Results (with starting position) from the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic Presented by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers P1 (5) No. 31 Corvette DP (Curran/Cameron) P2 (6) No. 60 Honda HPD Ligier JS P2 (Pew/Negri Jr.) P3 (1) No. 5 Corvette DP (Barbosa/Fittipaldi) P4 (4) No. 01 Ford EcoBoost Riley (Pruett/Hand)
CGRFS Claims Top-Five Finish at Raceway at Belle Isle Park
DETROIT, Mi. (May 31, 2015) – Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) with drivers Scott Pruett and Joey Hand finished fourth in the Prototype class in the Chevrolet Sports Car Classis Presented by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers in Detroit, Michigan.
Pruett started the No. 01 Ford EcoBoost Riley in the fourth position for the opening stint of the 100-minute sprint race. As the seven-car Prototype class navigated through the 2.35-mile street course, Pruett kept the No. 01 Prototype clean as the bumps in the new pavement proved to be a challenge. The first caution of the race fell with an hour remaining and allowed Pruett to make the team’s only pit stop and give the wheel over to Joey Hand. Hand restarted the race in the fifth position as the rain began to fall. With 10 laps to go, a third full-course caution came out allowing Hand to make the pass for fourth on the final restart. On the final lap, the No. 5 had a mishap causing the Corvette DP to spin allowing Hand to close the gap. A late-race battle between third, fourth and fifth led to an exciting finish, but Hand wasn’t able to make the pass for third resulting in a fourth-place Prototype class finish.
The next TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race will be the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen in Watkins Glen, NY at Watkins Glen International on June 28.
CGRFS QUOTEBOARD Scott Pruett: “It was a frustrating day. You always have high hopes coming to Detroit. We gave it everything we had and we’ll just keep working on it. That’s all we can do. The bumps in the new pavement were difficult to deal with. We were down on downforce and down on power. The EcoBoost engine ran well. It didn’t miss a beat all the way around. I’d like to see IMSA even things up with balance of performance.”
Joey Hand: “For the weekend, we probably had the best car we’d had here in the dry (on race day). I’d been praying for rain all day because we had a practice session in the rain and it was pretty quick, and I like the rain, but we were better today in the dry than we were in every other session. At first, I was just trying to get my bearings. I still don’t know the track that well. I went after the No. 60 car and he blocked me three times in one lap. Both of our right-front dive planes were knocked off, which wasn’t the best thing for this track. I like adversity and I like it when people think we don’t have maybe as much of a chance as we usually do, so I was on the hustle. I gave it all I had. I learned a lot of stuff just trying to find places on the track I could make some time up. Really, we should be a podium car and that would be amazing, the way the car was this weekend. I’m happy with the boys. They keep on truckin.’ Scott and I never gave up. Scott’s the master. He gets it out there and races it as clean as can be and I went to dogfight. It is what it is.”
About Chip Ganassi Racing Teams Chip Ganassi has been a fixture in the auto racing industry for over 25 years and is considered one of the most successful as well as innovative owners the sport has anywhere in the world. Today his teams include four cars in the IndyCar Series, two cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and one Prototype in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. Overall his teams have 17 championships and over 160 victories, including four Indianapolis 500s, a Daytona 500, a Brickyard 400 and six Rolex 24 At Daytonas and the 12 Hours of Sebring. Ganassi boasts state-of-the-art race shop facilities in Indianapolis and Brownsburg, Ind. and Concord, N.C., with a corporate office in Pittsburgh, Penn.
For more information log onto chipganassiracing.com