- Bullitt sixth in Race 1 of GT3 Challenge -
Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing scored its second pole position of the season today at Road America for Saturday's Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase.
After leading both practice sessions earlier in the day, the Pickett Racing group continued its domination in qualifying with Klaus Graf registering a lap time of one minute 51.828 seconds which was more than three tenths of a second over second place.
Right from his first timed lap, Graf took the top spot on the timing sheet and improved each lap, putting in his fastest lap on his third time around.
The team's pole position was its third in the American Le Mans Series and first at the 4.058-mile, 14-turn road course.
The Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase featuring the American Le Mans Series will go green at 4:00 pm ET on Saturday, August 20, 2011. The race will be streamed live on ESPN3.com from 3:45 pm ET.
ABC will be broadcasting the event on tape delay Sunday, August 21 at 4:30 pm ET.
Bullitt takes sixth in Race 1
Muscle Milk Team CytoSport's Mark Bullitt made an impressive start and passed nearly half the cars ahead of him in Race 1 of the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama at Road America today to finish sixth.
Starting from the 12th position, Bullitt passed five cars on the start and avoided a melee ahead of him on track to complete the first lap of the race in sixth place.
With the first 18 minutes of the race mostly run under yellow, there were not many opportunities for the German to improve his position. When the race finally went back to green, Bullitt had some good battles but fell to eighth on Lap 11 of what was a 14-lap race.
However, the driver of the #6 Muscle Milk Porsche GT3 Cup car kept on pushing and made his way back up to sixth two laps later and crossed the finish line in that position.
Based on the fastest race laps of Race 1, Bullitt will be starting ninth for Race 2, which goes green at 1:50 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 20.
MUSCLE MILK QUOTES
AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES DRIVERS
Klaus Graf, co-driver Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing "We made the right changes to the car before qualifying. We worked a lot between Lucas, the engineers and myself. We really focused on getting the car the way we have it now. It wasn't easy here at Road America. It's tough to get a good set up and really go fast at this track. We actually made the car more uncomfortable to drive but faster. We don't really care about that as long as it's fast so I think with the set up we have it will be very good for the race."To get pole here, it's a big reward. It's always tight with our main competitor so today to just be a little bit ahead it's always good for the Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing team. It's certainly a very good starting point for our race and a pole is a pole, so it's very good."
Lucas Luhr, co-driver Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing
"We had a good day. I wasn't so happy this morning in Practice 1 but we constantly made good progress with the car and I was very happy with it in Practice 2. We got what we expected around the Road America track with our Muscle Milk Aston Martin and then Klaus did a very good job in qualifying, and put in a lap time that was pretty much what we had expected, what is possible here with the Aston. "Once again we didn't really set up the car for qualifying, basically we qualified with the race set up so the car is really good. I think we can look forward to tomorrow because we have a quick and also very constant car for the race and obviously that's very important."
IMSA GT3 CUP CHALLENGE BY YOKOHAMA DRIVER
Mark Bullitt, driver #6 Muscle Milk Team CytoSport"The start was pretty good. When the green came out, some of the guys in front of me all checked up on their brakes and one of them nearly spun out which is kind of strange on a straight. It was good for us as I passed a couple of cars even if I had to go a little bit on the grass to avoid contact."I passed five cars on the start and then when we got to Canada Corner there was a Porsche just stopped there and cars going left and right and that brought out the yellow. So the first 20 minutes or so were kind of boring but once we got back to racing it was pretty good."It was very slick out there but we had a couple good fights and at the end of the day we picked up some important points. Tomorrow is another race, we're going to make some changes and hopefully do better."
Race Facts:Time Warner Cable Road Race ShowcaseRoad America, 4.058-mile, 14-turn Road Course, Elkhart Lake, WisconsinAugust 19 - 20, 2011
American Le Mans Series: Round #6 of 9Race Duration: 4 hours ALMS live online coverage:ESPN3.com:Race - August 20, 2011: 3:45 pm - 8:15 pm ETTape delayed broadcast:ABC: August 21, 2011 from 4:30 pm - 6:00 pmLive International Broadcast:MotorsTV - Live on Saturday, August 20Fox Sports Middle East - Live on Saturday, August 20Fox Latin American Networks - Live on Saturday, August 20Rogers Sports Net West - Live on Saturday, August 20, beginning at 2:00 pm (Mountain Time)
IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama: Rounds 10 & 11 of 15Race duration: 45 minutes each
Schedule (All times local):Saturday, August 20, 2011:ALMS Warm-up: 10:15 am - 10:35 amALMS Autograph Session: 11:30 am - 12:30 pmGT3 Race #2: 12:50 pm (45 minutes)ALMS Race: 3:00 pm (4 hours)
