Team Seattle-The Heart of Racing qualified fourth for tomorrow’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 Sportscar Championship race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
Mario Farnbacher (Ansbach, Germany) had the wheel of the No. 23 Team Seattle-Heart of Racing Porsche for the 15-minute qualifying session. Farnbacher, who ran his first laps at the 2.4-mile, 10-turn road course located 30-minutes north of Toronto, proved he is a fast learner by posting a time of 1:19.213 good for a second row start and fastest Porsche in GTD bragging rights.
“Wow,” Farnbacher said. “In today’s practice the car was not that good. This is a fast track. I did a lot of homework to try and learn the track as this is my first time here. The speed around this track is crazy. When I drove it the first time on Friday, I thought this place is really crazy. Each practice and each lap brought more confidence. I really like it now. I cannot believe that they used to run F1 and Group C cars here. I like every corner here, turn four is really scary, but I like it.”
James is working hard with Farnbacher and the team to have a good car for Sunday.
“We worked on having a good car for the race,” James said. “Today the car came good. We had a rough day yesterday and we made a lot of changes this morning. The car is really starting to hook up. I am not surprised to see that Mario was able to put in a good lap in qualifying. The nature of this track with its really high speed and low speed corners there is always a compromise. You really need to get the balance right in the car and when you have that balance that is confidence and the lap times come down.”
Alex Job, team owner, likes the effort by young Farnbacher.
“Great job by Mario,” Job said. “This is his first time at this track and he really put in a good lap. I think him being so young helps, maybe he doesn’t know any better. He and Ian have worked well with the team to improve the car. We are the fastest Porsche in GTD. That’s our Saturday victory. The top 15 cars are all within one second of each other, proving that GTD is ultra-competitive.”