- 1 hour 55 minute race
- Limited track time prior to race
- Neiman and Pilet: first race here
- Fuel strategy is key
Street circuit & Track conditions
- Bumpy circuit with limited run off
- Street circuit limits passing opportunities; large GT2 field
- Afternoon race could see high ambient/track temperatures
Porsche vs. Ferrari
- GT2 Porsches have been competitive here in past
- Sebring work increased our understanding of 08 Porsches
- "Point and shoot" track advantages
- Sebring good start; but narrow point spread
"St. Pete is a very short race -- just under 2 hours. Compared to our 'standard' 2 hour and 45 minute races, and a true endurance race like Sebring, there is no margin for error: lose a few seconds in the pits or, worse, a lap or more and it is nearly impossible to gain it back. And because this event is shared with IRL, we have a very compressed race week with very little on track time before the race. This makes it tough to get to a race setup and hard for our drivers who have not run here (Seth Neiman and Patrick Pilet) to learn the course.
For GT2, fuel strategy will be a key issue. With no yellows, this could be a one stop race: pit once for driver change and fuel. But add just one yellow flag and stopping just once is not a given. You have to make tradeoffs - for example, whether you give up track position to be able to make a stop under yellow. Last year, the race ran 40 minutes with no cautions, but then there were several later in the race."
No. 46 Strategist & Team Manager Eric Ingraham
"St. Pete is our first street course this year, the first of 3. Street circuits are always challenging for our type of racing. Passing opportunities are very limited and there isn't much leeway if you make a mistake. In some ways, having Sebring precede this race was helpful: like St. Pete, Sebring is bumpy and a tough course with many different kinds of turns. But we have so little setup time here, that we have to get to our race setup in just hours, compared to Sebring where we had an entire week. Having a short track and a short race does make some things easier and some of the reliability issues don't come into play here as they would with a longer race. It also makes some things much more difficult - with only one good passing opportunity on the front straight, your starting position here is even more critical and keeping with the lead pack is a must. And like Sebring, there will be a large GT2 field. Sebring was a good example of how important starting position is - the Risi No. 62 Ferrari (which started on the pole and led for half of the race) was able to get an entire lap up on the rest of the GT2 field during one of the early yellows."
Thomas Blam
"GT2 Porsches have been competitive on this circuit in the past and in general, seem to do well on street courses. St. Pete is a 'point and shoot' type of track - with many short corners, in which Porsches do well with fast acceleration of a slow corner. In some ways, this will be the first race in which we will really see how the Porsche and Ferraris stack up - at Sebring, because of the way the field shook out over the race and the multiple yellows, we really didn't get to see a direct Porsche to Ferrari comparision, but we were encouraged by the improvements in the Porsche for 2008 and we should see some good competition here.
In terms of drivers, this is the first race here for Seth and Patrick, but Wolf Henzler was fast here last year and likes this track. Joerg and Johannes also did well here."
Eric
"St. Pete will seem so short compared to Sebring! The drivers and crew are well rested coming into this race. Obviously, our results at Sebring are carrying forward some momentum, which is great, but we can't forget that we are just one race into a 11 race season and the point spread between the Lizards and Risi is not large. Just as we did at Sebring, we need to be completely focused on this event and get the most out of the cars that we can and get every advantage we can at every point we can -from how the car is setup, to where we start on the grid, to how we manage our strategy during the race. "