TUDOR Monterey Grand Prix Qualifying Quotes
Patrick Byrne // TUDOR GTD // #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS
Qualified 8th // Best time of 1:28.946
It’s great to be in the TUDOR Championship. It’s quite the step up from Continental Tire, which I raced in last year. It’s even better to be with Flying Lizard Motorsports and to have Guy Cosmo as a teammate. It’s great to have Flying Lizard and Guy Cosmo in the combination with the Audi. The car is great. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in a GTD car. Audi is a great car to be in with. I’ve driven the street R8s and the track car is substantially better. It’s phenomenal. I’m excited to see how the TUDOR Championship runs. It’s obviously a lot more action with all the split classes. The high level of driving will be really nice. I’m looking forward to driving with and learning from them. Qualifying was good. I wish I had more time in the car, but that’s how it always works. It took me a couple laps to figure everything out, and for the tires to come in. Finally it all came together on the last lap, and that’s when my fast lap happened. I’m really excited for race day tomorrow.
Guy Cosmo // TUDOR GTD // #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS
It’s been a great weekend so far. What an experience to be back in the TUDOR paddock and with Flying Lizard Motorsports. I’ve raced against them for many years, and they put forth an incredible effort. They really are one of the classiest and strongest teams in the paddock. It’s an honor to be driving with them this weekend and I’m thrilled to have Patrick as my teammate. Patrick is a great aspiring young racer and I’ve had the privilege of coaching him and working with him for the past year and a half or so. He’s somebody who’s really going to be moving up in the sport and I’m happy to be his teammate. Working with Darren Law, my hero and former teammate in Daytona Protoypes in 2003. It’s a great environment, and fun to be driving an Audi again. I had my first taste racing and Audi this year. I really enjoyed the experience and I’m thrilled to be back. They have a great customer racing program. That baby is fast and we’re going to have a great day tomorrow.
Darren Law // Flying Lizard Motorsports Program Manager
We’re very pleased with our qualifying results given that this is Patrick’s first race in an Audi. He had previously tested with us once prior to this event. He turned a really good time. He’s been super consistent so far. Guy Cosmo has been really fast this weekend, so we’re really looking forward to the race tomorrow. As usual, we need to stay out of trouble and let Guy take it home for the finish. Having such a great run last year, where we qualified and ran such a great race, we have unfinished business here to take care of here.
Qualified P3 // Best time of 1:28.031
Qualifying wasn’t what we wanted. Everybody else in the paddock did a qualifying stint and we didn’t. We had an issue at the start with the pit lane speed limiter, but we got that fixed. It’s not the balance that we needed to go fast. I think we’ve got a really good race car, but just not the one lap speed we needed for qualifying. But we’re okay with P3, it’s a good starting position for tomorrow. We want to move forward, so let’s hope we can do that.
Co-Driver Lucas Luhr qualified P2 in GTLM // Best time of 1:22.610
It’s been a strong weekend so far for BMW. We’ve been quick in every practice, but with so much traffic in practice, you never know who’s really showing everything. Qualifying was the true test, and again, we’ve locked out the front row for BMW. Lucas said on his second fast lap that he expected to be a bit quicker, but he was really pushing for qualifying and dropped a tire at the edge of turn 6, which anyone who has driven here knows, it’s a scary moment. Rather than pit, he kept pushing, and we still have P2 for tomorrow. It’s certainly a strong point to start from tomorrow and hopefully we can stay there and have both cars on the podium.
