Monday, July 24, 2023 – Highlands, NJ – Vasser Sullivan drivers Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz finished twelfth in class over the weekend at the Lime Rock Grand Prix.
Montecalvo qualified the No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 fifth in class ahead of the two hours and forty minutes race. However, because Lime Rock is such a short and narrow track, the opportunities for passing do not come often. Although Montecalvo and Telitz found themselves as high as fourth position for several laps, an off-track excursion on lap 92 forced the No. 12 Lexus to pit to clean grass from the radiator and they were never able to recover the lost positions.
“It was a tough weekend for us at Lime Rock. The nature of the track is such that you follow the leader and hope your strategy works out or a full course yellow plays into your hand, because the passing opportunities are few a far between,” explained Montecalvo.
“Like all starts at Lime Rock, the first couple of corners were hectic. I fell back to eighth place, but from there, I was able to get into a rhythm and start clicking off laps. We decided to go with a different strategy than most of our competition, so I stayed in the car until close to an hour and forty minutes.”
“The team did a phenomenal job in the pits, and we were able to work our way back into the top five. When I handed the car over to Aaron, he was able to make his way to the fourth spot and maintained that position for multiple laps. Unfortunately, a racing incident took our car on an off-track excursion forcing Aaron to come into the pits to clean out the radiator. From there, we were unable to gain the positions to get us back into the top ten. Ultimately, we would cross the finish line twelfth in class.”
“We would have loved to have come away with more from the weekend, but I can’t thank everyone at Vasser Sullivan enough for giving 110 percent all weekend long.”
“Congratulations to our sister car with Jack [Hawksworth] and Ben [Barnicoat] in the GTD Pro class on their second place finish and furthering their lead in their championship. Aaron and I remain in third place in the GTD class championship and are looking to closing the gap to second place at Road America next weekend.”
The next event for Montecalvo is the IMSA Sportscar Weekend at Road America. On track action begins on Friday, August 4 and continues through the weekend. Be sure to follow Frankie on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with all of his racing news.