{"id":5376,"date":"2023-01-22T11:21:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-22T16:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=5376"},"modified":"2023-01-23T11:25:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T16:25:51","slug":"sean-creech-motorsport-earns-rolex-24-at-daytona-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/22\/sean-creech-motorsport-earns-rolex-24-at-daytona-pole\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Creech Motorsport earns Rolex 24 at Daytona pole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida-based team paced in the top three in every practice session at the Roar Before the Rolex 24<\/em><\/p>\n

\nDAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (22 January 2023) \u2013 Jupiter, Florida-based Sean Creech Motorsport (SCM) scored its first pole position at the track it considers home, taking the top spot in the LMP3 class for next weekend\u2019s Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway (Saturday at 1:30 p.m., NBC) \u2013 race one of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.<\/p>\n

Nico Pino powered the No. 33 SCM Exelixis\/Focal One\/Jerich International\u00a0Ligier JS P320 to the front of the field as the team gave the 18-year-old Chilean a car that gave him the confidence to head right to the top of the charts.<\/p>\n

Drivers Jo\u00e3o Barbosa, Lance Willsey, Danny Soufi and Pino, along with SCM engineers and mechanics, worked through balance issues in four test sessions (the team chose to sit out the very wet night practice Saturday evening), though they put the No. 33 into the top three in every session. The team also battled through the typically changing Florida weather \u2013 with a warm day Friday, rain on Saturday and wind on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Pino, who set the team\u2019s quickest lap of the weekend in the second test session on Saturday (with a lap at 1:42.961) held that position after\u00a0the 15-minute qualifying session, culminating in the team\u2019s second IMSA WeatherTech series pole (the first pole coming last season at Road America) with a lap at 1:43.197.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so special,\u201d said Pino. \u201cTo take my first ever pole position at Daytona is amazing. This is a special race for every driver, and it\u2019s a great way to start the season. I had expected oversteer, given how green the track was, but we had a bit of understeer, so we have to work on that \u2013 but I think there were four or five tenths left in the car. Now, we need to work on strategy \u2013 but it\u2019s good to know we have a clear track in front of us, in terms of LMP3 cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be challenging,\u201d continued Pino. \u201cYou have to take extra precautions out there, especially with all the LMP2s and hybrid cars out there. If we can survive the first couple of hours when everything is so frantic, and be in a good position, we can go for the win. I\u2019m looking forward to the best result possible \u2013 and hopefully taking the watch!\u201d<\/p>\n

Team principal Sean Creech has raced at Daytona countless times, but to take pole for the Rolex 24 is a very special moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is awesome for the entire team,\u201d said Creech. \u201cWe struggled with the setup and got it sorted out for qualifying so it\u2019s a good start. The track changes so much \u2013 it changed so much from the test last month to now and it will change again before next Saturday. We\u2019ll prep the next two days, take a few hours off, then work on the car in practice next week. The key to the 24 is simple: no mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging weekend,\u201d said four-time Rolex 24 winner Barbosa. \u201cThat car didn\u2019t unload off the truck like we expected but we were quick in every session, which is encouraging. It\u2019s fast, no matter the conditions, and we\u2019ve made good steps forward \u2013 and Nico just proved that. It\u2019s a credit the whole team and the work they\u2019ve done, and I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll have a good car for the race. Now it\u2019s up to the Daytona gods to see what they\u2019ll throw at us. Keep the car clean, fuel and tires the whole way, avoid mistakes and penalties and we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world to the team\u00a0to be starting on pole for the Rolex 24,\u201d said Willsey, who will contest his 13th Rolex 24. \u201cIt means that Sean and the team have built a winning organization. We had a race win and a pole last year and this is sort of a continuation of the experience. We rolled off the trailer and we were far from in the zone with the car; it was a real struggle, but it all came together in qualifying. Now we can put our heads down and get ready for the race \u2013 and that\u2019s a whole new ballgame\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were my first sessions at Daytona and my first time dealing with lots of traffic,\u201d said Soufi. \u201cBusy is an understatement! There are a lot of cars out there, but I think it\u2019s just about learning to manage the traffic then finding pace. I have good pace, but there is still room to improve. I know a few things I need to do to pick up some time, but the car is very quick. Nico did a fantastic job in qualifying to put it on pole\u00a0and hopefully we can replicate that next Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

VP Racing SportsCar Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Willsey also competed in the series\u2019 inaugural doubleheader. Unfortunately, he was hit in both races but battled back to take a seventh-place finish in race one, and fourth in race two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI strongly believe the VP series has a strong future in front of it and I think that it has a great format,\u201d said Willsey. \u201cI had my own challenges in the first couple of races with some incidental contact but I had a good car and I can\u2019t complain, it was good fun out there. The racing was good, the two classes I feel intermingled and played well together, which I was very pleasantly surprised by. I think the series has a bright future and I would love to see the grids grow and see where it goes from there. I think it’s great racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

SCM thanks partners Exelixis, Focal One and Jerich International for their continued support.<\/p>\n

The Rolex 24 At Daytona takes the green flag Saturday at 1:40 p.m. Eastern. The race will be broadcast live in the U.S. on the NBC family of networks, beginning and ending with network NBC. The race will also be live streamed in its entirety on Peacock TV. International viewers can watch via IMSA.tv<\/a>, with IMSA Radio also available at IMSA.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida-based team paced in the top three in every practice session at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (22 January 2023) \u2013 Jupiter, [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-feature","category-sean-creech-motorsports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5379,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5376\/revisions\/5379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}