BATAVIA, OH (June 26, 2018) – “Busy season” is in full swing this weekend as Wright Motorsports hits upstate New York with the No. 58 Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Porsche 911 GT3 R for Round 5 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.
Full-season drivers, Patrick Long and Christina Nielsen will once again be joined by Robert Renauer as the trio look to kick off the second half of the season with a big result. With the event taking place just ahead of Fourth of July celebrations, the Porsche will carry a custom patriotic livery, not straying too far from the design accents of the full-season livery.
Sunday’s six-hour endurance contest on the fast and flowing circuit marks the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s return to a traditional road course, after running through the tight walls of the Belle Isle Park. The event will serve as Round 3 of the four-stop Tequila North American Endurance Championship (TPNAEC).
Fresh off of a strong fourth place run at Le Mans, Long returns to the renowned New York road course for the first time since 2014. While the American Porsche works driver has yet to see the top step at Watkins Glen, he’s very familiar with the podium and hopes to climb another step at the end of the six-hour classic.
Watkins Glen is a track that provokes a lot of momentum for Nielsen, as she has already seen a victory at the six-hour event in 2016. The Dane looks to repeat that success in her first time driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R at the road course. With her increased understanding and skillset driving with the German marque, Nielsen feels confident heading into the TPNAEC event.
Since his last appearance with the team in Sebring, it’s been a fast-paced summer for Renauer. The German has been busy driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R with his family-operated team, Herbeth Motorsport. Renauer most recently earned a victory at the 12 Hours of Imola, along with several podiums in the ADAC GT Masters. While this will be his first time competing at Watkins Glen, the Porsche ace feels confident following a successful test with the team.
The Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen will air live on Sunday, July 1 on FS1 from 9:30AM to 4:00PM EDT, and international viewers can tune into imsa.tv to watch the live stream. IMSA Radio will additionally offer live coverage of every session.
Driver Comments:
Patrick Long // Driver, No. 58 Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R – “Watkins Glen is an icon in our sport. Over the years the layout has been relatively preserved but the surface has become smoother and very grippy. I am hopeful for a competitive weekend after we tested really well here in May.”
Christina Nielsen // Driver, No. 58 Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R – "For me, Watkins Glen is one of the best tracks in America. It's the classic American road course — it's old school and you have to have a really good flow to be fast. Now that it's been resurfaced, the track speeds have gotten even faster. It's also a track where you have to be really precise because if something happens, the consequences are quite high. It's a great summer race over an American holiday weekend, the Fourth of July and one of the TPNAC endurance rounds, which are great to be part of. My Watkins Glen weekend is followed by a media day with IMSA promoting our next race at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and the following week we race there, making two very cool weekends of racing."
Robert Renauer // Driver, No. 58 Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R – “I’m very happy to be back in the Wright Motorsports family at Watkins Glen. It’s a really cool track with fast corners, so I think every race car driver likes a track like this. It’s a little bit like the Nürburgring Nordschleife – definitely a lot shorter – but really fun to drive. I hope for the first podium this year, so we’ll keep pushing there and see how things go.”
About Wright Motorsports
Wright Motorsports is the premier Porsche race engineering facility in Ohio and a multi-series, international racing team known for superb car preparation, expert race strategy and driver development. Located in Batavia, Ohio near Cincinnati, it is owned and directed by John Wright, a certified Porsche factory-trained technician. As a crew chief John Wright has played a key role in winning eight driver and seven team championships in World Challenge, IMSA (ALMS) and the Grand-Am Rolex Series. Wright Motorsports won the team championship in Porsche GT3 Cup USA in 2012, 2013 and 2015. After a most successful 2017 season, the team holds the Pirelli World Challenge Overall, Sprint, Team and Manufacturer's titles. For more information see wrightmotorsports.com and follow the team on Twitter and Facebook.
About Porsche Consulting
The Porsche Consulting management consultancy was founded in 1994 in response to the successful restructuring of the Porsche sports car maker. Porsche had gained so much experience and knowledge from mastering a major crisis that it decided to make this expertise available to other companies. Four of its employees formed Porsche Consulting’s initial team. Their small office in Zuffenhausen became a worldwide consultancy—with sites in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Milan, São Paulo, Atlanta, and Shanghai. Now with 430 employees, many of whom are engineers and economists, Porsche Consulting continues to apply proven solutions from the automotive industry to other sectors. It helps its clients put strategies into practice. Along with its original emphasis on lean transformation, it focuses increasingly on digitalization.
About Porsche Digital
Porsche Digital is the Porsche AG competence center for digitalization. The company defines and implements new value creation strategies and innovative digital product ranges in close cooperation with all Porsche AG departments. Porsche Digital identifies and evaluates trends and invests in start-ups, thus securing access to relevant technologies. It sees itself as an interface between Porsche and innovators all over the world. The company has sites in Ludwigsburg, Berlin, and Santa Clara and further locations such as Asia are planned.