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WEATHERTECH SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP: ROLEX 24 AT DAYTONAJanuary 31, 2016Andy LallyJohn PotterRene RastMarco SeefriedDaytona Beach, Florida THE MODERATOR: We're going to continue on here with our post‑race media availability here. We're joined by the winners of the GT Daytona class, the always entertaining group from Magnus Racing led by RenĂ© Rast, Andy Lally, Marco Seefried and John Potter. RenĂ©, it got a little interesting out there in the closing laps for you. Were you sweating bullets in the cockpit? RENÉ RAST: Yeah, I think it was one of my hardest stints ever in my life. I mean, the radio was constantly on my ear like telling me what left turns I have to do, go faster, but save more fuel. We want to see 49, 51, 55, and it's so hard actually to go slower than going fast, and I had to adapt myself every single lap. I saw the Porsche coming and they told me to let the Lamborghini pass, and I said that's not the way how we're going to win. It was just a very interesting stint for me, but in the end, somehow we won. I think it was a big, big team effort. They always knew what they were doing, and I really appreciate the work. Q. Marco, what were your thoughts when you were watching that all unfold? MARCO SEEFRIED: Standing there watching it, it was so frightening. I was biting my nails. Just once you're so close to your maiden win here and I mean, my mates, they all won it, and I'm the only one of them who never did it before. So I was really thinking hopefully. Then when I hear we're getting really short on fuel, and RenĂ© just replied the fuel light is on the very last lap I was just thinking I can't stand this anymore. I can't see it and left. So, yeah, then finally we crossed the line. THE MODERATOR: John, can you talk about the performance of the Audi today and how that held up? JOHN POTTER: The Audi held up great. I think we could run at least another 12 hours or so. We might need a little more fuel to do it. But it was a great day. It was our first race with the Audi. We didn't know what to expect. It's obviously had a good reputation. It's had some race wins, but it's a new car to us. We were all very happy with reliability and performance of our R8 MLS today. THE MODERATOR: Andy, you're no stranger to success here at Daytona. Can you talk about what this means to you? ANDY LALLY: This means my little sister gets a watch, and I've been wanting to give her one of these for a long, long, long time. We had a horrible year last year. Well, not horrible, we still got the race car, so that's kind of cool. But we had a year that just a bunch of stuff went wrong. We finished second twice. It was the first year I had in a long, long time that we didn't win either and IMSA or a Rolex Series race, and to bounce back with Audi. It was a crazy off‑season. There were a whole bunch of things that could have, might not have happened, did happen, switched around back and forth. I had an ulcer in December trying to figure stuff out, or November‑ish. But there's 50 stories that are all really interesting that we could talk about for an hour. But just to sum it all up, this was amazing. This was team work. This is something when I got out of the with car in the first stint I was livid because of what was going on the track. We were the little engine that could today. We probably had the slowest top speeds of anybody, but we had a really good handling car, and we had superstars that were driving this thing that were my teammates. And somehow, God, that was crazy. When we pulled the trigger‑‑ SPEAKER: It was as nail biting for us, as these guys said, for us as well as anyone else watching. We didn't have any insider information. It was let's‑see‑what‑happens kind of thing. ANDY LALLY: I had calculator out the last 55 minutes as we were doing fuels and deltas and predictives and everything. For us to pull it off and run out of gas on the back straightaway and have to get towed in is just the perfect ending to this crazy story today. SPEAKER: At least it made all the stress worth wild. RenĂ©, if you had made it back in, we'd probably wonder why we were yelling at each other for 30 minutes. Soft on our calculations. Q. Andy, my first question is for you. How many watches do you have now? ANDY LALLY: This would be Rolex 24 Hour win number five. But since Rolex was gracious enough to give champion's watches, this is number 8, so that's pretty cool. I'm wearing No. 1 from 15 years ago today. Q. So why did it take so long to get one to your sister? ANDY LALLY: Well, my dad, my stepdad and my mom got the second, third, and fourth. Then my first sponsor that took me out of go‑karts and put me into his race car, a little local deal got number five. My soccer coach that introduced me to that guy got number six, and when we won the 50th running of the race here in 2012, I gave it to Mike Johnson who runs Stevenson Motorsports now. But he used to run a team called Archangel Motorsports, and that's what got me the 2001 victory, and the 2001 championship. So I owed him a lot. He put a lot on the line for me. Q. So you and John have won this race together before. I'm wondering is this the biggest race on your calendar? Do you guys put all the stock into this or are there things that you want more than this? JOHN POTTER: We love winning this race, but the championship's always our goal. I don't mean to take anything away, because this is awesome. But I really look forward to hopefully having a similar question about winning the 2016 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship later in the year. ANDY LALLY: This is our fifth race win together, and they've all been the big wins. So we've win two Daytonas, we won Sebring, we won Indianapolis, and we won a little one in Laguna. So four of the five have been the crown jewels of what we'd call our biggest races. So it's been pretty epic here at Magnus Racing and John and I. Q. There was a lot of talk last night about it seeming like a sprint race several times, and it looked like you guys had a lot of action in your class overnight. Can you talk a little bit about how competitive it was through the night? ANDY LALLY: I blacked out. You guys go. John tripled through the night, actually. I went to sleep and woke up and they said he just finished a triple. So I was pretty stoked on that that got our plan going. But it's been a sprint race for the last six or seven years, really. JOHN POTTER: As long as I've known him. ANDY LALLY: Yeah. The first one that I did here 15 years ago we limped the thing home setting a time that was like 3 seconds off what we could do, and we were the smartest ones in the class and we just took care of the stuff and we won by 15 laps. This one today we won by 4 seconds. So it's been every year it's gotten more and more competitive. The last six, seven, eight years has been nuts. It's been flat out. You have to have good equipment, an awesome team, and be willing to drive 99.99% and never step over that boundary or you risk knocking yourself down. We lost‑‑ there were some super fast cars that all screwed up, basically and knocked themselves out of contention. RENÉ RAST: Yeah, that moment when the two Lamborghinis touched each other, I would say that's one of the key moments for the race. I wouldn't say during the night that there was more competition than during the day. But I think that moment in the night it was something really changing for the results when they touched. I think the 48 had really a long stop and the other one I don't know. Q. Andy, in the final laps when the Conrad Lamborghini was driving in front of you, did you recognize just from the driving behavior that they had trouble? Was it fuel that slowed you down and gave you a safe feeling that you maybe can pass him? ANDY LALLY: That was the biggest argument‑‑ not argument, discussion. JOHN POTTER: Team history. ANDY LALLY: We knew when he pitted last, and we knew how many laps he had done in every single pit stop. We looked at his pace and he was pressing trying to catch us. There was no way all of a sudden he was going to do an extra lap and he was a lap short. But to risk the 24 Hours of Daytona on that and knowing there was no other way because Catsburg and the Porsche did pit, splashed and they were pushing. We literally dialled it down to an exact number, and RenĂ© was unbelievable and just hit that every time we changed it on them. We gambled that the Lamborghini, if it caught us, had to use enough fuel to run out of gas or pit and splash which wouldn't negate it. Riley was similar and we just had to work. We looked at the fourth place car and said we have to finish in front of that and how many seconds we had to slow down to do that. JOHN POTTER: To add to that, it was enough of a gamble that we knew the Lamborghini had stopped one lap after us. So theoretically, they had more fuel. So the debate wasn't an equal battle of savings. It was can we make them use more fuel and we save fuel? Not just save the most fuel, and we won that battle. Q. John, when you're on the grid before the race and there are all these new cars, Lamborghinis, you're in the new Audi, then the GTLM class, you have the new Fords, are you looking at them as far as a cool factor or are you just kind of wondering, hey, we don't know what they have? JOHN POTTER: I've got a super unromantic answer to that, I guess. I look at race cars like I would any tool. The goal is to select the right tool to do the job you need it to do. And we selected the Audi R8 as our tool this year. So far it definitely is the right tool for the right job. So as far as a cool factor, there are definitely a lot of neat cars out there. And the car person in me enjoys looking at them and experiencing them. I enjoy the fan walk as much as any fan. But in the end, it's a tool. Does it live up to performance? And the Audi R8 definitely does. Q. John, in light of your Lego‑themed event. I guess I'd have to ask if everything is awesome? JOHN POTTER: Everything is not opossum. Everything is awesome. And it's not Legos. My lawyers want to ensure everyone. It's an interlocking brake system. Q. Whichever one, Andy, John, what part did the Magnus After Dark and the Magnus Militia play in your success this afternoon? JOHN POTTER: I'll give that one to Andy. ANDY LALLY: It's awesome to have as many people as we have behind us. It's definitely a unique team with a unique outlook on how racing is sort of marketed. I think it's the best team out there as far as the unique POV and the light heartedness. It's a simple thing. I don't know if I'm going to say it right. But essentially everything that touches the car is taken extremely seriously. The crew, the time, the testing that we do, everything that gets put into this is taken seriously, and almost nothing else that doesn't touch the car is taken seriously. I think that's a great way to look at stuff and live, not only just market. So I think that's what gathers the fans and builds the Magnus Militia. JOHN POTTER: And that sort of started in 2012 the year we first won this race, actually. So a lot of these guys have been with us sort of since the beginning. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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