Daytona Red Bull - KTM - FKG 04/02/2001   Red Bull Porsche Thursday   The weather isn’t providing any signs of clear air ahead, with overcast skies and an on-again / off again rain shower, but Luca Riccitelli sure knows how to brighten Hans-Jorg Hofer’s day. Luca put the #17 Red Bull / RWS Motorsports Porsche GT3R third fastest in the first qualifying round completed this afternoon. Fastest in GT is the new Mosler of Morrison / Mosler Racing (1:56.697), with the #31 White Lightning Porsche GT3R (1:56.959) just ahead of Luca (1:58.264). And all of this close action coming on a very wet track. Dieter Quester: “We have had a lot of rain. There are a lot of puddles on the track. And the wiper failed to work properly, but we are doing great for the moment for we are near the top in GT.” Hofer (above): “We are third right now. The problem is we began to lose grip on the rear near the end of the session. We will have to see what we need to do with the set up because we are not used to the Dunlop tires. We have never used them before.” Grand Am rules require tire manufacturers to supply tires to everyone, if just one team chooses to run that brand. Michelin opted not to comply so the Red Bull team made the switch for this race. Hofer: “We have been lucky with the Dunlops but we need to get better acquainted with them on our car. We have no experience with their tires, but we have experience with the car! Maybe over a 24 hour race we will be close.” The team is here with four drivers. Actually, make that five. No, wait…four. What’s that about? Well, Phillip Peter flew across from Europe to be the fifth man behind the wheel. But it seems the welcome he received wasn’t as Grand-ly American as he and Hans-Jorg had hoped. Dieter: “There was a misunderstanding with the organizers. We were told we could have five drivers. We were then told the rule is four drivers. Last year this rule didn’t exist.” But rules are rules and so the name Phillip Peter comes off the Red Bull Porsche and Phillip gets to fly back another 10 hours or so without ever having taken a stint at the wheel. Perhaps the plane’s pilot will let him have at the controls for a bit? Last year’s Rolex was an exciting and a frustrating time for this team. They had a rear drive shaft failure and a fuel pickup problem to contend with. Dieter feels that those problems are behind them now but he isn’t expecting a runaway victory. “Last year’s race was difficult. But I think it will be a very, very hard race this year. I think this will be especially true in the first four or five hours because the GT class has so many cars. I think it will be a real battle.” Team leader Hofer agrees. “The BMW with the V-8 is probably too strong for us. (The JET Motorsports BMW M3 ran a best lap of 1:58.927.) They have about 40 horsepower more than we have. But Luca has been fast so we will see.” There are plenty of cars in the GT class who will be chasing the wrist watch again this year. As noted here in our first team report, ‘watching’ out for the quartet of Riccitelli, Hofer, Quester and Duez would be a good use of their time! Red Bull link KTM link FKG link Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport