{"id":824,"date":"2018-01-25T15:31:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T20:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=824"},"modified":"2023-05-03T15:36:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T19:36:47","slug":"third-and-seventh-on-rolex-24-at-daytona-grid-for-action-express-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/25\/third-and-seventh-on-rolex-24-at-daytona-grid-for-action-express-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Third and Seventh on Rolex 24 At Daytona Grid for Action Express Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

2010, 2014 race winning squad prepared for another run to the podium at Daytona<\/em><\/p>\n

Daytona Beach, Fl. (25 January 2018) –\u00a0 The 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship campaigns of Mustang Sampling\u00a0Racing<\/span>\u00a0and Whelen Engineering\u00a0Racing<\/span>\u00a0got off to a quick start\u00a0on Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0as Daytona International Speedway played host for the opening day of on-track\u00a0action<\/span>\u00a0for the Rolex 24 At Daytona.<\/p>\n

A pair of practice sessions preceded the 15-minute qualifying session that set the grid for the start of Saturday\u2019s (Live on FOX at\u00a02:00 PM ET<\/span><\/span>) race start.<\/p>\n

The No. 5 Mustang Sampling\u00a0Racing<\/span>\u00a0DPi-V.R will lead the\u00a0Action<\/span>\u00a0Express<\/span>Racing<\/span>\u00a0effort\u00a0 on Saturday after Filipe Albuquerque (PRT) emerged from a fiercely competitive qualifying session to lock in third on the grid with a fast lap time of 1:36.194-seconds on his final flying lap of the 3.56-mile oval-based road circuit.<\/p>\n

Albuquerque, who scored a GT class victory in his first-ever Rolex 24 At Daytona start, will share the driving duties in the Mustang Sampling machine with Christian Fittipaldi (BRA)\u00a0 and Joao Barbosa (PRT). The trio will look to score another Rolex 24 at Daytona victory and get a strong start in the 2018 Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty good,\u201d Albuquerque said of the session. \u201cI needed just one more tenth. I am happy with P3, the Mustang Sampling Cadillac feels good. I think we have a good car for the race. One tenth (of a difference to pole) for the 24 hours is really nothing. We will now fine-tune the car for the night time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R will start from the fourth row after Felipe Nasr (BRA) posted a quick lap time of 1:36.508-seconds to secure seventh on the grid. Nasr, who captured a third place result on his Rolex 24 At Daytona debut in 2012, will share the cockpit time with\u00a0 2016 IMSA Champion Eric Curran (USA), Mike Conway (UK), and Stuart Middleton (UK).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balance in general of the car is very good,\u201d Nasr said. \u201cSince the Roar I thought we have had a good car. Everything was coming better until the end of this session-the track was getting cooler. It is too bad– I was going faster, then we had an electrical issue that stopped the car on the track.\u00a0 I think I could have gone a little faster and battled for the pole. But the guys will get it all set and we will be all good for night practice. It is a long race and we have a good Whelen Cadillac so I\u2019m ready to go for this race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s<\/span><\/span>\u00a0traditional night practice session will close the running\u00a0on Thursday<\/span><\/span>, with a final Friday AM practice ahead of Saturday\u2019s\u00a02:40 PM ET<\/span><\/span>\u00a0green flag.<\/p>\n

Keep updated via\u00a0twitter.com\/axracing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2010, 2014 race winning squad prepared for another run to the podium at Daytona Daytona Beach, Fl. (25 January 2018) –\u00a0 The 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","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=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}