After taking the Petit Le Mans victory at Road Atlanta last year, Nick Tandy continues to impress at the Georgian road course with pole position today for this weekend’s final round of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
The Brit outpaced Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari and fellow Porsche runner and local resident, Bryan Sellers. Tandy will pair with Patrick Pilet (France) and German Jörg Bergmeister in the ten-hour endurance race tomorrow.
With two wins to-date, at the Rolex 24 At Daytona and the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Porsche is currently tied in the lead for the GTLM Manufacturer Championship. The German marque shares the top spot with Dodge/SRT. Each has 308 points with 35 markers available in tomorrow’s race.
“It seems to be a track that I get on pretty well with especially after last year’s win,” Tandy said.
“We went pretty aggressive on the strategy in qualifying knowing that we’d have two laps where the car would really be at its best. Going into that, knowing if you make a couple of mistakes then it’s really game over and puts a bit of pressure on.
“In qualifying trim, the car is its best its been all season. Since mid-season we’ve really put a lot of emphasis into our qualifying performance. At race run, a full stint is still a little bit questionable. We’ve still got work to do, but this is only the beginning.”
This year’s GT Le Mans class has had no shortage of competition – remarkably there have been 11 different drivers scoring pole position in the 11 races.
“It’s pretty amazing isn’t it. It’s good I’m the last one, then we can say 11 in a row ending with me,” Tandy said.
“But it goes to show how competitive this class is. And how good all the guys that drive the cars and the teams and manufacturers are in this series. It shows that this probably is the best GT race series in the world right now. I’m proud to be part of it, really.”
In the GTLM driver’s title, the Dodge Viper squad has split its championship contending drivers Kuno Wittmer and Jonathan Bomarito to maximize their championship chances.
The pair hold a seven point lead over Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia. If Garcia, Jan Magnussen and and Ryan Briscoe can win on Saturday for Corvette, both the Dodge Viper drivers will have to finish fourth or lower for Garcia to take the championship.
Bomarito qualified fourth fastest for tomorrow’s race with Garcia in 6th. Wittmer’s new teammate Marc Goosens put their Viper 8th on the grid.
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