Bryan Herta Autosport driver Mark Wilkins was the best-placed of the guest entries this weekend in a tough qualifying session, with the Hyundai Elantra driver progressing straight through to Q2 with the 11th fastest time, before going 12th in Q2.
The IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge practice session took place moments before the KUMHO FIA TCR World Tour qualifying session, which meant the team had just minutes to both re-livery and adjust the set-up on the car to switch it from endurance-spec to as close to a sprint-ready car as possible for both Wilkins and team-mate Harry Gottsacker.
“We’re just trying to do the best we can with a car that’s half and half,” said Wilkins. “It’s tough to be competitive with such a really strong group of guys which know the tyre, and how they work with the car so well. I’m not surprised, I’d love to be more in the mix, but we’ve been learning a lot today and I’m really looking forward to the race And I think our race pace might be closer, we just haven’t figured out how to extract the pace for a single lap. We were P2 in the IMSA practice session just before qualifying, and the car was fantastic, that’s where the car’s built and developed for, so it just doesn’t translate that well.”
Picture: WSC/MotorSportMedia
