Stevenson Motorsports Delivers Best Team Finish of the Year at Lime Rock Park with Double Top-Five Result

Audi

The 2 hour, 40 minute race saw 36 minutes of caution – all of which came in the first half of the race. The team utilized a full course yellow period 30 minutes into the event to pit both cars for tires and fuel. The No. 6 took four tires, while the No. 9 took just left side tires.

The twin Stevenson Audi machines raced their way back up into the top-three and Davis took over the race lead prior to the team’s final pit stops. A full course caution came with just over an hour remaining in the race and both cars pitted for full service pit stops.

When the race went back to green, the race ran at a furious pace and despite the lack of late-race cautions, the GTD field stayed right in a line with lots of swapping of position among the front runners while also minding the traffic of the faster prototype and GTLM classes.

With laps that are less than one minute long at the quick 1.5-mile circuit, and with the heavy traffic of three classes racing at the same time through the tight confines of the bullring track, Stevenson Motorsports knew that pit timing was going to be critical. Unfortunately, while the planning was great, the luck wasn't, as that final full course caution kept the team from maximizing on the track position that their race pace had earned them.

“The yellow that came with an hour and 10 minutes to go was our back breaker,” said Team Manager Mike Johnson. “If it had come 10 minutes later, we probably would have won the race. Everybody else would have had to make two stops and we would have only had to make one. There was a moment there toward the end where I thought Robin (Liddell) had one shot (at passing the leader) and was gaining on him, but if you watched the No. 44 (race winner) it was just glued everywhere. He could pass high, low, anywhere. Some of that is their car, but the other part is that they have a great driver. Andy (Lally, former Stevenson team driver) knows how to drive around here. I’m happy with this result, it’s great to have two cars in the top-five. The pit stops were a little bit better, we’re still losing time a bit on fuel. But everything played out the way we needed it to today. It is what it is, and we’re really pleased with everything and we’ll move on to the next one.”

In the end, Liddell took over second place in the final laps and hung on to deliver another podium finish for Stevenson Motorsports, while Aschenbach moved up from seventh in line to finish fifth.

Stevenson Motorsports carries some good momentum into the next event at Road America in two weeks when the team travels to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for Round 8 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

 
Driver Quotes:
Andrew Davis, No. 6 Audi R8 LMS: “I’m super proud of the Stevenson Motorsports team. This was a grueling race physically because of the heat and the nature of the circuit with no rest, and mentally with the traffic. It was one of the most difficult stints I’ve run ever run. We went from up front, fell back a little in the pit stops and I was able to get back up front which is always helpful to hand the car off to Robin (Liddell) toward the front. That’s my goal. I was really proud of the team for giving us something we could fight with. The competition at this level in the GTD category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is amazing and that whole race was just a battle the whole time. I’m happy to have a second consecutive podium for the No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS. For the Audi Sport guys and Audi Sport customer racing it was just a really good race. We’ll just keep this momentum going and keep chipping away at the points.”

 
Robin Liddell, No. 6 Audi R8 LMS: “I was just trying to push has hard as I could there in the final laps to stay in touch with Andy (Lally, race leader). I didn’t know if he was going to run short on fuel, have a problem with traffic, or make a mistake. You never really know so you just have to keep the pressure on. It was a hard drive for me today. I didn’t do the lion’s share of the work today, but doing two races today was really tough in this heat. The car performed really well, but I think the No. 44 had the legs on us a little bit. Andrew (Davis) did a great opening stint and I’m really happy with that. We lost a few positions in the pits and that kind of put us on the backfoot a bit. Ultimately I think that’s what put us in a spot in the race where we were having to fight with cars that were going to be difficult to overtake. When Andy (Lally, race winner) got by me, I had got bogged by the No. 23 car in the last corner and Andy had a run so there was very little I could do about it. We didn’t have a very good car in traffic, we had a good car on our own and that’s why at the end we were able to keep the pressure on the No. 44. But we’re happy with result and very pleased with the team the job has done. Onward and upwards to Road America. We got a good points hold today.”

 
Matt Bell, No. 9 Audi R8 LMS: “We’re learning more about this car every single event. We saw every end of it this weekend. I think we entered the race pretty good. We were strong on new tires, but it fell off quite bad especially when the track started getting hot. I think taking left side tires only on the first stop was a little aggressive. It gave us track position but we lost it right away. Some of that was my fault, I was getting a little bit frustrated with it and it was easy to make a few mistakes. The whole first five corners here at Lime Rock are just very physical corners and you’re just sawing at the wheel when the car’s a little bit too free. I feel like I let the team down a little bit. They worked really hard. We had our best finish today, but we had so much more that we could have done with it. We’re looking forward to Road America, we tested there so I think we’re pretty dialed in there.”

 
Lawson Aschenbach, No. 9 Audi R8 LMS: “It’s been a frustrating year, we’ve been fast and led a bunch of laps. Track position is becoming more and more important in this class. You just can’t get past unless someone makes a mistake or they get blocked by a prototype or GTLM car. Once you get shuffled back, you’re just kind of stuck there and you just have to hope for a few lucky breaks to pass some people. All in all we’ll take the finish, we’re happy to have a smooth race, we just missed it a little bit today. Hat’s off to the Stevenson Motorsports team, the last two races we’ve been good, we just haven’t had the results we’ve deserved. But it’s a part of racing, that’s the way it goes, and we’ll regroup and look forward to the next race at Road America.”

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