Stevenson Motorsports Set for Third Row Start at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
Monterey, Calif. (30 April 2016) – Stevenson Motorsports will move from the endurance format to a sprint-race format on Sunday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca as the team enters Round 3 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Sunday’s two-hour race will feature the GTD and LMPC classes at the 2.238-mile circuit as Stevenson Motorsports looks to add to a long history of highlights at the Monterey area track.
The No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS of Andrew Davis and Robin Liddell led the Stevenson charge during Saturday’s 15-minute qualifying session by putting the car sixth on the grid 
for Sunday’s two hour race event.
The No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS, shared by Matt Bell and Lawson Aschenbach, will start 11th.
The Jacksonville, North Carolina-based team worked through three practice sessions throughout the weekend to dial in the set up on each car. Friday featured cool and windy conditions, while Saturday brought sunshine and warmer temperatures.
Davis was tabbed to qualify the No. 6 machine and set a fast time of 1:27.277-seconds on the ninth of his 11 laps during the all green-flag run.
“The Stevenson guys have been working really hard all weekend trying to get little bits of improvement here and there,” said Davis, who won at Laguna Seca in 2011 en route to the Rolex GT Championship title. “We’re still suffering a little bit from some handling woes and they were still there during qualifying. So we pushed as hard as we could. It’s not exactly where we want to be, but it’s a spot where we can fight from. Now we just move forward to getting the car ready for the race over the long run tomorrow. It’s a short race so it’s really going to be an all-out sprint for us. As always, the guys are working as hard as they can to get our new Audi R8 LMS up to the front at the end of the race.”
Bell has a vast amount of experience at the Laguna Seca circuit, living not far from the Northern California track. He drove the No. 9 Audi R8 LMS to a 1:27.945-second lap.
“This was not our best qualifying effort, but it’s not terrible,” said Bell. “I might have not done some homework and I think we may have missed the mark on the set up. I’m definitely struggling with the car a little bit. We had prime tires, basically, and the track was a little bit greasier, so everyone’s times went down a little bit. We just weren’t there to have it. We’ll look over data and video and make sure we’re doing our research on what we need to do. We’ll get it done and try to have a better result tomorrow.”
The Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix powered by Mazda will go green Sunday at 3:45 PM local time (6:45 PM ET) and will be televised LIVE on FOX Sports 2.
