Austin, Texas, (May 2, 2017) - WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Gunnar Jeannette (Salt Lake City, Utah) will start 12th in the GTD class for Saturday's IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship Advanced Auto Parts Sports Car Showdown at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
MacNeil had the controls of the No. 50 Mercedes-AMG GT3 for the 15-minute qualifying session. The team had to put in some hard work since the morning practice, replacing a right rear wheel bearing on the black and white Mercedes. Despite not turning any laps in this morning's practice, MacNeil was still able to post a time of 2:08.697.
"So far, I've had about 20-minutes in the car all weekend," MacNeil said. "We were really loose everywhere yesterday and the guys worked hard on the set-up. Then, this morning we had the bearing issue which cost us the morning practice. I qualified 12th out of 17, decent for not having any laps in the car. The car is better than yesterday. We need to work on some minor issues. The Riley Motorsports guys are working hard on it."
"Yesterday, we struggled with some set-up issues," Jeannette said. "We were a little further off than we expected. We chased some things. We thought we had it sorted, then we had a wheel bearing issue this morning. We are in a decent spot right now with the car. Cooper did a good job in qualifying considering the little time he had in the car yesterday and none today. We will see what happens. I think our momentum from Long Beach ended when we pulled in the track on Thursday."
The IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship Advanced Auto Parts Sports Car Show Down will be televised Saturday on FOX Sports 1, Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m. ET.
