middle portion of the race. Knowing his job was simply to hold position and run a clean stint, Potter clicked off a number of impressive lap times eventually handing the car over to Andy Lally who had literally stayed out of the car for the first five hours.

Despite the damage to the car’s front end, Lally immediately set a pace that showed the strength of the Porsche, as the Georgia resident continued to push hard on his way back into the top five. Following a great battle with several cars, Andy brought the No. 44 into podium contention by the time he hit his second stint and the team began to realistically look poised for a podium.

That was when the second disaster struck. As Lally went through the gears, the car all of a sudden failed to shift, which for the Magnus team was eerily reminiscent of problems at Daytona. Following a number of procedures to try and get his gear-shift mechanism working while still on track, the problem was unable to be solved bringing Lally in for a pit stop and driver change.

The team instantly went to work on the air compressor system that engages the gear change, an identical service to what happened in Daytona. In typical Magnus fashion, the repairs, plus Lally’s slow lap into the pit, only put the team one lap down. With five hours remaining there was plenty of time for the team to get back in contention.

Knowing that Andy Lally would need to be fresh for the end, Seefried, who’d already done a double stint at the very bumpy circuit, would end up doing a triple stint to carry the car into the final stages of the event. The German drove notably, with attrition and pits cycles carrying the car to third and even briefly leading.

With just over 90 minutes remaining, Seefried’s series of stints would come to an end as Lally jumped back in knowing that the team had a legitimate shot at a podium.

Sitting in second with an hour to go, the ultimate pace of the No. 44 proved difficult to catch the leading No. 23 Porsche and with a number of cars approaching behind him, the team knew the final pit stop would play a critical role.

It was at the 45-minute mark that the team’s final winning component, strategy, proved decisive. As a prototype began to come to a stop on the track, quick thinking by the team called Lally in for his final stop just before the yellow came out.

Proving a critical decision, the No. 44 would come out of the pits in third, but with the knowledge that the two cars in front would require a pit stop, and since they were under caution he had already caught up to them. The strategy worked perfectly, and as pit stops cycled through, Lally was handed the lead with 30 minutes to go.

With the overall pace of the damaged No. 44 still proving difficult, it was now up to Andy to finish the job having the monumental task of going as fast as he could to keep his competitors behind. Playing the faster traffic perfectly, Lally did just that taking the checkered flag in first to the surprise of everyone.

Beyond serving as the first Sebring victory for the team, Potter, and Seefried, it would also serve as the first victory at the event for Lally who has now completed his collection of major endurance victories in North America.

“I still can’t believe it. We won Sebring,” stated Lally. “I just don’t have the words to describe it, what a team effort. Everyone on this team was just perfect. Perfect job by John and Marco, perfect pit stops, fast repairs, and a brilliant call at the end. Sebring has always been the one that escaped me, and we finally, finally did it. I can’t thank everyone at Magnus, and everyone at Flex-Box, enough for making this a reality.”

For Marco Seefried, who finished second in the event last year, his first major North American victory will be a memorable one.

“What a crazy race,” stated the German. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many yellows in my life, but we managed to make it work. This whole Magnus team is just amazing, and to win at Sebring is a major accomplishment for my career. I’m just very thankful for the opportunity.”

Magnus Racing, and the entire GTD category, will now take an extended break from competition as the series heads into the more traditional “sprint” season. The team will return to competition on May 2-3 in California, racing at the storied Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Magnus Racing Completes Successful Test at Sebring

SEBRING, Fla. (February 23, 2014)- With the majority of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship paddock taking part in a two-day test in advance of the upcoming 62nd Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Magnus Racing wrapped up the two-day event with a number of advances and findings within the different divisions of the team.

Below is a rundown of different elements tested as well as the respective results:

Engineering
Lars Giersing, Chief Engineer, tested a number of different items for evaluation. While not normally a whiskey drinker, he figured he would test out Palm Ridge Reserve made out of a micro-distillery on a small cattle farm near Umatilla, Florida. Running this test in concert with a number of his usual preferred wines, tequilas and, of course, beer Giersing found his results inconclusive.

“We used this test as an opportunity to evaluate a number of liquors,” stated the Denmark native. “Even though Magnus is a very collaborative team, in all honesty, I had no interest in other people’s input as I had to sample everything personally to eliminate the variables. We’re still working on a number of possible developments here so we will continue to ship many different options to my home.”

Hospitality
Following 24 hours of running and operation placed on the litany of team-owned crockpots, grills, microwaves and warmers, Magnus hospitality staff decided to test out a new popcorn maker. Unfortunately, at the three-hour mark the team discovered an “electrical issue” that prevented the popcorn maker from continuing. The electrical issue was in no way a clever use of phrasing to cover up a larger failure. No race team has ever done that, ever.

“This is why we come to test,” stated Lorie Bedell, hospitality director. “We still have some gremlins to figure out, but I’m sure we’ll have it working by the race. The guys have been hard at work getting to the bottom of it and we’ll just dig a little deeper.”

Tires
While the team’s Continental Tires proved faultless as usual, team owner John Potter instead turned his attention to testing the patience of tire technician, Wayne Lollis.

“I don’t know why Potter feels the need to try a Southern accent on me,” stated the North Carolina resident. “He thinks he is funny when he does a southern accent, but all he can really say is the word “tires.” By the way, if you remind me later, I would like to talk to him about how important tires are.”

Drivers
Andy Lally was “tested” a few days prior to the events at Sebring. According to the data, we suggest any female “friends” of Andy may want to get tested as well.

Meanwhile, the team also tested newcomer Marco Seefried’s sense of humor. He passed, and is awesome.

PR
The Magnus PR team tested out their snooze alarm.

It worked.

Transportation
Team truck driver, Kyle Leo, tested a number of routes that could sneak in a return trip to his Georgia home without anyone finding out. Unfortunately, it took over a day to arrive at his Georgia home, demonstrating a clear performance gap to many of the other team’s trucks.

“The series really needs to do something for Volvo trucks like ours,” stated Leo. “The Mack drivers were regaling me with tales of Sunday barbeques, going to see movies and all sorts of things that Volvo teams are unable to do. Right now it’s a tough time to compete with truck drivers like this, I hope officials can do something soon.”

The Car
Oh yeah, it was fine.

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Magnus Racing and the entire TUDOR United SportsCar Championship will return to Sebring in three weeks with the 62nd Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring taking place on Saturday, March 15.

Both Magnus Racing and the TUDOR championship will have a number of announcements regarding the event coming soon. Stay tuned to the team’s website, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

Marco Seefried to Join Magnus Racing at Sebring

Salt Lake City, UT (February 7, 2014)- Following an impressive run at the most recent Rolex 24 at Daytona, Germany’s Marco Seefried will join Magnus Racing for the upcoming 62nd Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. This will complete the team’s three-driver lineup for the historic event.

“We’re heading to Sebring with a strong sense of potential,” stated team owner and driver John Potter. “With the miles we’ve logged at Sebring in the off-season, we’re as prepared as we can be, and having Marco join us is our final piece of the puzzle. We’re grateful to have him join us, and are confident that his experience will contribute a lot.”

With over 23 years of racing experience, Seefried joins the team as a veteran of Porsche competition. Having run in Porsche Supercup events dating back to 2002, the Bavarian joins the team with not only experience at Sebring, Daytona, and many of the world’s great endurance races, but also taking podium honors at last year’s event.

“I am very proud to join Magnus Racing,” stated the 37-year-old. “I’ve followed the team since my first start in the US in GRAND-AM. I admire the team and the guys who drive for them because the team has always been competitive. I’ll do my very best to support the team as well as I can, which my 12 years of Porsche experience should help with. I look forward to returning to Sebring, it is really a challenging track without any room for mistakes. Last year, together with Sean Edwards and Henrique Cisneros, we finished third in class. It’s very unfortunate Sean won’t be there anymore to fight with, but I am sure we will have a great race with a great grid in the new series.”

With the trio of Seefried, Potter and Andy Lally, combined with the fact that the team took the very first laps of the new Porsche 911 GT America at the famed airport circuit, confidence within the team is high.

The team will join the entire TUDOR United SportsCar Championship at the upcoming series-sanctioned test, taking place February 20-21. The team will then return for the 12-hour classic, which will take place on Saturday, March 15.

Magnus Racing Continues Development with 12th at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fl (January 27, 2014)- Campaigning an all-new car for the debut of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, Magnus Racing overcame a series of minor obstacles to finish 12th at the conclusion of yesterday’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

 “It’s certainly not the type of finish we’re used to at Daytona, but the goal for us was to learn what we could about the car’s longevity,” stated Magnus Racing team owner John Potter. “Everyone on the team worked really, really hard to get us here, and the fact that we were able to finish is a testament to the quality of the team. I really want to thank Flex-Box and all of their guests for joining us this weekend, it’s a shame we weren’t able to deliver our normal Daytona performance, but we hope we can continue a long relationship with them.”

With overall pace and balance-of-performance being a consistent challenge for all of the Porsche entrants in the GTD class, the 2012 Rolex 24 class winners knew that top results would be difficult, but hopes were still high for a strong finish. Similarly, with long-time sponsor Flex-Box returning, and with several guests on hand to experience the event, the pressure was as high as ever to deliver for the valued partner.

Starting from the seventh row, the No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America took the green flag with driver Andy Lally, however, an early setback would come within minutes of the race start.

Experiencing a minor cooling issue, an early yellow would give Lally an opportunity to pit for the team to sort out the issue, also allowing John Potter to take the reigns for his first stint of the race. Running consistent laps and slowly making his way up the order, a solid afternoon of stints would proceed with drivers Potter, Lally, as well as Wolf Henzler and J.F. Dumoulin running incident free as the sun began to set over the twice-around-the-clock race.

Unfortunately, when the time came for Potter to get in for his second stint, a rare issue with the gear-shifting system would emerge as he left the pit forcing the Utah resident to immediately return to the pit as the team looked to diagnose the issue. Just 90 seconds after pitting, the car was back underway, the crew doing their traditional amazing job to replace the air compressors used in the pneumatic gear-shift system.

With the team now having lost a couple of laps, all focus was on playing the pit strategy to gain laps back, with the team slowly moving their way up the order as the night drew on. With every driver running mistake free, and the crew continuing with faultless pit stops, they began to crack the top ten as attrition started to play out.

Unfortunately, that would all change as driver Andy Lally reported a strange vibration at high speed, eventually leading to an evaluatory pit stop. The team determined that the front splitter was coming apart requiring a full replacement of the front nose. Due to the time involved in replacing and mounting, the team would re-emerge several laps down with any hopes for victory effectively gone.

Now focusing on turning in laps and learning more about the longevity of the all-new 911 GT America, the only recurring issue would be the car’s front splitter which would experience additional failures during the second half of the race.

As the race cycled through, no one put a foot wrong behind the wheel or during pit stops, with the only real issue becoming the need to run the final hours of the race without a front splitter entirely.

The car would take the checkered flag in 12th place, the team knowing much more about the vehicle’s relative strengths and weaknesses.

For Andy Lally, a fairly uneventful race failed to highlight the quality of the team’s effort.

“The guys did a great job to get here,” stated Lally. “It’s unfortunate we were never really in this thing, but if we couldn’t have a shot at the win, we at least wanted to know everything we could about how the car performs in an endurance race. We definitely have a sense for that now, and it will help us for the rest of the season. Everyone should be proud of the effort, we’ll be back even stronger for Sebring.”

Wolf Henzler, who will return to his program with Falken Tire beginning at Sebring, enjoyed his first race with the team.

“Even though it was my first race with Magnus, I’ve known a lot of the people here for a long time,” stated Henzler. “The quality of the team is great, it’s just unfortunate we had the difficulties we did. I wish everyone at Magnus much success, I’m sure they’ll rebound this season.”

J.F. Dumoulin, also making his debut, is glad he got the call to join the team.

“It came together very late, but I’m glad to have been a part of the program,” stated Dumoulin. “This is a great team made up of quality people and I’m sure they’ll deliver some great results as the season continues. It’s a brand-new car and everyone is still learning, but they’ll be at the top of the charts soon.”

With Magnus’s marketing efforts becoming a bit of a notorious effort during the Rolex 24, the team failed to disappoint in 2014. Beyond the success of last week’s “Rediscover SportsCar” video, as well as the launch of this year’s race poster (“Back to the Tudor”), the team successfully ran a 24-hour, pit-side webcast boasting nearly 100,000 total views by the end of the weekend. The only failure came in hosts Ryan Eversley and Sean Heckman’s inability to get driver Shane van Gisbergen to make an appearance, which became a massive 12-hour social media campaign among the fans.

While the TUDOR United SportsCar championship won’t return to racing action until March 15 at the 12 Hours of Sebring, there will be little time off for the team. Between rebuilding the car after the wear of Daytona, and an upcoming test at Sebring International Raceway, the crew at Magnus will be hard at work over the coming weeks.

 

Magnus Racing Pitside Webcast to Return During Rolex 24 at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (January 21, 2014)- Continuing the team’s tradition of integrating the fans in new and unique ways, Magnus Racing will once again present a live, streaming webcast from the team’s pit box during all 24 hours of this year’s historic Rolex 24 at Daytona, the debut of the all-new TUDOR United Sports Car Championship.
 
With permission from FOX and IMSA, who will be providing round-the-clock coverage across their networks and IMSA.com, Magnus Racing will provide the perspective of one individual team in the GTD class. Television coverage will begin at 2:00PM on FOX and continue on FOX Sports 2 from 4-9PM.  After overnight coverage on IMSA.com, FOX Sports 1 will have the race from 7AM to its conclusion on Sunday.
 
The Magnus stream can be found at either magnusracing.com, or ustream.tv/liveatdaytona, beginning on Saturday, January 25, at 2:00PM ET and running until 2:30PM on Sunday, January 26.
 
As in years past, the team’s webstream will begin before the green flag and run for all 24 hours until the checkered flag falls at 2:10PM on Sunday, and serve to complement Fox’s comprehensive coverage of the on-track action. In their efforts to engage with the fans, the team will also feature not only in-car radio, but additionally will feature live commentary during all 24 hours in which fans can write in via on-line chat to a litany of guests from within the team and around the paddock.
 
While webcast stalwart Sean Heckman will continue his hosting duties, he will thankfully be joined and replaced by famed driver Ryan Eversley, a multi-time winner in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge as well as multi-time Rolex 24 competitor. Additionally, Eversley and Heckman will be joined by long-time Magnus team members Emily Potter and Jessica Bregy. With fan engagement at a premium, the quartet promises to stay actively engaged in the team’s chat room, as well as bringing on team members including Andy Lally, John Potter, Wolf Henzler, JF Dumoulin, and a number of notables around the paddock.
 
Of course, when it comes to keeping the fans entertained, the team’s notoriously irreverent humor will continue on during this year’s stream, including the famed Magnus Challenge. To win the Magnus Challenge, fans are given a secret word every hour during all 24 hours, and if they’re able to name all 24 words at the end they will win a special Magnus prize pack. Beyond the Magnus Challenge, the team will feature a number of other surprise games including the Magnus Drivers’ Challenge and more.
Additionally, the team will continue to raise awareness for series’ charities including Camp Boggy Creek, among others.
 
For Magnus Racing’s John Potter, the ability to continue the team’s tradition is a testament to their commitment to fans as well as the generosity of FOX and IMSA.
 
“First things first, we’re very grateful for FOX and IMSA to allow us to do this every year,” stated Potter. “The television coverage for 2014 should be excellent and we’re happy to provide a complementary story to what’s unfolding during the race. Our team has worked very hard to get us ready for the event. It’s not easy developing an all-new car for an all-new series, but we’re as prepared as we can be and we’re excited to share our story.”
 
Practice for this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona will begin on Thursday, January 23, at 9:30AM. The team will do their best to make the webcast available during every session, but make no promises as they prepare for the weekend’s race.