SEBRING, Fla. (March 17, 2017) - WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.), Gunnar Jeannette (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Shane van Gisbergen (New Zealand) will start from row four in GTD for the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring to run tomorrow, March 18.
The No. 50 WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG team worked diligently through the practice sessions on Thursday and Friday to fine-tune the handling of the car. In this afternoon's 15-minute qualifying session, MacNeil was able to post a time of 2:01.358 good for a fourth row starting position in eighth. MacNeil is a 2003 Sebring winner and is poised to add another win to his resume.
"The WeatherTech Mercedes was good," MacNeil said. "Our plan was on point the whole time. We wanted the tires warmed up and at peak pressure to go for around lap three. At that point, I was ready and was able to put in a good lap time. The car is feeling good. There are 17-turns here at Sebring and 3.5-miles so you have to put a whole lap together to go fast here. There is a mix of asphalt, concrete, sea shells in the concrete from the 1940s and a lot of bumps which makes for a challenging lap. We have all three Mercedes in the top 10. A lot better than Daytona, so I am feeling good about our chances for the race tomorrow."
"So far so good," Jeannette said. "Cooper did a really good job in qualifying getting us on the fourth row for the start of a long race tomorrow. The car is running really good, we have put in a lot of laps in practice. The WeatherTech Riley team is doing a great job keeping up with the changing track conditions this week. I am really looking forward to the race."
"My first impressions of Sebring is it is very bumpy," van Gisbergen said. "I have never raced on concrete before. I am getting better every lap. There are some sections that I still need to work on. We will see where everyone is at, as far as our competitors go in the race. We were unlucky at Daytona, so we are looking to have a good run for 12 hours tomorrow."
The IMSA WeatherTech Sport Car Championship Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring will run March 15-18. The race will be televised on Fox Sports 1 starting at 12:30 p.m. and airing through the finish at 11 p.m.