Mario Farnbacher experienced a real roller-coaster ride on the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca: the German qualified for pole and set a lap record in the Honda NSX GT3! However, the Honda Team Motul’s achievement at its Intercontinental GT Challenge debut, was only rewarded with a 13th place.
“Pole position and lap record in the California 8 Hours definitely demonstrated the newest NSX GT3’s potential”, the Franconian stated. “It was my, and also the team’s debut in the 2019 Intercontinental GT Challenge, so it meant hard work at the weekend. We tried out a lot with the setup, but to be honest, there wasn’t quite enough time to fully prepare ourselves for the 8-hour race distance.”
Farnbacher’s pole shootout proved he was more than capable of representing Honda in the highly competitive series. His lap record (1:23.156) took the new version of the Honda to the front of the GT3 field and he and his team mates Bertrand Baguette and Renger van der Zande were in fighting spirit during the race.
“We gave everything right up to the finish. A few errors crept in and some bad luck hit us too. That all cost us positions”, Farnbacher explained after the race. “We could have had a Top 10 result, but I think on the whole, we did a good job on our first drive in such an illustrious field.”
The Acura driver continues to the third race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in Lexington, Ohio.
Facts about the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio
Start: Sunday, 5 May at 13:35 (local time)/ 19:35 (CEST)
Live streaming & live timing: https://imsatv.imsa.com/
Circuit: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (US)
