Late Charge To Fourth for Whelen Engineering at CTMP
July 8, 2019
Whelen Engineering Racing Ready for Road America
July 30, 2019
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (30 July 2019) – Joao Barbosa and Filipe Albuquerque return to IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship action this weekend in Sunday’s IMSA Road Race Showcase at Road America, looking to regain the winning form the team demonstrated at Long Beach in April.
The two drivers will share the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R for the two hour, forty-minute sprint at the Wisconsin circuit. Three races remain in the 2019 IMSA season, with a pair of short-distance races at Road America and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca ahead of the ten hour season-finale race at Road Atlanta.
“We’ve been doing everything we can to get the Mustang Sampling Cadillac back on track,” Barbosa said. “We’ve had a rough time in the last few races, so we want to catch up a little bit.”
The team has enjoyed success in the past at Elkhart Lake. Barbosa won at Road America in the debut WeatherTech Championship race in 2014. He returned the following two years to join Christian Fittipaldi in runner-up finishes in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP. Last year, he joined Albuquerque for a seventh-place finish in the Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi-V.R.
“It’s a great track, and we love to go there,” Barbosa said. “It’s a beautiful race track. Right now, we’re not even thinking about the championship, just going for the best result possible for the Mustang Sampling Cadillac. Obviously, our goal is finish as high up as possible.”
With a four-week break on the WeatherTech Championship DPi schedule, Albuquerque has been busy in Europe. He finished seventh in the European Le Mans Series event at Barcelona, followed by an outing in the the FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue pre-season test at the same circuit.
“I’ve been busy driving a lot of different cars in a lot of different places, so I’m feeling really good about getting back into our Mustang Sampling Cadillac and having a good weekend at Road America,” said Albuquerque. “The luck has not been on our side but we are only going to keep fighting. We know we’ve got what we need to have a weekend like we did at Long Beach again, and Road America is a perfect place to do that!”
Practice for the IMSA Road Race Showcase begins on Friday at 11:25 a.m. (all times CT). DPi qualifying will be held on Saturday at 1:25 p.m., with the race getting underway on Sunday at 1:35 p.m. The race will have a delayed broadcast Sunday on NBCSN, beginning at 6 p.m. ET.
