Team Falken Tire qualified ninth in the GT class this afternoon at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Bryan Sellers qualified the #17 Porsche with a 1:23.356 best lap time. Once the team switched to fresh sticker Falken Azenis tires, Bryan Sellers was able to pick up almost two seconds in the fastest lap.

Bryan Sellers: “This morning we certainly had a lot of work to do to balance the car out. We weren’t necessarily worried about our overall speed, but our longevity. In the second session we made some fairly substantial changes, and along with those changes waived our mock qualifying that we were going to do and try to work more on race set up. It was a good move because I feel like the car is much more drivable now than it has been for the whole weekend. It sacrificed us a little bit in our qualifying, but the greater good of it all is much better. It was a lot of work for the guys to do everything they needed to do, but we’re much better off.”

Wolf Henzler: “Things started off not where we hoped, but with some small changes, we were able to improve greatly. It didn’t go so well in the morning session. We were fighting some over steer. The balance was just not there. We tried so many things during the session with mediocore progress. Our engineer made a decision on the car set up after the morning session, which turned out to be a great direction. The car balance was really good with little over steer. On old tires it still felt good. We are closer to the pole and top three positions overall than I thought were this morning. I know the car can do good lap times in the race and are more consistent now. I know this well help us. The new change following the rule change from the American Le Mans Series is positive, but still leaves a few more details for us to figure out.”

Source : Falken Team Tire