CORE autosport made a successful debut as a factory-supported team at Daytona this weekend, as the Tudor United Sportscar Championship kicked off its existence in testing for the Rolex 24. Driving the #912 Porsche 911 RSR, Patrick long and his season-long teammate Michael Christensen were joined by Jörg Bergmeister, a fortuitous reunion.
“It’s an honor to be among this group,” Long said. “This is an opportunity that I’ve hoped to be part of for the past 10 years – an all-factory GT team here in the States. Corvette has been setting the bar the last few seasons, and SRT has progressed faster than many people expected. We’re not sure where the Porsche is going to fit in. Fortunately, Daytona is usually very good for the Porsches. We’re cautious, because this team is so new. We’ll race the race and hope we’re still there with two hours to go, and then race who’s left.”
“Although the Roar is three days of testing, it actually turns out to be very limited running time with yellow flags, systematic things to work through and having multiple drivers. I think the Roar, for us, is an acute focus on establishing a setup for the race weekend. The time that you get on race week is very limited, so that puts a big emphasis on getting a base-line setup on the car at the Roar.
It’ll be our first time with the RSR in its current configuration at Daytona. We have a lot of work to do, so realistically, our focus is all around getting the car balanced for the race and not thinking too much about the lap times. Daytona is a unique track with so many periods of long, sustained, full-open throttle.”
The Rolex 24 At Daytona will run January 25-26, broadcast on Fox Sports 1 and 2.