John D.

On a perfect sunny Florida day, the three Porsches of The Racer’s Group qualified 2-12-18 for Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Porsche works driver Patrick Long drove the #66 New Century Mortgage/TRG Porsche to a qualifying lap of 2:05.228, good for fourth place in the session. Two of the faster GT cars, including one of the factory Alex Job Porsches, were disallowed from qualifying for technical violations. Car #68, qualified by Scotland’s Piers Masarati, lapped the historic circuit in 2:09.166, good for twelfth place on the GT grid. The #67 Flamingo Resort/TRG Porsche did not run the qualifying session and will start the race in 18th place on the grid, after an incident in morning practice caused bodywork damage; Crew Chief Dave Fullerton decided to spend time setting up the car for the race, rather than scramble to put together a car in qualifying trim.

”During qualifying, I just kept my cool,” said Patrick Long, “and I felt that I ran a decent time. [Team Engineer] Gary Grossenbacher did a great job of putting together a serious qualifying trim on the car, and I went out there to get after it. We’re the fastest of the customer RSR cars, and we found out that a proven RS Porsche will be a formidable challenge for the race.”

Piers Masarati, who will share the #68 TRG Porsche with Iain Donaldson and Gregor Fisken in an all-Scottish effort on Saturday, commented on his qualifying session. “Considering our bad luck with the car yesterday, I feel fantastic about the qualifying session. After Gregor was punted off the track by a prototype, we suffered a broken steering rack, which the crew worked tirelessly to fix. It’s got great brakes and the engine is spot on – the only improvement we’ve got to make is in the rear of the car. I’m confident the team will pull it together, however, and give us a great car to run the twelve hours in.”

The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring starts at 10:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, March 20, and will be broadcast live on Speed Channel.