WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.), Toni Vilander (Kankaanpää, Finland), and Jeff Westphal (San Mateo, Calif.) crossed the finish line in third in GTD in today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.
Westphal had the controls of the No. 63 WeatherTech Racing Ferrari for the start of the six-hour race. He ran a strong stint turning the wheel over to MacNeil. MacNeil raced up to second place during his time in the car in the early going.
MacNeil handed over to Vilander who passed several cars to make-up ground from the pit stop. As the race progressed and the drivers cycled through again, the team was out of sync with the rest of the GTD field on pit stops. The WeatherTech Racing team would be running first, pit, then fall down to eighth. A late race caution with an hour to go gave the Scuderia Corsa run team the 12 minutes of fuel they needed. As the race went green off the last caution Vilander was able to drive up to the podium finish.
“Other than to the Acura and BMW we had great pace,” MacNeil said. “To those other two cars we were in a different class. That’s racing, so we have to take what it gives us and regroup. The good news is the car is in one piece because we literally have a race in seven days with the same race car. That was huge because this place isn’t always so easy to leave unscathed. But another third-place finish with Jeff and Toni in the car after our third-place finish at Sebring. Then Toni and I at Le Mans and now here at the Six Hours of The Glen. All and all a good weekend for Scuderia Corsa and the WeatherTech crew and Ferrari as well. We’re the only Ferrari here representing the brand pretty well on the podium I’d say.”
“I think this race went really good,” Vilander said. “We had a few meetings throughout the weekend on what we needed to improve and we were able to hit all those marks. We had a really great run at Le Mans, so to continue that momentum to this race was our plan. Joe (LaJoie), our engineer, Giacomo (Mattioli) and Roberto (Amorosi) all called a fantastic race. I don’t want to complain about BOP because I am here to just do my job and drive but the gap between us and the lead competitors is becoming too large to survive. We need a little bit of help from IMSA but I think we can keep chipping away and work towards the championship.”
“I think both personally and as a team Scuderia Corsa and WeatherTech Racing were able to extract as much as possible out of our Ferrari 488 GT3 today,” Westphal said. “The drivers drove flawlessly to keep the nose clean and ahead of the pack which is all you can do. I’m really proud of all of us and effort here at The Glen.”
The team will continue north to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix to run next weekend, July 5-7.
Source. Kyle Chura/WeatherTech Racing
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