Gunn back in front as IMSA gets set for a frantic Lime Rock Park GTD sprint

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Through no fault of his own and having left the team to rebuild the front end of his Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTD during the short intervening period, AMR factory driver Ross Gunn repaid the Heart of Racing team back in the best way possible with Pole Position for this weekend’s IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship race from Lime Rock Park.

It was during the last round of the Championship from Canadian Tires Motorsport Park two weeks ago that Gunn found himself being spun off hard into the outside tyre wall after rear quarter contact from a Mercedes AMG GTD that he had just passed for position.

The resulting spin saw his #23 GTD Pro car that he shares with Alex Riberas nose heavily into the tyre protected crash barrier before rebounded out again with extensive from end damage. Unlike the #23 car, Gunn was otherwise OK for that experience although he was ‘sore’ in places for the next couple of days.

That gave the Heart of Racing team little time to ready both the #23 and #27 AMR GTD car of Roman De Angelis/Marco Sorenson ahead of this weekend’s GTD only round around the small but perfectly formed Lime Rock Park circuit.

Yesterday’s Qualifying saw Gunn place his #23 onto out right pole position, beating his class by just 0.191 of a second around the 1.4-mile circuit.

In GTD, the #23 car couldn’t replicate the success of CTMP when De Angelis claimed class pole position there, but they will be starting todays 100 minute from the second row of the GTD grid in P4 whilst the #94 Andretti Motorsport AMR of Jarrett Andretti and Gabby Chaves start P12.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / J Price