{"id":810,"date":"2018-01-08T14:34:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T19:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=810"},"modified":"2023-05-03T16:18:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:18:33","slug":"strong-start-to-2018-imsa-campaign-for-spirit-of-daytona-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/08\/strong-start-to-2018-imsa-campaign-for-spirit-of-daytona-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong Start to 2018 IMSA Campaign for Spirit of Daytona Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Takes second in first qualifying session\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the year<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Beach, Fla. (8\u00a0January, 2018) \u2013 Only days after shaking down their new Cadillac DPi-V.R Prototype for the first time, the driving trio\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Tristan Vautier, Matt McMurry and Eddie Cheever lll combined for a productive weekend\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0running for\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>Racing at\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0International Speedway this weekend to kick off the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.<\/p>\n

The team, which earned a victory in 2017 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca after opening the season on the Rolex 24 At\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0podium, was immediately on pace with the new driver line up and DPi machine as the team looks to return to the podium in 2018.<\/p>\n

The No. 90\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Cadillac DPi-V.R paced near the top\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the leader board through six test sessions leading into the inaugural qualifying run which would determine the team\u2019s pit and garage location for the upcoming Rolex 24 at\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 race one\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Vautier took the wheel for qualifying and immediately went to the top spot with a lap at 1:36.037-seconds.<\/p>\n

Fighting hard at the top\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the charts throughout the 15-minute session, the\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Racing team was nipped for the top spot at the checkered flag, but was still pleased to set the second-quick lap in today\u2019s inaugural Roar Before the 24 qualifying session in just the teams first outing with the new car.<\/p>\n

Team owner Troy Flis was proud\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0his\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Beach-based team, seeing them come to grips so quickly with a new car and engine combination, along with a new driver lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting to come out here with a three-week-old car and have everything go to plan,\u201d said Flis. \u201cThe team did a great job on the build\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0the car and this weekend has been great. To come out and not have any issues and to turn as many laps as we did, I have to give a lot\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0credit to Dallara, ECR and Cadillac for giving us such a great car. It was also great to have so much help from the other Cadillac teams, who helped out in every way they could to make sure we got this done as quickly as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vautier took the Cadillac through its paces in the pressure-packed session, enjoying the competition among the manufacturer\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pace overall was good,\u201d said Vautier. \u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the team, really. We only just received the car but the team hustled so hard the entire month\u00a0of<\/span>December to put the car on the ground, and we were competitive throughout the test. We can be happy about this, this was a good practice. We treated this like any other qualifying session and gave it our all. Everyone in the Cadillac camp pushed hard and it was good to be 100 percent the whole time. I\u2019m quite confident going into the race \u2013 we have a strong lineup\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0drivers and we all get along great, so we\u2019re looking forward to it!\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Spirit<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0Daytona<\/span>\u00a0Racing team returns to the \u201cWorld Center\u00a0of<\/span>Racing\u201d\u00a0January 24-27<\/span><\/span>\u00a0for the legendary Rolex 24 at\u00a0Daytona<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited for the race \u2013 we have a great car to compete with and a great team,\u201d said Flis. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about our driver lineup for this year: they\u2019re all young and aggressive and they\u2019re all looking at the final goal. This is just a practice weekend but it\u2019s great for us to know that we have the pace to run with the top cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qualifying will be live on IMSA.tv on\u00a0Thursday, January 25<\/span><\/span>, with coverage beginning Saturday at\u00a02:00 p.m. ET<\/span><\/span>, live on IMSA.tv, FOX, FS1, FS2 and the FOX GO app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Takes second in first qualifying session\u00a0of\u00a0the year   Daytona\u00a0Beach, Fla. (8\u00a0January, 2018) \u2013 Only days after shaking down their new Cadillac DPi-V.R Prototype for the first [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","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=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}