Wilson rejoined the race running 15th after the pit stops cycled through and made up one final position before the 100 caution-free minutes expired. Wilson turned the team’s quickest lap of the race under the checkered flag as he continued to grow his comfort level in the car for the first time.
“The name of the game is just learning as much as possible this weekend and using it as a test session,” Wilson said. “I’ve got three days back in the car and got to shake off some rust, it’s been a long time since I’ve been racing and it’s good to constantly improve. We didn’t have any incidents on track and we were able to maximize our track time and figure out what we need to extract from our Porsche 911 GT3 R. It was a pretty lonely race, I didn’t get to battle anyone but I’m really excited to get into the Rolex weekend for the 60th running.”
The race completed the aptly-named Roar Before the 24 weekend, complete with four practice sessions, the qualifying and the race. The team saw progress in each session as they began to gel together, bringing in new drivers Boulle and Wilson in addition to new partners Cusick Motorsports, Meridian Veterinary Capital, Neptune Systems, Dallas Auto Exchange and Lohla Sport in preparation for next week’s season opener.
“I’m really excited to see how the team is coming together,” Hardpoint driver and team owner Ferriol said. “We’ve got a few new components and they’ve integrated really well into the team. We have Nick and Stef who have integrated really well and they did a great job today. We learned a little bit more about the car, piling on to what we already learned this week and so we’ll go into next week a bit smarter and hopefully a bit faster.”
The team returns to on-track activity on Thursday, January 27 at 11:05 a.m. ET for a 90-minute practice, as the WeatherTech Championship has four additional practice sessions in advance of the race on Saturday, January 29.