- Fast track: high speed setup
- long laps; good passing opportunities
- 4 hour race: fuel mileage
- Higher points race; championship still undecided
"Road America is such a great track. It reminds me of the Nürburgring Nordschleife: with its elevation changes and turns. It's very fast and very technical. This is an evening race, so the setting sun might disturb us a bit at some point during the race, but it shouldn't be a major issue. We'll have to see how the temperatures progress during the race: it will certainly be hot and humid during the day, but if it cools down a lot in the evening, that might affect our tire strategy. In terms of setup, I expect that we'll run a pretty stiff car at Road America. It's a fairly smooth track with lots of fast corners. The setup is definitely more for high speed than at Mid-Ohio, which is a slow-speed track. I expect we'll see less downforce used here. We had a very strong car here last year and were on a winning race pace. With the changes that Porsche has made to the car over the last year, I hope we'll have another fast car this year."
Thomas Blam, Chief Strategist
"In terms of strategy, one of the most important things about Road America
is that it is a four-hour race and is a long lap. We expect that we will be
able to run about one hour before needing to stop for fuel, which would make
it a 3-stop race barring any issues. But we have to make sure that our fuel
mileage calculations are exact - it's a long lap and a mistake in this area
could cost us the race. The long laps can be an advantage too - we have
more time to make decisions and more flexibility.
In the past, we've seen races here with a lot of cautions- although it's a big track and there's lots of passing room, it's also a high speed track and cars definitely push it here. Hopefully we won't have the weather problems that we did in 2007 (heavy rain and thunderstorms) but in the late summer weather is very changeable here.
We are cautiously optimistic that we'll have strong cars for the race. We were competitive with the Ferraris here last year and expect that to be the case this year. I think the track definitely suits the strengths of the Porsches."
Eric Ingraham, Team Manager and Strategist, No. 46 Porsche
"Road America is an important race. The race is worth extra points in the
championship (due to its length). We are leading in the team and drivers'
championships but it's still a narrow spread between us and Tafel Racing in
second for the team, and between Joerg and Wolf and Dominik (Farnbacher) and
Dirk (Mueller) in second in the drivers' championship.
It's also just past the halfway point in the season - so mentally we need to keep all of our energy focused on the championship and have a good clean race. The drivers really like this track and can deliver a top performance so we should see some fast times and exciting racing."