After Historic Rolex 24 Victory, Lexus Prepares For Mexico City Grand AM
March 6 2006 - Torrance, CA - After registering an historic first victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Lexus Daytona Prototype program heads into Round Two of the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series on a wave of momentum as the series travels to Mexico City and Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, March 2-4.
While the Rolex 24-winning #02 Ganassi Lexus-Riley won't be in the field this weekend, Michael Shank Racing's (MSR) runner-up entry of Oswaldo Negri and Mark Patterson will carry the manufacturer's banner south of the border in their #60 Flight Options Lexus-Riley. The duo are the highest-ranking series regulars coming out of Daytona and will look to grab the series points lead this weekend on the 2.518-mile permanent road course. In their stellar Daytona performance, the team never fell below sixth during the entire event and led 47 laps in the process.
The duo will be joined by MSR teammates Mike Borkowski and Champ Car champion Paul Tracy, who will be substituting for Kenny Wilden in the #6 Graydon Elliott Fusion Racing Lexus-Riley. They led 33 laps at Daytona before mechanical problems sidelined them and should be a factor as the series returns to Mexico where the team placed eighth last November.
While the MSR team will look to make themselves at home in Mexico City, CompUSA Lexus-Riley driver Luis Diaz actually will be at home as the series heads to his home-town and home track. Diaz, along with co-driver Scott Pruett, finished second overall last season and enjoyed a strong run at the Autodromo a year ago. Their Ganassi Racing entry led 62 of 90 laps on their way to a third-place showing. The squad's 20th-place finish at Daytona wasn't indicative of an impressive performance that saw the #01 car lead well into the morning before succumbing to mechanical woes after leading 88 laps. Fortunately, they handed the lead off to their Ganassi Racing teammates who maintained their first place position on the way to recording the victory. Combined the two Ganassi Lexus cars led 370 laps.
Overall, Lexus-powered Daytona Prototypes led a race-high an overwhelming 524 of the 734 laps run at Daytona and ran at the point position for more than 17 hours of the twice-around-the-clock extravaganza.
With the victory at Daytona, Lexus-powered entries have won nine races and 16 pole positions in 27 Rolex Series events since entering the series in 2004.
This weekend's Mexico City round, which will run in conjunction with the NASCAR Busch Series, will be televised by SPEED including same-day coverage. The event is scheduled to see the green flag fall at 3:15 p.m. (ET) with SPEED showing the race at 8 p.m. (ET) Saturday evening. Friday's qualifying is set for 11 a.m. (ET)
Lexus Daytona Prototype Performance Index
Race, Started/Finished #01 #02 #6 #39 #51 #60
Daytona 24 9/20 2/1 12/27 13/11 12/17 5/2
Mexico
Miami
Long Beach
Virginia
Laguna
Phoenix
Watkins Glen 6-Hour
Mid-Ohio
Daytona
Barber
Watkins Glen
Sears Point
Salt Lake City
2006 Lexus Daytona Prototype Laps Led #02 - 272 #01 - 88 #39 - 74 #60 - 47 #6 - 33