Tuesday, July 19, 2022 – Highlands, NJ – After leading more than 100 laps during the Northeast Grand Prix, Vasser Sullivan driver Frankie Montecalvo had to settle for P8 in the ninth round of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship.
Montecalvo qualified the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 first in class for the two hours and forty minutes race. On the start he lost a position to the Lamborghini in second, but he was able to retake that position within the first twenty minutes.
Montecalvo would lead the GTD field for the remainder of his stint before handing the car over to his co-driver Aaron Telitz. The Vasser Sullivan crew executed their pitstops brilliantly, and Telitz would retake the lead as the pit cycle occurred.
With just over twenty minutes remaining a full course yellow came out, bunching the field together and evaporating Telitz’s lead over the rest of the field. When the race returned to green with just under ten minutes remaining, the No. 12 Lexus suffered contact from the Mercedes attacking from second position. The contact resulted in an unscheduled stop to pitlane to remove the hood of the car which had been jostled out of place and was hindering Telitz’s view while driving. In the end, the No.12 Lexus would finish P8 after leading 114 laps of the race.
“We had a great weekend at Lime Rock right up until the end,” said Montecalvo.
“I qualified our No. 12 Lexus on the pole for Saturday’s race. At the start, I was passed by the second place Lamborghini, but was able to retake the position a few laps later. From there, I settled into a rhythm and kept clicking off laps.”
“I handed the car over to Aaron, and then he went to work. He did a great job keeping us up front and extending our lead. When the late caution came out, that bunched the field back up, so we knew the restart was going to be chaotic. And it was.”
“The second place Mercedes got a run on Aaron coming into turn one and then had contact with our right front. The hit resulted in our hood coming loose and flapping around. Aaron would have to pit to repair the damage, but unfortunately, that sent us back to eighth position where we would ultimately finish.”
“The crew did a phenomenal job all weekend long, and I can’t thank everyone at Vasser Sullivan and Lexus enough for all their hard work. It wasn’t the finish we had hoped for, but we’ll keep pushing even harder at Road America.”
The next round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be the IMSA Fastlane SportsCar Weekend at Road America with on track action beginning on Friday, August 5th and continuing through the weekend. To stay up to date with current broadcast times and all of Frankie’s racing news, be sure to follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
