Tafel Racing is heading west to the streets of Long Beach, California for round three of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach to be run on Saturday, April 14th.
The 11-turn, 1.97-mile Long Beach circuit is a concrete lined street course that is celebrating its 33rd year, making it the longest running street race in the United States.
The ALMS series will adjust their typical two-hour-and-forty-five minute race distance to just 100-minutes. This will force the teams into differing race strategies.
Just two weeks ago through the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, Tafel Racing had mixed results. Robin Liddell started the race from the second row and blasted to the front of the GT2 pack by turn-three. The Scot was able to lead the first 32 laps of the race until the first caution, proving the speed of the Tafel Porsche 997 RSRs. The Tafel cars finished St. Pete in fifth and sixth places in GT2.
“I am hoping for the same luck in the first three coners as we had in St. Pete, ” Liddell said. “Although qualifying on pole is not out of the question. The team really gave us a good car in our last street race and if we can have the same confindence in the car this week, we are in for a great weekend. Wolf and I both liked the car at St. Pete and confidence is 90% of the game on a street course. ”
Wolf Henzler is confident going into the Long Beach race. The German is drawing from the speed and consistency of the car from St. Petersburg just two weeks ago.
“We had a good first part of the race at St. Petersburg, ” Henzler said. “We will go into Long Beach with pretty much the same set-up as St. Pete, where the car was really good. I have never raced at Long Beach, I have only seen the track map and it seems to be similar to St. Pete. It looks like a typical street course, slow corners and no runoff. We have a good basis to start with so I like our chances at the win in Long Beach. We have the pace of the Ferraris and we are going in confident. ”
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