The Heart of Racing drivers Ian James (Phoenix) and Mario Farnbacher (Germany) qualified sixth in the GTD class during this afternoon’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship qualifying, as part of the Oak Tree Grand Prix at Virginia International Raceway.

The Heart of Racing Team made several changes during this morning’s practice to improve the No. 23 Heart of Racing Porsche’s performance for today’s qualifying. Those changes helped James improve his qualifying time with each lap he turned in the 15-minute session. James turned his fastest lap of 1:50.253 (106.773 mph) on his final timed lap, which put him on the third row for tomorrow’s race.

“We made a bunch changes [during practice this morning],” James said. “Unfortunately, we put new tires on it and it had massive understeer. It’s getting a little frustrating, but we’re going to keep working on it to get it in the right direction. Hopefully, we’ll be better tomorrow. We’ve been a second off the fastest Porsche all weekend, including today. It’s a little disappointing.”

“Like in the past, we’ve never had a good qualifying car,” Farnbacher said. “But, we usually have a good car in the race. We’ve got a good pit crew behind us and we typically gain positions on the track with their help. It’s going to be a good race tomorrow.”

“Ian did  a nice job improving his lap times each lap,” Team Owner Alex Job said. “He definitely did not get (his time) to where he was yesterday or this morning. But, he did keep improving each lap, which was encouraging.”

The Oak Tree Grand Prix at VIR will be broadcast live beginning at 1 p.m. (ET) Sunday, Aug. 23 on Fox Sports 1.