Photo by: James Holland
Woodcliff Lake, N.J. – August 31, 2012… BMW Team RLL qualified its two BMW M3 GT racing cars in the second and fifth GT class starting positions for tomorrow’s two-hour American Le Mans Series Baltimore Sports Car Challenge.
Bill Auberlen qualified the No. 55 M3 GT on the outside of the front row with a time of 1:30.327 minutes around the 2-mile, 12-turn temporary road course that winds around Baltimore’s Camden Yards stadium complex. Auberlen and co-driver Jörg Müller won the most recent ALMS race at Road America and stand fifth in GT class driver points.
Dirk Müller qualified the No. 56 M3 GT in the fifth starting position with a time of 1:30.838 minutes. Unfortunately he lost control of the car through the front straight chicane on his fifth lap while challenging for the pole and hit the wall. The car will be repaired for tomorrow’s race. Müller, who stands third in GT driver points, will share the car with Joey Hand. Hand stands fourth in GT driver points after missing the Road America round because of a conflict with his DTM schedule.
Bill Auberlen, driver No. 55 M3 GT – “We built on what we learned here last year and demonstrated improvement. In the corners the Dunlop tires and the engineering comes to play. The handling and braking performance allow us to push our car to the absolute limit, which sometimes can be pushed over the limit and that’s when mistakes can happen. Today we made no mistakes and we are on the front row. At Baltimore, you want to start at the front and stay at the front.”
Dirk Müller, driver No. 56 M3 GT – “We made a couple of very good changes between practice and qualifying. Lap by lap I was coming up on a very good time. On my fifth lap I had quite a time going and just had to get through that last chicane. I put a lot of risk into it, got into the air and just lost it over the train rails. I’m really sorry for the guys that we have some work to do tonight, but I know that we have a really good car for the race.”
Source: BMW Team RLL
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