Westbrook continues Ford run
Westbrook continues Ford run
Richard Westbrook has continued his “media center world tour” with another visit to meet the press after scoring pole today at Lime Rock Park in the GTLM class.
Westbook and teammate Ryan Briscoe have won the past three IMSA races and the Brit returned to the media center today as the pole winner.
He held off the BMW of Dirk Werner and the Corvette of Tommy Milner to earn the top spot.
The Brit has enjoyed getting to know the media at recent post session press conferences.
“I hope it continues, I’m certainly not complaining. If you’re coming to the media center a lot you’re doing something right,” Westbrook said.
“But Lime Rock, we’re gonna take it with a pinch of salt, it’s qualifying. And track position is always key, but here, with the traffic, there’s more cars here than ever and three different classes so we’re going to have to be really patient tomorrow.
“You have to pick the right combination of tire compounds. It’s 5-right handers and 1-left hander, you can experiment.”
The hot conditions today and the limited amount of track time has drivers, engineers and crew pondering their strategies for tomorrow’s race.
“The stint could be 65 laps but no one has run that long so we have no idea,” Westbrook said.
“With Michelin we have three compounds and I think that’s going to be key tomorrow because you can mix them up here. Thats the beauty of Lime Rock.
Other pole winners included Colin Braun in PC who scored his second consecutive class pole
“Obviously, I’m really happy to get the pole, but with the race being held in the heat of the day tomorrow, we felt qualifying as a good opportunity to evaluate the car and setup,” said Braun, winning his seventh career pole in the class.
“Saturday’s race is the most important thing here, and with limited track time, we felt this session was ideal to prepare for it.”
His teammate Jon Bennett will start the race in the No. 54 machine, moving him to the rear of the PC grid. As a result, Robert Alon, who was only 0.016 seconds behind with a lap of 48.840 seconds will move to the top starting spot. He will be joined by 2015 Lime Rock winner Tom Kimber-Smith in the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry.
In GT Daytona (GTD) qualifying, Spencer Pumpelly stepped up to give Lamborghini its second pole of the season.
Pumpelly ran a class track-record lap of 53.148 seconds in the No. 16 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 co-driven by Corey Lewis.
Pole! pic.twitter.com/jo60A9Znfb
— Richard Westbrook (@RWestbrook1) July 22, 2016
#FordIMSA @RWestbrook1 says winning becomes habit. Maybe poles do, too? 2nd one for him with @CGRsportscar #IMSA pic.twitter.com/vojzAH6zwn
— Ford Performance (@FordPerformance) July 22, 2016
A happy Dirk getting P2 for No 25, doing a great job adjusting to the car. @ihgrewardsclub#IHGracing pic.twitter.com/zSV5sKamdJ
— BMWUSA Motorsport (@BMWUSARacing) July 22, 2016
We'll start 3rd for tomorrow's #northeastgp! Engineers and crew are working hard this week… https://t.co/JdSgmGIJFe pic.twitter.com/hWCu9WpTXy
— Tommy Milner (@TommyMilner) July 22, 2016
//results.imsa.com/Results/16_2016/13_Lime%20Rock/01_IMSA%20WeatherTech%20SportsCar%20Championship/201607221630_Qualifying/03_Results.PDF
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