AFS/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports has made it to the west coast for the Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix, the third round of the 2018 IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship.
After almost a month between their battle at Sebring and now, the crew of AFS/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports is confident their #52 Ligier JS P217 will be a front contender during this weekends 100-minute long race. With 14 entries in the prototype class, drivers Sebastian Saavedra and Gustavo Yacaman will take to the historic 1.96 mile, 11-turn street circuit amongst the crowd of fans from far and wide.
The Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix will be broadcasted live on Saturday, April 14th at 4 p.m. ET on FOX. A live stream from IMSA.tv will also cover the race as well as qualifying the night before starting at 8:30 p.m. ET. For a full schedule and more details of the event visit: https://sportscarchampionship.imsa.com/events/2018-bubba-burger-sportscar-grand-prix-long-beach
Sebastian Saavedra
Driver
“Here we are in Long Beach, im incredibly excited! Its a home race for AFS/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports and we are coming from a very strong performance in Sebring which gives us quite a motivation to continue this good evolution we’ve had. Me and Gustavo together have good history here with Indy Lights, IndyCar and IMSA so its a place that we enjoy racing quit a bit. Its going to be a beautiful weekend when it comes to weather and we are really looking forward to the great fans here, it really does feel like a home race.”
Gustavo Yacaman
Driver
“Long Beach will be a pretty hard race, but we come here with a lot of positivity. In Sebring, we saw that switching from the Daytona compound made us more competitive. I feel like we have a better race car and better chance to be fighting for the podium. We still have a lot to dial in, plus it’s only the third race of the year. Now is when the work really starts so we will be learning a lot this weekend and carrying everything over for Mid-Ohio and the rest of the year.”
Gary Peterson
Team Owner
“It’s great to be here at my home race where we can race in front of a lot of friends and clients. I have great memories here with my driver development program where we achieved many wins and podiums, now with my new gig as an IMSA team owner it will be a great new experience for me, i’m definitely looking forward to it.”
Bobby Oergel
Team Owner
“Sebring was a very positive weekend for us, even though we didnt get the result we wanted we definitely showed our speed and now here at Long Beach we get to continue with our work and our development. This is a quick and tough weekend so we need to make sure that we are fast right out of the box because there isn’t a lot of track time. It’d be great to get a strong result here at our home race!”
