Michael Marsal COTA Pre-Race Report

With just two races left in the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season, Michael Marsal is set to close out the 2015 campaign with two big events. 

This weekend (Saturday, FOX Sports 2, 12:30 PM ET broadcast) will see Marsal team with Markus Paltalla in the No. 97 Alvarez & Marsal / IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 in the Lone Star Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas. Just two weeks later, the season will close with the 10-hour endurance challenge of Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

Marsal, who broke through for his first IMSA SportsCar Championship victory at Lime Rock Park in July, enters the weekend with the positive momentum of his recent run to fourth with Paltalla in the last race at VIR.  

The championship's penultimate weekend will open with practice on Thursday, with the grid being set on Friday in qualifying as the race is set to go green at 11:35 am local on Saturday. The track, which also plays host to Formula 1 and the United States Grand Prix, will also feature the World Endurance Championship this weekend as part of Saturday’s big double-bill Lone Star Le Mans race day. 

“Every lap at COTA is fun,” said Marsal. “From that elevated turn one hairpin to getting to go flat out down the back stretch, this is a fun track and a good long lap. There are good places to pass and with having four classes racing at once, that is really important. If the prototypes get behind the GT cars in the esses, they can get impatient!”

Marsal’s 2015 season has seen the young BMW pilot experience everything from the frustrations of race-ending contact to the elation of victory behind the rallied efforts of his Turner team at the home race.

“We have had a really up and down year, but the team has been exceptional at every race,” said Marsal. “We got off literally to a slow start in Daytona with the BOP being what it was, but they worked at that and I kept getting more comfortable in the car and we showed at Lime Rock that this could be a winning package. It would be great to go out on a strong note here and at Petit with this Z4 and give it a big send off!”

The race will be televised LIVE on FOX Sports 2 beginning at 12:30 PM ET.