Long Beach, Calif. (11 April 2014) – Action Express Racing will open the Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase from inside the second row on Saturday afternoon after Christian Fittipaldi put the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette Daytona Prototype third on the grid with a quick lap-time of 1.15.571-seconds. The qualifying run was just two tenths of a second off of the pole time.

Fittipaldi ran among the top-three through the entire 15-minute IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship qualifying session with the fastest three cars each turning laps within tenths of one another and swapping positions each lap. The session was briefly halted by a red flag period and with minutes remaining, the cars returned for just two more flying laps. When the checkered flag flew, Fittipaldi had posted the third quickest time of the session.

“The top-three were very close and I was on the limit and I did a good qualifying lap,” said Fittipaldi. “There was not a lot more to come out of our car. The Action Express team gave me a very good car for qualifying and I managed to put together a good lap but we were two tenths and a half shy for one reason or another. Now tomorrow is the race and tomorrow is when it really counts!”

Fittipaldi, who has years of open-wheel and sports car experience on the twisty, 11-turn temporary street circuit used that previous knowledge of the track to his advantage during the qualifying run. The strong starting spot will be even more imperative for tomorrow’s 100-minute sprint race through the tight confines of the Long Beach streets. Fittipaldi and co-driver Joao Barbosa target a third consecutive podium finish tomorrow as the championship leaders aim to maintain their position at the top of the standings.

The Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase goes green tomorrow at 3:10 PM (PST) with live television coverage on FOX Sports 1.

MRN Radio will cover live coverage of the race at www.mrn.com and live timing and scoring can be found at scoring.imsa.com.