BATAVIA, OH (May 2, 2018) - Following a short break in IMSA WeatherTech Championship action, Wright Motorsports is prepared to take on home ground with a two-car GTD assault at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The weekend will see Patrick Long and Christina Nielsen back in the No. 58 Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Porsche 911 GT3 R and the debut of the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R for Mike Schein and Wolf Henzler.
Located just 150-miles south of Mid-Ohio, Wright Motorsports carries a rich history at their home track. Since founded in 2000, the Batavia, Ohio-based squad has collected countless podiums at the road course. This dates back decades for Wright Motorsports principal and Ohio-native, John Wright who ran his first professional event at Mid-Ohio in 1992. The group hopes to extend their line of triumph following this week’s event.
No stranger to the 2.4 mile, 15 turn road-course, Long has four podiums and a Mid-Ohio win to his name. The Porsche factory driver -who has had a busy break preparing for last week's fifth annual Luftgekühlt car event- looks to pad his resume with an additional ream of success at the track.
Nielsen returns to Mid-Ohio for the second time; her first time being in 2015, when she competed in the Pirelli World Challenge and earned the coveted Hard Charger award for her skill in overtaking on the technically challenging road course. The Porsche Select driver will have her chance to shine at Mid-Ohio once again during this weekend’s home event.
Though new to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Schein will be entering the weekend surrounded by all things familiar. The New Yorker has seen three wins and three additional podiums at the Ohio road course- all in Wright Motorsports prepared Porsches, with the greater fraction being in the Porsche 911 GT3 R. The track remains a special one for Schein as one of those wins was the first of his racing career during a 2010 IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge event.
Bringing a wealth of knowledge and Porsche racing experience to not only the No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R, but the Ohio-based team as a unit, Henzler has already seen three wins at Mid-Ohio. This marks the German’s first run with Wright Motorsports and his return to IMSA racing for the first time since the early rounds of 2017.
The weekend heats up with Saturday's GTD qualifying session at 11:55AM EDT on IMSA.TV, and Sunday’s race, which will be aired on FS2 from 1:00PM to 4:00PM EDT.
Driver Quotes:
Patrick Long // Driver, No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Porsche 911 GT3 R – “The “sprint season” of IMSA is where the objectives shift to pure pace and crafty strategy. It’s going to really push us as a unit. As we come from 2 years together racing in the sprint format of another series, I am confident in our team’s ability! Mid Ohio is a tough track to get an ideal setup for. Long duration corners and lots of elevation in tricky places make it tough to drive around without any lack of balance on the car so we will have to work hard. Having the 16 car join us will be a great plus. We will have more setup bandwidth and additional data to utilize. I’m also excited to have Mike and Wolf on board. They are both great guys and people I am proud to call friends.”
Christina Nielsen // Driver, No. 58 Wright Motorsports Porsche Consulting/Porsche Digital Porsche 911 GT3 R – “It’s really great to be heading to the team’s home track. I haven’t raced at Mid-Ohio since my first time there in 2015. I’m looking forward to getting back with the team. Last year, Wright earned a couple of podium finishes in the PWC series at Mid-Ohio, so they truly know how to make a Porsche go quickly around there. I am confident I’m in good hands. Right after the race, I fly out to Italy, where I’ll have my first run in the car I’ll race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans — Ebimotors’ Porsche 911 RSR. I’m really looking forward to this cool week of racing I have coming up!”
Mike Schein // Driver, No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R - I’m really looking forward to getting back with the Wright Motorsports team and kicking off our IMSA campaign at Mid-Ohio. It's Wright Motorsports’ home event and we’ve had a lot of success there with our Porsche 911 GT3 R over the last couple of years. It's a track that I really enjoy and has a lot of rhythm to it, which is nice. Endurance and multi class racing is new for me so I will have to learn quick! Teaming up with a driver like Wolf Henzler is fantastic. He's got all the speed with the added experience that I can lean on. I’m excited to get started.”
Wolf Henzler // Driver, No. 16 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R – “ I’m very excited to join Wright Motorsports and Mike Schein at Mid-Ohio this week. Mid-Ohio is a very unique track because on the first day the grip level is always really low, then it gets faster from session to session. This makes to very difficult to start setting up the car. You also have a lot of direction changes so you need a car that’s stable with a good platform to handle the direction changes properly. I’m excited to get over there and confident that Wright Motorsports will provide us with a car that’s ready to perform.”