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Created on Monday, 27 January 2014 16:34

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• No. 5 Action Express becomes first overall winner of the Rolex 24 At Daytona under the Tudor United SportsCar Championship.

• CORE autosport captures the first PC class win at the Rolex 24 At Daytona.

• Penalties change the outcome of the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, Fall Line wins the overall and GS title.

Daytona Beach, FL – January 26, 2014.   The future has become the present and the No. 5 Action Express team with drivers, Joao Barbosa, Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastien Bourdais, were right on time to win the first Rolex 24 At Daytona under the new Tudor United SportsCar Championship.  A late race caution closed the gap between the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette and the No. 5 Corvette but Max Angelelli didn’t have quite enough to catch Barbosa who piloted the final stint for the North Carolina-based team in the Prototype (P) class.  

CORE autosport became the first Prototype Challenge (PC) team to win the Rolex 24 At Daytona.  Veteran driver, Colin Braun, placed the No. 54 machine on the pole for the 24-hour race and with the help of Jon Bennett, Mark Wilkins and James Gue, drove the car across the finish line to receive the coveted, Rolex watch. The GT Daytona (GTD) class was mired in controversy after a last-lap penalty placed the Flying Lizard Motorsports, No.45 Audi R8 LMS in victory lane.  Upon further review by IMSA, the ruling was made to reinstate the No. 555 Level 5 Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia as the winner to round out the 2014 Tudor United SportsCar Championship debut at Daytona International Speedway. While an additional tire manufacturer in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class introduced a new rubber compound onto the track, which was no match for the durability, consistency and performance of the Continental tires.

Click here to see our Tudor United SportsCar Victory Lane photo gallery

TIRE NOTES

• Ryan Dalziel quadruple stinted on a set of Continental tires in the No. 1 Tequila Patron ESM Honda.
• Most teams double stinted on their Continental tires throughout the night.
• Continental Tire process roughly 5,500 tires throughout the Tudor United SportsCar Champoinship week.
• At peak demand, the Continental Tire team was processing over 200 tires per hour.

QUOTES Sebastien Bourdais, driver No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP (finished P1 in P) – “Pickup and marbles wasn’t really a big deal.  I’m still left wondering whether or not there was some kind of wrong interaction between the Michelin rubber and the Continental rubber because the track got extremely slippery, even though it wasn’t that hot.  It seemed to be okay when it was very cold but as soon as track temps went up, it was borderline unmanageable.  And it wouldn’t be the first time that there was one tire that just doesn’t work well with another.  Obviously (Continental Tire) hasn’t had to deal with that. But we were scratching our head when the track temps went up, the advantage went away because we were losing a lot of grip so it was a bit of a concern because on top of that, the P2, being a much lighter car, didn’t seem to be nearly as affected as we were in the DP’s so we’re kind of hoping for really cool weather.”

Jordan Taylor, driver No. 10 Wayne Taylor Corvette DP (finished P2 in P) – “I don’t think we did much double stinting last year but this year we were able to double stint pretty much, all through the night and even at the end of the race I think we double stinted.  The drop-off wasn’t too bad and they were consistent all the way through so the lap times would only vary dependant on fuel load.  Happy with the tires and points.”

How was it having another compound on the track? - “Seemed like the different compounds meshed well.  Sometimes they don’t really match and it can become pretty greasy but there’s a lot of marbles and pickup offline.  Thankfully it didn’t really cause a big issue.  We found it was a little dirty but the tires, you could clean them off pretty quickly, one corner or two.”

Burt Frisselle, driver No. 9 Action Express Corvette DP (finished P3 in P) – “For me the tires were great.  We double stinted multiple times and I don’t remember any instance of even one flat spot.  I’d just say the consistency of the Continental tire, from the moment the green flag fell when it was about 70 degrees, and when it was about 50 degrees overnight, they were there, they were consistent, they were easy to manage and we could always double stint them and push them further than we expected.  So for me they were brilliant and it definitely makes, from the driver’s perspective, life a lot easier when you can trust your rubber.”

Frisselle con’t:

Was there a difference having more than one tire compound on the track? - “Some of it was the way the rubbers were working with each other.  Obviously you had other tire manufacturers and some of them were using multiple compounds so at different times of the race, rubbers were doing different things.  One of the nice things about just using a single compound is it’s much more consistent, you know exactly what to expect.  So there was definitely a lot of rubber on the track.  Some of the cars were spitting rubber actually at your windshield.  You would see it flinging off their tire so that was an eventful thing.  You’re just aware of that, going offline, but one of the great things about the Continental tire is it doesn’t pick up a lot of the marbles that some of the other manufacturers do, pick them up and throw them at you.  We could really use every inch of the road, as I’m sure you saw on the television coverage, cars were using every inch of the road and we could do that and with the tire we had underneath us.”

Colin Braun, driver No. 54 CORE autosport PC (finished P1 in PC) – “We were able to double stint all the way through the race with our tires so we were really happy about that.  The tires really did a good job and it was never a question whether we were going to double stint most of the time.  The pickup got really bad there at the end and obviously no fault of the tire, but it was amazing how much rubber, junk and debris there was out there.  I was keeping my fingers crossed that we didn’t cut a tire and we didn’t so that was really advantageous.”

How were the track conditions? - “The track conditions got worse and worse and there was more parts sitting around.  I don’t know that the safety crews did a very good job of cleaning the parts up or what but you know off-line there was carbon fiber pieces and rubber chunks and that’s always dangerous when you got forced offline trying to pass a really slow GT car or something.”

How does it feel to be a first time winner at the 24? - “Obviously it’s really cool.  Very excited to get that done.  I’ve tried so many times and have come up short and then close and not done it and really special to do it with this group of guys, really special, really good group of friends.  It’s guys I’ve driven with for a long time.  I’ve known Mark and James for a long time and I couldn’t ask for a more perfect way to do it.”

Spencer Pumpelly, driver No. 45 Audi GTD (finished P2 in GTD) – ‘They were fantastic.  We had a bunch of different conditions.  It was always cold but we got some times when we were out there really kind of getting some heat in them going for the laps and we were kind of just making up ground and doing what I call crusing and making sure the laps tick away.  They were durable, we didn’t have any tire issues the whole time and it’s one of the reasons this is a fun series, we don’t have to worry about tires.”

Pumpelly con’t:

Could you double stint? - “We doubled a bunch and we never had any issues double stinting when we wanted to but we felt we were a little bit faster when the stickers were there so towards the end there, when we were really pushing, we put on new tires every time.”

How slick was the bus stop? - “It wasn’t so much slick as it was there was a lot of debris being brought on the race track so every time you go through there, you would never know if someone brought sand, dust, rubber, parts, there was a lot of parts out there – you could probably build a whole Daytona Prototype out there with what you could find – we managed to make it through every time with some drama of course, but we managed to make it through.”

CONTINENTAL TIRE SPORTSCAR CHALLENGE Friday’s Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race did not disappoint when it came to side-by-side racing and drama.  It was also a race of firsts as Murillo Racing won their first title in Sport Tuner (ST) competition with drivers, Eric Foss and Jeff Mosing.  In Grand Sport (GS) racing, controversy arose following post-race tech inspection.  The No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW crossed the line first but a post-race technical infraction disallowed the win and moved Fall-Line Motorsport’s, Shelby Blackstock and Ashley Freiburg, to the top of the podium for the overall and class win.  The win marked the first time a female had won in the history of the Continental Tire Challenge.  The win was also Blackstock’s first career win in the series, who is the son of singer/songwriter, Reba McEntire.

While cooler temperatures prevailed, the Continental tires still performed flawlessly and provided the consistency teams needed to get to the checkered flag.

View our Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge photo gallery

Bill Auberlen, driver No. 96 Turner Motorsports BMW - “The crazy thing was, we expected longer runs so we actually set the tire pressures lower waiting for them to come up so it took three or four laps just for mine to get moving when other peoples were able to get a jump early and get their car going so we were slightly out of synch with what we needed but everybody has the same great Continental Tire, they all work perfect, never let you down and we just drive the heck out of them and keep on going.”

Come into the paddock with us @continentaltire, #tiresrule.

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