Muscle Milk Pickett Racing’s development program for the 2013 season got off to a bright start at the Sebring Winter Test with a new front tire, new aero package and new candy-apple red highlights on their HPD machine.

Drivers Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr turned a total of 227 trouble free laps around the 3.7-mile, 17-turn road course in preparation for next month’s 12 Hours of Sebring, ending the test atop the time charts.

Graf turned the fastest lap of the two days with a time of one minute 46.368 seconds, more than a second quicker than Pickett Racing’s qualifying time from last season.

“We made quite a bit of progress. It’s just hard to tell sometimes here at Sebring because the track conditions change so dramatically,” Luhr (pictured right with team owner Greg Pickett) said.

“Therefore in regards to a pure lap time, at the end of the day, I’m not completely satisfied but after so many years of coming to Sebring I know it’s always like this.

“When we come back here for the race it’s going to be different anyway. It’s a little tough to say how we compare to others because there were none of our P1 competitors here. But that’s the exciting stuff, we’ll see race week.”

The battle for P1 championship honors is expected to intensify in 2013 with European team Rebellion Racing joining the ALMS on a full-time basis. While Audi is set to join the battle for Sebring only, Luhr and the Muscle Milk squad have their sights set on maximum ALMS P1 points at Sebring, not an overall race win.