Team owner and qualifying driver Tracy W. Krohn piloted his No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 to the checkered flag in the eleventh position in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class at the 3.4-mile New York circuit. His Swedish teammate, Nic Jonsson, was the starting driver and drove a double stint, in a race that saw many drivers suffer from the heat and dehydration.
The team received a 20-second penalty for an uncontrolled tire during the first pit stop of the day and also made an emergency fuel stop while the GTLM pits were closed during a caution period, which cost them a drive-through penalty. The Krohn Racing team then struggled to regain the laps lost but kept a consistent race pace throughout all six hours of the enduro. A further on-track incident with a Prototype Challenge (PC) car in the 55-car field caused the Krohn Ferrari to spin, resulting in a 65-second penalty for the PC team.
Although Krohn Racing did not celebrate a victory like they did here in 2005, 2006, and 2009, the team will take the information they learned from the time on track and prepare for their next TUDOR Championship race at Circuit of the Americas, their home track in Texas.
NIC JONSSON, Driver, No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari F458 GTLM:
"The start of the race was very warm but then the cloud cover came out so the car was not too bad. Obviously, we struggled a little in practice and qualifying. If you look at the pace, we were pretty close to race pace now so I'm happy with our performance. Unfortunately, we were penalized for some minor infractions and got caught up in a few track incidents. Something happened during a pit stop with the removed wheel not being under control and the penalty we received was a stop and twenty seconds. The other infraction was a drive through so we lost a few laps. Running in this GTLM class with all the factory cars, drivers and teams, Krohn Racing is doing a very good job. Just to be out here competing and turning laps is an achievement with this stiff competition, even though today we got caught in some of the mess. I'm very proud to be a part of Krohn Racing and for Tracy and I, it's a great way to get seat time and get a little more fine-tuned for the races we have coming up and in the future. It's been the whole point of us competing in GTLM this year, which is to go up against factories, this competition and drive hard. Next year we may even come up with something more fun that will be awesome for everybody."
HAYDEN BURVILL, Krohn Racing Engineer:
"From the start of the weekend our pace wasn't as good as we were hoping so we had to work pretty hard in practice. The qualifying session was used to give Tracy more quality track time, which paid off in the race. He ran at a steady pace for what I expected from him. Nic went faster and faster and there was a time in the race he got to what I think was the full potential of the car that I expected at the beginning of the weekend.
Late in the race, Tracy had contact with the No. 85 car in Turn 11. I only saw it on the monitor so I don't have a clear perspective of it, but the 85 car was penalized so people with a lot better information than I have must have decided that they were at fault. In real terms, we were already 11th in our class and that would not have changed as a result of the contact, but any time you have contact there's the risk of damaging the car or hurting the driver or drivers when two cars are involved. It's something that the series polices pretty hard in an effort to condition the drivers into not making low percentage moves like that, and regardless of the opinion of which car was in the right, drivers need to not have as much contact as they did today. We certainly saw it at Sebring and fortunately we weren't involved, but today we were involved. There's evidence on the car that we got hit quite a few times.
On a positive note, Nic did get up to full speed and Tracy had some long, steady runs and did a lot of driving. The fact that we were involved in multiple incidents is not good, but again, there's nothing you can do when trying to manage that in real time. We can only reflect for next time and get ready for our home track showing in Austin."
GARY HOLLAND, Krohn Racing Team Manager:
"Pace wise, the key was to stay out of trouble this weekend and unfortunately, a series of unfortunate events caused us to fall back in the pack. We then decided to use the rest of the race as a test session and give Tracy some time in the car. It's tough here and difficult to make it through a six-hour race at such a technical circuit as this, but we finished. We're looking forward to regrouping back in Houston and then returning to the TUDOR Championship at COTA in September."
The next IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship event for Krohn Racing will be Round Ten of the GTLM class schedule, the Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, September 19-20, 2014.
