Peregrine Racing Survives Changing Conditions, Contact to Claim Top Ten Finish

Watkins Glen, NY (June 30, 2023) - The CarBahn with Peregrine Racing team fought through a challenging fifth round of the 2023 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge season last weekend, leaving Watkins Glen International with an eighth place finish.

Coming off a seventh place finish at Laguna Seca and a season-high fourth at the previous round in Detroit, the team arrived at the track confident that they could continue this streak of top ten finishes. However, that goal became more difficult after qualifying was cut short for the entire GS field, meaning that driver Sean McAlister wasn’t able to set a representative time. As a result, the No. 39 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport was set to roll off P14 for Saturday’s Tioga Downs Casino Resort 120 at the Glen..

Saturday also presented unique obstacles for the entire field after the start of the race was delayed by an hour because of a heavy downpour right before the command to start engines. With the track damp and the race declared wet, McAlister had his work cut out for him as he made his way into the top five. The race was a messy one, with half of the race’s laps run under caution. Despite McAlister’s ability to avoid trouble up to that point, trouble found him with 64 minutes remaining in the form of a bump from the No. 46 Aston Martin and a heavy hit from the rear, which ended the No. 27 Mercedes AMG’s race. After McAlister did brilliantly to keep the Peregrine Cayman out of the wall, he handed off to Jeff Westphal, who worked his way through the field over the last 45 minutes of the race to come across the line in tenth, which was then elevated to eighth after two Aston Martins failed technical inspection following the race.

The CarBahn with Peregrine Racing crew

INSIGHT FROM THE IMPC COCKPIT

Jeff Westphal

“It was a tough weekend. I think the Porsches have been lacking straight line pace all weekend, particularly compared to every manufacturer, so we knew it was gonna be a tough race. As the track became dry, the strategies changed to adapt to the fuel burn increase. The reality was that this wasn't going to be a win for us, so I guess we should be happy with a top ten, although it doesn’t really feel very redeeming to work extremely hard for an eventual eighth place finish. The team did a great job making sure everything was running as it should and putting us in a position to fight up the field for additional spots at the end.”

Sean McAlister

“Obviously it was a pretty frustrating end to the weekend. We were struggling the whole weekend because the car is so underpowered compared to the other GS manufacturers. We were just about as fast as the top TCR car in a straight line, so there was only so much we could do. For the race, we were obviously great in the wet, and with that mechanical grip we were able to bring in a lot more speed through the corners than most of the other cars.

Once it dried up, we kind of just fell back. The front end of the car was struggling a lot at that point. Then, for the incident at the restart, on the first green flag lap going into the bus stop, I got freight-trained by probably 3 or 4 cars and was kind of a sitting duck on the outside of the carousel. And then going into Turn 6, I tried to keep it on the inside fairly well to block the Aston and he stuck his nose in and pit maneuvered me for a while as I tried to correct it. As soon as his bumper cleared my car, my car shot right and I was looking straight at the wall, so I slammed on the brakes and then the Mercedes collected me in the rear. At least it saved the car so we at least finished. We did move up from 14th to 10th, and then eighth after inspection, so there is something there, but it should have been a better result. Thanks to the team for all their hard work, and I know we’re going to come out firing at CTMP.”

The CarBahn with Peregrine Racing team will be back on track July 7-9, this time at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Tune into Peacock on July 9 at 4:00 PM ET to catch the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park 120 and follow us on social media to stay up to date with all things Peregrine Racing.