Porsches Struggle in GT Qualifying for Petit Le Mans; AJR’s Leh Keen on GTC Pole

Atlanta – October 19 – Porsche 911 GT3 RSR customer teams qualified their GT cars seventh, ninth, 11th and 12th for the 15th annual Petit Le Mans, to be held tomorrow, Saturday, October 20, at the 2.54-mile Road Atlanta sports car circuit.

The race, which will get the green flag on Saturday, at 11:30am (all times Eastern), will be streamed live on ESPN3.com with coverage starting at 11:00am. The over-the-air telecast of the event will on Sunday, October 21, at 1:00pm on ABC-TV. Live scoring is available for all on-track sessions at www.alms.com.
In addition to the GT class, Porsche race cars compete in the American Le Mans Series GT Challenge class with matched Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. Although Cooper MacNeil has also clinched the GTC drivers title in the WeatherTech Alex Job Racing Porsche, he and co-driver Dion von Moltke are focused on helping their other driver, Leh Keen, capture second in the year-end standings.

“Our objective at VIR was to clinch the driver’s championship for Cooper. Now that we’ve done that, everyone has told me that our objective this weekend is to secure second place for me. With Dion von Moltke joining Copper and me, we have a good shot to take the whole thing. The AJR guys have given us a fast car right off the truck, and the WeatherTech crew has been great all week.”

The Porsches in GT are just a ick slower than the Corvettes, BMWs and Ferraris, a disappointing result for the Flying Lizards’ Joerg Bergmeister.

“We were somewhat disappointed with our qualifying position, but we knew we could not match the short-term speed of the competition. We are concentrating on our race set-up, and know that we will make up some time on pit stops and strategy,” said Bergmeister.

Marco Holzer, who qualified ninth in the other Flying Lizard Porsche he will shart with Nick Tandy and team owner Seth Neiman, was optimistic for the race.

“The #44 Lizard Porsche felt good in qualifying – we were quicker than we were during the practice. Lots can happen in a ten-hour race, and I think we can set a pace to be competitive. And, along with Nick Tandy, former Carrera Cup Germany champion, who has joined us this weekend, we should be able to compete for good position. Nick really likes ALMS, and appreciates the professionalism shown by our co-driver Seth Neiman and the Flying Lizard team,” said Holzer.

Richard Lietz, the factory driver who shared the WEC-winning Porsche last weekend with Marc Lieb in Japan, said the was quite pleased with the result despite his 11th place position.

“Qualifying was quite difficult for us. The car was not so easy to drive, but I got a clear lap, I had no traffic at all and I think I did the maximum of what was possible today. Thank goodness the race is long and we have three good drivers in this car, so I expect a good result at the end. We expected in qualifying it was going to be difficult, and actually we are closer than in practice, so it’s a good qualifying position for us.”

Bryan Sellers, who placed 12th in qualifying for the Team Falken Tire Porsche, was less pleased with his result.

“We struggled during qualifying, putting the car in the best position we could while trying to set the car up for the race. Our strength will be our race strategy, our drivers, and the fact that we have a Porsche,” said Sellers.