As Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park hosted the first multi-class Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race of the Daytona Prototype era on May 31, the event marked the first Pirelli P Zero Club Bonus Program double-class payout since March’s Grand Prix of Miami.
The Daytona Prototype class- and race-winning No. 10 SunTrust Ford Dallara of Max Angelelli and Ricky Taylor received a record $15,000 in bonus money that included a two-race “rollover” that began building after April’s Barber Motorsports Park race.
The Lime Rock GT-class winning No. 68 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 GT piloted by Adam Christodoulou and John Edwards pocketed a $5,000 bonus as well.
“Despite temperatures in the high 80s and a variety of on-track and off-course incidents that littered the track with debris, the P Zeros didn’t miss a beat,” notes Rafael Navarro III, director of motorsports and media relations.
“All I can tell you is that I kept doing fastest laps, fastest laps and fastest laps my entire time driving, I think for about 60 or 70 laps on my tires,” says Angelelli, who set the fastest lap of the race less than 20 laps from the finish.
“If you just take a look at the number of laps and the lap times you will see how the tire is behaving, and the Pirellis are perfect,” he adds. “It’s the perfect product. Tires are never a concern. At every race and in any conditions, you never have to worry about the Pirellis. For teams, that is what you want.”
Taylor drove the opening stint and won in his first major race at Lime Rock.
“The Pirellis are the best they have ever been,” Taylor says. “They are very even and very predictable. Every year Pirelli is improving their product.”
Christodoulou started the GT-winning Mazda and soon realized the Pirellis were going to be able to keep the competitive pace needed for victory.
“The whole car just felt hooked up and Pirelli really has the tires sorted,” Christodoulou reports. “We almost double-stinted the first set of tires and I was in there for about an hour and a half. The tires held up and from the start of the stint to the end of the stint we only lost about half a second.”
Co-driver Edwards brought the winning car to the checkered flag.
“We had to worry about fuel more than we had to worry about tires,” he says, “because the Pirellis stayed underneath us the whole time. Once we got a little bit of a gap each time between cautions I was able to take it easy and work on saving them a little, but I think if I had to I could have pushed the Pirellis the whole race.”
The Pirelli P Zero Club is comprised of returning teams that completed the 2009 race season inside the top 10 in the final Daytona Prototype and GT points standings. When one of those teams in either class scores its first victory of the 2010 season they will also earn $5,000. Any repeat wins by either team in the remainder of the season will see that race’s $5,000 bonus “roll over” and continue to build at each race until other P Zero Club members score their first 2010 victories.
For the Sept 11 season finale at Miller Motorsports Park, all the members will again be eligible for the bonus, regardless of whether they have won earlier in the year.
Next up for Pirelli and Grand-Am is this Saturday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. The race can be seen live on the Speed Channel in two parts, Saturday, June 5, at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m./PT and 6 p.m.
For more information, visit www.us.pirelli.com.
