Risi-Krohn Ferrari Post-Qualifying Notes

Sebring, March 19, 2010: The Risi-Krohn Ferrari team of Tracy W. Krohn, Nic Jönsson and Eric van de Pole, have been at Sebring International Raceway all week in preparation for the 58th Annual 12 Hours of Sebring race. Testing sessions on Monday and Tuesday and practice Wednesday and Thursday all led up to today’s qualifying under the Florida sun for the inaugural race on the 2010 American Le Mans Series calendar.

Tracy qualified the Ferrari 430 GT2 in the 12th position in the GT2 field with a time of 2:06.680 at 105.147 mph. He could not quite match his Friday morning practice time (his best of the week) of 2:04.166 after suffering a quick spin in Turn 1 and losing the optimum capability of his Michelin tires.

DRIVER QUOTES: TRACY W. KROHN, Team Owner/Driver, No. 61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari 430: “We started off the early part of the week with testing. I had a few little issues with the car, including one where I hit the trigger of the fire extinguisher. That’s the first time I’ve ever accidentally hit one. I’ve hit them on purpose before but never accidentally. Notwithstanding that, the car has gotten better through the week and is actually quite good. We’ve been trying different tires and different set-ups. We’ve narrowed in on one that seems to be very good with any tires we seem to use. The car is very well balanced. I’m looking forward to a great race tomorrow. I’ve gotten a little bit quicker throughout the week. That’s helped. It’s difficult for me to go from the DP (Daytona Prototypes in Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series) to this car. It’s quite a different feeling for me. It’s a very comfortable car to drive because it’s very well balanced. When we got to Thursday evening, the car was as good as it’s been all week, which is where you want to be. I had my best time last night and then bettered it this morning.

“I’ve had a lot of help here this week from Nic and Eric. I was all ready to go out and put in a good time in qualifying today and I just screwed up in the exit of the pits. I put a little too much power down and shifted gears at the wrong time and the car lurched left. Fortunately I kept it on the track and kept on going, but I pretty much wrote the tires off. I still did an okay time but I had a couple of seconds more in me that I left out on the track with a knackered set of tires. We’ll deal with that and get ready for the race. I think Risi and his team has done a great job. I think everybody is right on top of it and I feel very confident for the race.”

NIC JONSSON, Driver, No. 61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari 430: “This is a brand new car for us here to Sebring. We’ve had our fair share of small incidents, both driver’s errors and other mechanical and electrical issues during the week. I think finally today we got the car working flawlessly, as far as mechanically and electronically. I think Tracy proved that this morning when we went out and ran within three (3) seconds of the fastest class time, which is fantastic. The Risi guys have done a fantastic job again preparing this car. We look very positive going into tomorrow’s race. I think we’ve got a very well balanced race car. We are going to start the race and take the approach we always do – to be safe and stay out of trouble and start clicking them off and try to make it home tomorrow night and hopefully that will give us a good response.”

ERIC VAN DE POELE, Driver, No. 61 Risi-Krohn Ferrari 430: “For me, everything was perfect from the first day. The car was good straightaway. Just yesterday we had a little problem with the engine and it looks like we found it. Tracy did a very good time this morning. The car looks like it has a good set-up now and looks very comfortable to drive. We expected maybe a little bit better on qualifying but it’s not so important for us. We know that. The most important is to get a competitive car, like we have, and be comfortable for the race, especially here. Everything is exactly like we expected and I’m looking forward to getting back in the car.”

The 12 Hours of Sebring will be broadcast live on SPEED from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 2:00-11:00 p.m. ET. American Le Mans Radio and Live Timing & Scoring will be available at www.americanlemans.com.