Tafel/Bell Micro Racing Ferrari Qualifies 3rd at Mosport; No. 73 to Start 8th
Tafel Racing will start two cars in the top-10 of the GT2 class for today's Grand Prix of Mosport.
Dominik Farnbacher (Ansbach, Germany) turned the third quickest time in class in his second appearance at Mosport International Raceway. The young German lapped the No. 71 Tafel/Bell Micro Racing Ferrari F430 GTC in a time of one minute, 17.232 seconds, 6/10ths of a second better than the existing track record but missing the pole position by 4/10ths.
The Tafel Racing sister car, the No. 73 Ferrari F430 GTC, was eighth-quickest in the 20-minute session with Jim Tafel (Alpharetta, Ga.) behind the wheel. Tafel's 1:19.942 was the best of his young career here at the dauntingly-quick 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit. 2000 American Le Mans Series GT2 Champion Dirk Müller (a native of Germany now living in Monaco) will share the No. 71 with Farnbacher in tomorrow's two hour, 45- minute event while former Champ Car driver Alex Figge (Denver) will trade-off driving chores with Jim Tafel.
The Grand Prix of Mosport can be seen live on SPEED starting at 3 PM (ET), August 24. XM Satellite Radio Channel 166 will broadcast the full American Le Mans Series Radio web broadcast live also going on air at 3 PM (ET). Live timing and scoring of each on-track session and the live American Le Mans Series Radio Web broadcast can be found at AmericanLeMans.com.
QuotesDirk Müller, Driver, No. 71: "We are well prepared to start from the second row. Our nearest competitor [in the point championship] is behind us. The race will be decided by who gets the least damage from incidents with the prototypes. We need to be really conscious that the prototypes are racing hard and we are racing hard. There is the high risk of getting contact because of that. I believe this track gives the best chance of an incident because the speed difference in the corners is maximum. The prototypes are lighter with more downforce so they are much quicker in the corners and these are all really high downforce corners. I think in the end it will be like the last race at Road America where it was really tight. We don't need to win we just need to make the points' gap smaller. So, that is our main goal for tomorrow."
Alex Figge, Driver, No. 73: "I had a really productive morning with Dave [Fullerton, engineer] making more changes on the car. We went the right way. Jim nailed our goal for qualifying the car and I couldn't be happier about that. It sets us up really well for tomorrow's race."
Jim Tafel, Driver, No. 73: "I was very pleased with what I have accomplished this week as a driver; to get my times closer to what they need to be. I owe a lot of that to my team; Dave, [Fullerton, engineer], Alex and Mike [Zimicki, driving coach] especially, to get the parts of this puzzle on how to get this done. Obviously, we all want to go faster. I am pleased with my result and the help I have been getting from my team."
