Ford Performance Road America Post-Race Report

FORD ECOBOOST FINAL RACE RESULTS

Overall/Class3/3         01 Ford EcoBoost Riley (*Scott Pruett, Joey Hand)*Last driver in car.FORD ECOBOOST STARTING POSITIONP1           01 Ford EcoBoost Riley (Scott Pruett/*Joey Hand) – 1:56.452* Driver qualified.NOTE: Scott Pruett earned the quickest lap of the race (1:57.464). This was Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates’ third podium of the year with the No. 01 Ford EcoBoost team (p2 at both Long Beach and Watkins Glen) and third overall (No. 02 Target/Ford EcoBoost team, Rolex 24). After easily defending his lead from the pole position for nine laps, Joey Hand noticed an issue and had to pit. The team identified the problem as a loose hose clamp on the turbo.No. 01 Ford EcoBoost Riley (Scott Pruett/Joey Hand)Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix SabatesSCOTT PRUETT: “It’s unfortunate. I can’t say enough about the Ganassi guys and Ford and the whole Ford EcoBoost program. We had a great car this weekend. It was fast. Unfortunately, we had a line come undone on the left-side boost system and we had to fix it. We just lost significant amount of power until we were able to pit. The only good thing was the yellow came out at the right time for us to fix it. Then there were no more yellows. We got what we could get out of the day. I think even getting back to third was a pretty solid day for how far back that put us (to p23 after starting on pole).”JOEY HAND: “The beginning of the race went exactly how I dreamed it would go, and kind of the way I thought it would go before we even got here. I told Scott, I felt like we were going to win this race before I even got to the track. It was what we planned. We got a jump on the start, we put down some qualifying-caliber laps to try to build a gap, then we were going to try to save fuel from there if we could hold that gap. It was working, then I started noticing I was losing speed. I was saving fuel and all, but it’s really starting to go slow and those guys were coming fast. So I stopped fuel saving, started to go and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t go anywhere. The guys already knew they had a problem from the telemetry they had, so they were preparing for it and were waiting for a yellow or until the next pit stop. We got a yellow right away, so that worked out. That was the first thing that worked out. After that, we were dead last coming out of the pits and had to come through all the GT and PC traffic. It takes time to do it cleanly, even though I was hustling through it. By the time we got to the other side of it, we were 30 seconds back from the leaders and there were no yellows to help us.”