A Pair of Second Place Starting Positions for The Heart of Racing
Monterey, Calif. (13 May 2023) – The Heart of Racing (HOR) scored a second row start for the MOTUL Course de Monterey powered by Hyundai N in both GTD and GTD PRO classes in qualifying at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday. The race will air live on NBC Sunday May 14 at 3:10pm ET.
During Saturday’s morning practice session, both Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorensen went through a series of changes to the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage entry. After practice, the team managed a significant series of set up changes for the Aston Martin, which saw De Angelis go out to qualify in the unknown. But the promising young talent once again delivered, going out and setting a fast lap of 1:24.722 seconds, placing him at the top of the GTD leaderboard. With just under two minutes remaining in qualifying the No. 92 Porsche took the lead, landing De Angelis to start second in class.
“We made a big swing at the car,” said De Angelis. “We were kind of nowhere with the car all weekend. We were trying some things with the setup that we haven’t tried here before, just to see if we could find something. We ended up changing the car completely for this one. It was a bit difficult in the beginning getting used to the car, but it went well. I was hoping to get pole position, it has been a while. I’ve been trying to work on my qualifying so it’s a bit frustrating to not get pole. We still have a good starting position, the Heart of Racing has done a great job this weekend.”
The No. 23 Heart of Racing entry conquered some oversteer that the opening practice sessions had produced for drivers Alex Riberas and Ross Gunn. Riberas qualified the No. 23 machine scoring a fast lap of 1:24.654 seconds placing the Aston Martin second in GTD PRO with just a few minutes remaining in the qualifying session.
“So far so good,” said Riberas. “I think the weekend has gone pretty well for us. The car feels really strong around here. We wanted to start in the top two in class and we achieved that. Starting second tomorrow gives us a good chance to fight for the win.”
The Heart of Racing team will take the green flag at 3:10pm ET on Sunday May 14 with live coverage on NBC.
