ALMS

Road America: Risi Competizione qualifying report

The Risi-Calpont Ferrari No. 35 takes fourth position at qualifying After a busy Saturday winds up for the American Le Mans Series at the Road America Race Track, the Risi Competizione Team is geared up for race day tomorrow. Taking the first ...

Published: Aug 24, 2003, 3:29 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

The Risi-Calpont Ferrari No. 35 takes fourth position at qualifying

After a busy Saturday winds up for the American Le Mans Series at the Road America Race Track, the Risi Competizione Team is geared up for race day tomorrow. Taking the first position in the practice session before the qualifying class, the team was pumped up. Although they did not get much of a chance to prove themselves during qualifying, due to an engine problem, they still pulled 4th position leaving them to start the race in 4th on the grid. They set their fastest lap time at 2:10.915 with an average speed of 111.315.

Ralf Kelleners, No. 35, Risi Competizione, Ferrari 360 Modena GT:

"Practice was really good. We finally got a set-up that was really well balanced at the end of the session. I thought we had a really good racecar and also a good car to qualify in. We put on a new set of tires to get used to what it would be like in the qualifying. During qualifying we had an engine problem so we didn't get to run any more laps after the second lap and I really think our quickest lap was yet to come."

Rick Mayer, Engineer, No. 35, Risi Competizione, Ferrari 360 Modena GT:

"We're struggling a bit here at Road America. It's quite a different track and we really haven't been here before. The Michelin Tires are great as usual. We kind of take for granted that we're going to have good tires and good service from them. They give us such great support. We really need to thank them. We're not as quick as we would like to be. The laps are so long here that you get very few laps in a session so it's difficult to make a big gain. It's going to be tough here to compete with the Porsches in the race. We hit the top of the 6th gear three times at this track and we are down on power here compared to the Porsches, so we expect the gap here to be larger than it would be at other tracks. In the practice session before qualifying, we made a few changes. Ralf was really working the car in the second practice session so we kept him in the car for qualifying. He did a really good job in qualifying and we are really happy with it. It should be a good racecar."

Anthony Lazzaro, No. 35, Risi Competizione, Ferrari 360 Modena GT:

"Today, Ralf and I got a handle on some of the problems that we had on Friday. This really gave us some direction. We made some small set-up changes today during practice. The changes we did make were in the right direction. The car was better balanced towards the end of the session. Ralf got in during the second session and he proceeded to go over some changes with the car and validated some of the things that we did earlier. It was a really good day for the team. We were 1st quickest in practice and 4th in qualifying, which I really am happy with."

Dave Sims, Team Manager, No. 35, Risi Competizione, Ferrari 360 Modena GT:

"Practice went well. We made some changes before the second practice that made the car immediately quicker. Ralf did a stunning lap putting us in 1st position at practice right before we qualified. During qualifying we posted 4th fastest during the 2nd lap and after that we had an engine problem and we had to park it. This is a big power circuit so we are really pleased with our fourth position for tomorrow's starting grid."

-cf-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Road America: JML Team Panoz qualifying report

Next article Road America warmup times

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Phoenix II

5 h

Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix

Lando Norris faces anxious wait as F2 prepares to decide future of his racing team

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

8 h

Lando Norris faces anxious wait as F2 prepares to decide future of his racing team

NASCAR Cup Phoenix starting lineup: Blaney earns pole as Larson struggles

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

9 h

NASCAR Cup Phoenix starting lineup: Blaney earns pole as Larson struggles

Ryan Blaney kind of faces a must-win scenario this weekend at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

10 h

Ryan Blaney kind of faces a must-win scenario this weekend at Phoenix

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts