Robert Thorne Scores Pole Position at Barber Motorsports Park
- plugged2racing
- Apr 26, 2015
- 2 min read
Today at Barber Motorsports Park, American GT racer Robert Thorne won pole position for Race 2 of the MOMO Grand Prix presented by Porsche.
Thorne qualified the No. 6 K-PAX Racing with Flying Lizard Motorsports McLaren in third place, but a penalty from the previous round at the Long Beach Grand Prix forced him to start Race 1 from pit lane. In the final laps of qualifying, Thorne and the team discovered a mechanical issue, forcing the K-PAX Racing with Flying Lizard Motorsports crew to work feverishly to get the problem fixed in time for the race start.
The crew repaired the car in expert timing to have Thorne and the No. 6 McLaren join the race in the nick of time. He pulled out on track as the field prepared to complete the first open lap of green racing. After entering the track with the leaders of the field just 10 seconds behind him, Thorne stayed on the lead lap, starting the race in 29th place.
For the following 29 laps, Thorne charged though the field, skillfully navigating his way up to 13th position, where he ultimately finished. The run that earned him 16 positions also brought the fastest lap of the race, setting a best time of 1:23.618, winning the pole position by 0.431 seconds.
Race 2, Round 7 of the Pirelli World Challenge will commence Sunday, April 26 at 10:55am CT on world-challengetv.com.
Robert Thorne // #6 K-PAX Racing with Flying Lizard Motorsports McLaren 650S GT3
Started from Garage // Finished P13 // Will start Race 2 in P1 Great race. With our situation of what happened this morning, and with our penalty from Long Beach, I think we got everything out of that race that we could. We pushed really hard at the beginning. First, K-PAX Racing with Flying Lizard Motorsports, everyone, amazing job getting the car ready. I think we had 10 seconds to spare to pull out and roll out right in front of the race leaders, and stay on the lead lap to race our way all the way back up to 13th. Excellent effort by everyone. The car was perfect. We had the fastest lap of the race by a good margin and we'll be on pole for tomorrow. I feel bad for Kevin, who I believe had the same issue in the race as I had in the morning. But I'm sure we'll get the car fixed up and we'll both be ready to go in the morning.
Contact:
kelly@kbrucommunications.com
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