Daytona24: Farnbacher Loles Racing Thursday report

Farnbacher Loles Racing qualified six GT cars for the Rolex 24 At Daytona on Thursday. Porsche factory driver Wolf Henzler of Nurtingen, Germany, led the team contingent, qualifying the No. 85 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car fifth in class. He lapped the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway infield road course in Daytona Beach, Fla., in one minute 49.865 seconds at an average speed of 116.652 mph.

Dirk Werner of Kissenbruck, Germany, was close behind, setting the No. 87 Porsche sixth on the GT grid (1:49.945, 116.566 mph), with Dominik Farnbacher of Ansbach, Germany, ninth (1:50.234, 116.262 mph). Johannes van Overbeek of Oakland, Calif., qualified the No. 64 JLowe Racing Porsche 12th (1:50.573, 115.905 mph); Pierre Kaffer of Andernach, Germany, was 16th in the No. 89 Porsche (1:51.254, 115.196 mph) and Richard Westbrook of London, England, qualified the No. 88 18th (1:51.376, 115.070 mph).

Johannes van Overbeek, No. 64: "The JLowe guys and Farnbacher Loles put together a great car. Although it was a good qualifying run, I just didn't get a tow [draft], which would have kicked us up into the next tier. But that's as good as I could have done today."

Wolf Henzler, No. 85: "I left the pits and then I had a big vibration in the car. It was too risky, so I pitted immediately. The crew couldn't find anything, so I said I would go out again and I would do only one timed lap. I did 1:50.1, then I heard on the radio that Andy Lally [in another Porsche] was doing 49.5 and I knew I could go quicker. So I decided to do another lap. Even with the vibration, it was better and the more laps I did, the quicker I went. The crew did a good job and prepared the car very well."

Dominik Farnbacher, No. 86: "My qualifying was not good. I'm not happy. We had a few issues and the car changed a lot through the sessions before. We picked up a lot of understeer that we didn't have before and that made it quite hard to exit the corners. But it's a long race ..."

Dirk Werner, No. 87: "The qualifying was okay. Although we're not on the front row, I think we can look to the race in a positive way. The car was really good; I just had some traffic so I couldn't do the lap I wanted to. But the race is not about the pole position, it's about coming to the finish. I think it's a really good spot for us to start the race."

Richard Westbrook, No. 88: "That was probably my worst qualifying in my life. We missed something in the setup on the car, but they're a great team here and I know they'll find the problem and we'll get it fixed quickly."

Pierre Kaffer, No. 89: "In the first practice this morning, we couldn't find a problem with the spark plugs, so it cost us the first session. Second session, we could not run because there was an oil leak and we had to fix that. But the guys did a really good job to prepare the car for the qualifying. So to just come and jump in, I think the qualifying was not bad. We have to improve the setup, of course, but I think it's possible. We know where we have to work on it, so I think we're back in the game and it looks pretty good for the race."

-credit: flr