Austin, Texas (5 May 2017) – Despite showing strong pace and setting the second fastest lap of the race, the results didn’t match the effort as TeamTGM came up short at Circuit of the Americas which marked Round 3 of the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge championship.
Drivers Ted Giovanis and Guy Cosmo ultimately took 11th at the finish after some hard fought racing through the tight confines of the 3.4-mile Texas road course that features the iconic 133 foot climb up to Turn 1.
Giovanis opened the two-hour race and ran clean and consistent times as he clicked off laps at the F1-grade facility located outside of Austin, Texas. He maintained position through the first 45 minutes of racing which saw some slicing and dicing among the GS and ST class fields.
A well-timed full course caution was displayed right when Giovanis reached his minimum drive time which saw him take to pit lane and hand the No. 4 Porsche Cayman over to Cosmo. With the team working quickly to get the Porsche machine back out ahead of the race leaders, the car didn’t get quite as much fuel as it needed to make it to the finish.
“The TeamTGM guys brought me to pit lane and did a great stop but we were hurrying to make sure we didn’t go a lap down because the leaders were coming,” said Giovanis. “Unfortunately, we ended up short filling just a little too much. So we literally just came up a bit short today. At some point, we’ll catch a break – unfortunately it wasn’t here at COTA.”
After setting laps faster than the leaders, Cosmo reported that the car began to stumble as the Porsche ran short of fuel agonizingly close to the checkered flag. The experienced racer was able to not interrupt the flow of the race by finding a safe location to pull the No. 4 machine off of the track.
“It’s really disappointing because the car was just hooked up and I was just gaining on everybody ahead,” said Cosmo. “The handling was spot on and I was ready to just get on it and race my way forward. We would have been in the mix, but we learn from our mistakes and we move on. We’ll turn the page to the next one and come back stronger. We showed today that we have the team, drivers, and car to do it so now we just need to see everything align to get the finish this team deserves! One of these days we’ll nail it, and it’ll be good!”
TeamTGM will next be in action at Watkins Glen International for Round 4 of the 2017 IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge championship on June 29 – July 2. Both Giovanis and Cosmo have years of experience at the upstate New York track and look to use that experience to their advantage.
