A strong qualifying session highlighted a busy day for the APR Motorsport team at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday.

#52 Audi Sport Customer Racing/APR Motorsport Audi R8 Grand-Am: Frank Stippler, Marc Basseng, Ian Baas, René Rast
#52 Audi Sport Customer Racing/APR Motorsport Audi R8 Grand-Am: Frank Stippler, Marc Basseng, Ian Baas, René Rast

Photo by: Covy Moore

In the stacked thirty-four car GT field Rene Rast drove to 11th place in the day's qualifying session in the no. 52 APR Audi R8 Grand-Am. Such was the depth of the GT field at the Rolex 24 at Daytona that Rast's time was less than a second behind the pole sitting car. Rast, a defending GT-class winner at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, will partner with Ian Baas, Marc Basseng, and Frank Stippler in the no. 52 APR Audi R8 Grand-Am.

"I am pretty satisfied with the car and with qualifying the APR Audi R8 in 11th position," said Rast. "It isn't as fast in qualifying as we would like, but. I think we have a good car for the race. On Saturday, we will see."

In the sister no. 51 APR Audi R8 Grand-Am, Matt Bell qualified in 27th position as he and the team continued to work on the setup of the Audi. Bell will be partnered with David Empringham, Alex Figge, John Farano and Dave Lacey for the twenty-four hour contest.

"We went in a certain direction for qualifying and it didn't work out for us," said Bell. "The car was really good, except for in a couple of spots on the track. As strong as this field is, you can't really have a weakness anywhere and hope to be competitive. But now we know which direction to go and we have plenty of practice to get it right before Saturday."

APR Motorsports