Lakeville, Conn., (July 22, 2023) - WeatherTech Racing finished fifth in today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix race at Lime Rock Park.
Jules Gounon (France) had the start for today’s two-hour-and-forty-minute race from his fourth-place qualifying position. The team was applying an aggressive strategy that had the Frenchman make the WeatherTech Racing/Proton team's first pit stop just 33-minutes into the race. Thirty-minutes later the race went to a full course caution and he returned to the pits for service, but a miscommunication had him leave with the fuel nozzle still attached. This resulted in a drive-thru penalty and sent the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Mercedes-Benz of Billings, Montana support down a lap.
The team was able to get the car back on the lead lap when Daniel Juncadella (Spain) got in, but with no other late race cautions the track position was too much to make up for any kind of result.
“We came here hopeful that we could get a result for WeatherTech and the team,” Juncadella said. “We seemed to be down half-a-second on a 50-second track. We had a small mistake in pit lane, but it really didn’t make a difference in the end. Road America is the home track of WeatherTech, so we will be motivated to do well there in a couple of weeks.”
“We did our best today,” Gounon said. “We had a small issue with our pit stop, but that really didn’t change anything in the end. We were missing six/tenths on our fastest lap. We will talk and get ready for Road America.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will travel to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for the IMSA Sportscar Weekend, Aug. 3-6.