TEAM RELEASE: Flying Lizard Qualifies for the 2014 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring
March 14, 2014 – Sebring, Florida
In today’s 15-minute GTD qualifying session for the 2nd round of the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season, Seth Neiman qualified the PR Newswire / UBM Tech / eSilicon No. 35 Audi R8 LMS in 22nd place, while Nelson Canache Jr. qualified the Venezuela / Black River Caviar / eSilicon No. 45 Audi R8 LMS in 21st place. The Flying Lizard Motorsports team again elected to use the session for setup work and driver time rather than focus on qualifying the car at the front for the long 12-hour endurance race.
Tim Pappas, originally slated to drive in the No. 45 Audi R8 LMS, will unfortunately not be able to compete in the race after a bout of food poisoning early in the week. Tim and the team discussed his recovering health each day through the week but decided together on Wednesday night that driving in the 12-hour race on Saturday would be imprudent. Instead, Tim will continue to rest up in advance of his full season program with Black Swan Racing in Pirelli World Challenge and will rejoin the the Flying Lizard team for additional races in the future. Alessandro Latif has been moved from the No. 35 to the No. 45 in Tim’s absence, and the No. 35 will compete with three drivers – Seth Neiman, Dion von Moltke, and Filipe Albuquerque. The No. 45 will be piloted by Nelson Canache Jr., Spencer Pumpelly, Markus Winkelhock, and Alessandro.
Race start will be at 10:15am ET on Saturday, March 15th, with live timing and scoring available at www.imsa.com and on the IMSA mobile app. In the United States, the first three hours of the race will be televised on Fox Sports 1, followed by live streaming for the remainder of the race at www.imsa.com. The full race will also be available in the United States on Fox Sports Go mobile app. In the remainder of North America and in South America and Australia, the final nine hours of the race will be available on www.imsa.com. The full race will be available in Europe, Asia, and Africa on www.imsa.com.
About Flying Lizard Motorsports
Flying Lizard is based on Sonoma, California, and has competed in the American Le Mans Series for ten consecutive seasons, from 2004 to 2012 in the GT class and in 2013 in GTC. The Lizards have won two ALMS GT team championships (2008 and 2009), one ALMS GTC team championship (2013), and have secured three ALMS GT Drivers’ championships (2008, 2009, and 2010).
Flying Lizard has also competed in the 24 Heures du Mans from 2005 through 2012, finishing third in 2005, fourth in 2006, sixth in 2008, sixth in 2011, and fourth in 2012.
Please visit the team website at www.lizardms.com and the team store at www.flyinglizardstore.com.
About Audi of America and the Audi R8 LMS
Audi began a new chapter in 2009 with the introduction of the Audi Sport customer racing program. For the first time it was possible for motorsport customers to acquire a race car designed for customer racing events. Since its inception, the success of the R8 LMS has been significant throughout the GT3 racing format worldwide, including victory in the GT class in the 2013 edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The Audi R8 LMS shares more than 50% of its parts with the Audi R8 street car including the naturally aspirated V10 5.2 Liter engine, the Audi Space Frame and a variety of other components.
Audi of America, Inc. and its U.S. dealers offer a full line of German-engineered luxury vehicles. AUDI AG is among the most successful luxury automotive brands globally. Audi was a top-performing luxury brand in Europe during 2012, and broke all-time company sales records in the U.S. Through 2016, AUDI AG will invest about $17 billion on new products and technologies.
Visit www.audiusa.com or www.audiusanews.com for more information regarding Audi vehicle and business issues.
# # #
