John Potter's column: When second feels like a win

No win this time, but John and Andy (at left, ABOVE) still felt like partying at COTA.

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It's one thing to have a weekend where you're off the pace.

It's another to have several weekends in a row where you're off the pace.

It's a whole other when you have several weekends in a row where you're off the pace and you're part of a team that's used to podiums. It's a whole other dimension when you have several weekends in a row where you're off the pace, you're used to podiums, and you simply can't put your finger on what it is.

The above describes our summer, and why the most recent round at Circuit of The Americas was such a big weekend for the Magnus Racing team.

It's impossible to describe the feeling of a team that has a reputation for running strong, and is then unmistakably struggling. You start to question everything, yet you have no real answer.

Is it a BoP issue? Is it our specific car? Are we setting it up wrong? Am I doing something wrong?

Starting with our weekend at Detroit where we qualified last, we've spent many races scratching our heads. In a change of fortune from the last few years, the "unique" weekends for us were ones like Watkins Glen where we scored a podium, but on the whole we've struggled.

The usual move for a team would be to drone on about BoP, and to some extent I believe the Porsches have struggled, but when other Porsches are beating us, we can't claim that.

The effect this has on team morale can be devastating. They say it's easy for a team to stay together when they're winning, but the true test is when they're not. I understand this now more than ever. All of a sudden you're second-guessing decisions that you otherwise would think nothing of. Everyone has their opinions on what it will take to turn things around, and let's just say not everyone is in agreement. You have to decipher and prioritize this, and all the while make sure that everyone is focused and motivated. It's tough.

It's because of this that I can freely say how proud I am to have put this team together. It's been a difficult few months, but through everything the team has been nothing but positive that this program could turn around. Like any family we have our disagreements, but it has never been so clear to me as it was this summer... EVERYONE on this team wants to win.

With events virtually every other week over the summer, it was tough to really get the time in to do some proper testing, and the three-week break between VIR and Texas was just enough time to do some real work.

Thankfully, it was exactly what we needed. We tested for a couple days at Road Atlanta, and while I won't get in to the specifics of what we learned, let's just say it was productive and it really showed this past weekend.

More to the point, I can't give enough credit to the crew. Racing every other weekend for months on end is tough for a small team. Between every race they tear down the car, rebuild, set the car up for the next track, and there's little to no time off in between. We don't have a shop crew and an at-track crew... it's the same guys, working very hard. While some teams may have had some time off between the VIR and Texas break, fitting a test in between basically meant the guys had another race to get ready for. No one has had any time off in weeks, and I'm glad we were able to reward them this weekend.

The race spoke for itself. We were in the top-five all through practice, and even though we dropped to seventh in qualifying we knew our race pace was strong.

Sorry to gloat for a bit, but my opening stint was a strong one. The car was excellent, especially during the long run. I kept in sight of the lead pack for most of my stint, and basically held position the whole time.

The pit stops were excellent, and when Andy Lally strapped in it was clear right away that we had something for the field. True to form, our car was good over a long run, and as his first stint kept on he was able to get past several cars, and our quick pit work put is in fourth for the final stint.

Unfortunately for the No. 23 guys, an incident in traffic took them out of contention, and we were finally in a podium position. One more pass on the BMW and up to second, and while we may have had something for the winning Viper we simply ran out of time.

Second still felt like a win, and was a nice way to head to Petit Le Mans. It's our fourth podium of the year, which is a great statement, and our second time to take runner-up at COTA.

Equally important, we have a lot of momentum for Petit Le Mans. Marco Seefried will be back with us, who was part of our Sebring victory, and between that and our testing at Road Atlanta we're very confident.

-John