Muscle Milk AMR: Pole at Road America
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing scored its second pole position of the season today at Road America for Saturday's Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase.
After leading both practice sessions earlier in the day, the Pickett Racing group continued its domination in qualifying with Klaus Graf registering a lap time of one minute 51.828 seconds which was more than three tenths of a second over second place.
Right from his first timed lap, Graf took the top spot on the timing sheet and improved each lap, putting in his fastest lap on his third time around.
The team's pole position was its third in the American Le Mans Series and first at the 4.058-mile, 14-turn road course.
The Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase featuring the American Le Mans Series will go green at 4:00 pm ET on Saturday, August 20, 2011. The race will be streamed live on ESPN3.com from 3:45 pm ET.
ABC will be broadcasting the event on tape delay Sunday, August 21 at 4:30 pm ET.
Klaus Graf, co-driver Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing
"We made the right changes to the car before qualifying. We worked a lot between Lucas, the engineers and myself. We really focused on getting the car the way we have it now. It wasn't easy here at Road America. It's tough to get a good set up and really go fast at this track. We actually made the car more uncomfortable to drive but faster. We don't really care about that as long as it's fast so I think with the set up we have it will be very good for the race.
"To get pole here, it's a big reward. It's always tight with our main competitor so today to just be a little bit ahead it's always good for the Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing team. It's certainly a very good starting point for our race and a pole is a pole, so it's very good."
Lucas Luhr, co-driver Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing
"We had a good day. I wasn't so happy this morning in Practice 1 but we constantly made good progress with the car and I was very happy with it in Practice 2. We got what we expected around the Road America track with our Muscle Milk Aston Martin and then Klaus did a very good job in qualifying, and put in a lap time that was pretty much what we had expected, what is possible here with the Aston.
"Once again we didn't really set up the car for qualifying, basically we qualified with the race set up so the car is really good. I think we can look forward to tomorrow because we have a quick and also very constant car for the race and obviously that's very important."