Flying Lizard Motorsports Press Release
The Flying Lizard Motorsports team began paddock setup this morning at Sebring International Raceway for the 2nd race of the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida.
The team transporters have remained in Florida for the past two weeks, following a successful test in late February in which both 2014 Audi R8 LMS race cars completed two days of running at the airport circuit. For the race, each car will be driven by the same group of drivers as took the helm for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, with the No. 35 PR Newswire / UBM Tech / eSilicon R8 LMS driven by Seth Neiman (USA), Dion von Moltke (South Africa), Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), and Alessandro Latif (UK/Italy) and the No. 45 Venezuela / Black River Caviar / eSilicon R8 LMS driven by Nelson Canache Jr. (Venezuela), Spencer Pumpelly (USA), Markus Winkelhock (Germany), and Tim Pappas (USA).
Steve Conover, Chief Engineer, talked about the team's experience at the test and the transition from the Daytona circuit, saying, "The Sebring race track provides its own unique challenges and the Audi has shown to be a great match for them. We made good progress towards a race setup at the last test, starting with what we learned at Daytona and taking some pretty wide ranging swings at setups before settling on what turned out to be the middle ground in most respects. We should be ready for the race though, which is a good thing given the limited practice time and fixed tire allotment, as well as the task of getting four drivers through each car, one of which, Filipe, has not driven the R8 LMS around Sebring before. So productive development work needs to be complete entering the week and we should be able to utilize all of the available practice time for the myriad tasks we have left."
The team's Audi R8 LMS race cars will take to the track on Thursday morning for three separate practices, followed by another practice and qualifying for the 27-car GT Daytona class on Friday, March 14th. The race itself begins at 10:15am ET on Saturday, March 15th and live timing and scoring for the race and all practice sessions and qualifying can be found at www.imsa.com and on the IMSA mobile app.
In the United States, the first three hours of the race will be televised on Fox Sports 1, followed by live streaming for the remainder of the race at www.imsa.com. The full race will also be available in the United States on Fox Sports Go mobile app. In the remainder of North America and in South America and Australia, the final nine hours of the race will be available on www.imsa.com. The full race will be available in Europe, Asia, and Africa on www.imsa.com.
Flying Lizard is based on Sonoma, California, and has competed in the American Le Mans Series for ten consecutive seasons, from 2004 to 2012 in the GT class and in 2013 in GTC. The Lizards have won two ALMS GT team championships (2008 and 2009), one ALMS GTC team championship (2013), and have secured three ALMS GT Drivers' championships (2008, 2009, and 2010).
Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2012, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, sixth in 2008, sixth in 2011, and fourth in 2012.
Please visit the team website at www.lizardms.com and the team store at www.flyinglizardstore.com.
About Audi of America and the Audi R8 LMS
Audi began a new chapter in 2009 with the introduction of the Audi Sport customer racing program. For the first time it was possible for motorsport customers to acquire a race car designed for customer racing events. Since its inception, the success of the R8 LMS has been significant throughout the GT3 racing format worldwide, including victory in the GT class in the 2013 edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The Audi R8 LMS shares more than 50% of its parts with the Audi R8 street car including the naturally aspirated V10 5.2 Liter engine, the Audi Space Frame and a variety of other components
Audi of America, Inc. and its U.S. dealers offer a full line of German-engineered luxury vehicles. AUDI AG is among the most successful luxury automotive brands globally. Audi was a top-performing luxury brand in Europe during 2012, and broke all-time company sales records in the U.S. Through 2016, AUDI AG will invest about $17 billion on new products and technologies.
Visit www.audiusa.com or www.audiusanews.com for more information regarding Audi vehicle and business issues.
