Coming off a strong opening season race at the Circuit of the America's (COTA) O'Connell (Flowery Branch, Ga.) and Pilgrim (Boca Raton, Fla.) will be focused on getting the LF4.R's twin-turbo engine power down to the changing track surfaces at the 1.4-mile, 14-turn St. Pete street circuit. O'Connell brings a resume of a win (2013) and five podium finishes at St. Pete into this year's race.
"The first street race for the ATS-V.R includes some unknowns," O'Connell said. "Of these, is just the fact that the car is running on a street course in competition for the first time. We have a lot of data from two generations of the CTS-V.R race cars so I know the Cadillac Racing guys will have a good baseline to start with on Thursday afternoon.
"Qualifying for me has always been one of my favorite parts of the weekend. It's where you put everything on the line and get everything out of your car. Normally on street circuits passing can be very challenging. There are a few areas at St. Pete like the end of the front straight and some others that I prefer, that I will keep to myself. Thus qualifying will be extremely important as always. However, even if we don't qualify well, we can get a good start, have a good race car and get a good result."
"I think engine wise we should be fine," O'Connell continued. "At COTA we saw where we are strong versus others and where others were strong versus us. Everyone is truly very close. The key for myself, as always, is to be as smooth as I possibly can at applying the power from the LF4.R engine."
No comments:
Post a Comment