Mid-Ohio. BMW Team RLL registered fourth and sixth place
finishes in the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio (USA), the
fourth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Tom
Blomqvist (GBR) and Connor De Phillippi (USA) finished fourth in the
#25 BMW M8 GTE, 4.374 seconds behind the winning Porsche and two
positions ahead of their team-mates John Edwards (USA) and Jesse
Krohn (FIN) in the #24 BMW M8 GTE.
After two days of inclement weather, bright sunshine meant each stint
of the two-hour-and-forty-minute race was a sprint on dry Michelin
tyres. Krohn, starting the #24 BMW M8 GTE, and De Phillippi, starting
the #25 BMW M8 GTE raced in third and fifth GTLM class positions
through the first 30 minutes of the race.
During the exciting final 60 minutes, Blomqvist was battling with the
#911 Porsche for the last step on the podium, only to lose the
position in the closing laps. Edwards ran as high as fifth, but
ultimately finished sixth.
Brandon Fry
(
Technical Director
BMW Team RLL): “Little bit of a tough day. Congrats
to Porsche. Outside of that, it was a pretty close battle with the
rest of the field. We just didn’t get the best out of today but all of
our guys pushed hard until the end. We look forward to Watkins Glen
and to having a big race there. We have a couple of tests coming up
and we have a few more things to work on.”
Connor De Phillippi (#25 BMW M8 GTE, 4th place):
“Certainly we are moving forward. We knew we had a
better race pace than we did in qualifying. We ran a mistake free race
and did the best we could with what we had today. You have to keep
learning and keep pushing ahead in these next few events. We are just
missing a little bit next to the competition. We’ll look through the
data post-race and try to be better at the next one.”
Tom Blomqvist (#25 BMW M8 GTE, 4th
place): “Being so close to the podium and missing out is
always difficult. We were fighting for that last podium spot but just
fell short. The team did a great job this weekend preparing the car.
We will take the points and the learnings away and improve for the
next race.”
John Edwards (#24 BMW M8 GTE, 6th place):
“We had a great car. Jesse did a great job and the team handled the
pit stops perfectly. I lost about 20 seconds on the first corner of my
out lap, when I slid off the track, an inexcusable mistake by me. Very
disappointing when we had such a good car.”
Jesse Krohn (#24 BMW M8 GTE, 6th place):
“I got boxed in at the start and I lost a few positions. Everyone was
defending very aggressively today so it was difficult to get those
spots back. I think we had a good car and we can certainly learn on
how to improve for the next race.”