Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca
Date: May 3, 2014
Event: Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix (Round 4 of 11)
Series: Prototype division of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship
Location: Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey, Calif. (2.238-mile, 11-turn road course)
Pole Winner: Johannes van Overbeek of Extreme Speed Motorsports (1:18.561 at 102.555 mph)
Wayne Taylor Racing: 6th by Ricky Taylor (1:19.504 at 101.338 mph)
The No. 10 Konica Minolta Chevrolet Corvette Dallara Daytona Prototype for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) will start Sunday’s Tudor United SportsCar Championship Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix from the outside of the third row after qualifying Saturday evening at Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey, California.
Ricky Taylor, who with his brother and full-time co-driver Jordan Taylor helped introduce new primary sponsor Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., at the last race three weekends ago with a runner-up finish on the streets of Long Beach, Calif., turned a fast qualifying lap of 1 minute, 19.504 seconds (101.338 mph) around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn Laguna Seca road course. It was good for sixth among 22 Prototypes and GTLM-class entries set to take the green flag for Sunday’s two-hour race.
“The car was OK,” said Ricky Taylor, who qualified on the pole here and finished third with co-driver Max “The Ax” Angelelli in the No. 10 WTR Prototype in 2011. “I think we’re going to have to find something to challenge the P2 (LMP2) cars and the (No.) 90 car (Spirit of Daytona Corvette, which qualified second). But I think we’re in the mix with everybody else. I didn’t put together such a good lap. I made a mistake on my fastest two laps. So, I think I could have done a little bit better. In our history here, we haven’t had a great qualifying car but we’ve always had a great racecar. With our driver lineup and the way our racecar runs, I think we’ll be able to move up.”
The top-five qualifiers for Sunday’s Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca are:
1. Extreme Speed Motorsports (No. 2 HPD ARX-03b) with Johannes van Overbeek and Ed Brown (1:18.561 at 102.555 mph).
2. Spirit of Daytona Racing (No. 90 Corvette DP) with Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante (1:18.788 at 102.259 mph).
3. Action Express Racing (No. 1 HPD ARX-03b) with Ryan Dalziel and Scott Sharp (1:18.970 at 102.024 mph).
4. OAK Racing (No. 42 Nissan Morgan) with Gustavo Yacaman and Alexander Brundle (1:19.076 at 101.887 mph).
5. Action Express Racing (No. 5 Corvette DP) with Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi (1:19.175 at 101.759 mph).
Race time is 5:45 p.m. EDT Sunday with live television provided by FOX Sports 1 beginning with its prerace show at 5:30. Live streaming video will be provided by IMSA.com beginning at 5 p.m. Live radio by the Motor Racing Network (MRN) will be streamed at IMSA.com, and MRNRadio.com, as well as select MRN affiliates. Check local listings. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions can be found at IMSA.com and via the IMSA smartphone app.
