David Ostella to start fifth at Historic Road America

 David Ostella qualified fifth Saturday in his No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Prototype Challenge car at historic Road America for the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase on Sunday. Echoing his qualifying drama at the last race, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,Ostella set his fastest time of 2 minutes, .144 of a second on the last lap of the 15-minute session.

“The car did really well,” Ostella said. “The guys set it up pretty good and it was consistent. One thing for this weekend we didn’t get a lot of time on new tires so we struggled a little bit to get up to speed. But we still pulled out a great qualifying, fifth is great for us. Our philosophy all weekend and all year has been race setup and that’s what we’ve been doing. So now we’re just going to put our heads together and see what we can put together for the race.”

 The 14-turn, 4.048-mile Road America circuit is the longest on the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship schedule and produces some of the most exciting racing in North America. It’s also one of the fastest. Though Ostella has not raced on the course since 2010, he hopes to visit the podium there Sunday.

 “The goal is to get back on the podium again, for sure,” Ostella said. “We should have had a podium at Indy but had to settle for fourth. James (French, Ostella’s teammate) and I have been butting heads a little bit setup-wise, but I think we’ve got a good one now. We had a good qualifying run today and James had a good run in practice, so I think we can do really well tomorrow.”

 Ostella and French will take to the track for the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America, a two-hour, 45-minute race, at 1:15 p.m. (CT) Sunday, Aug. 10. Live streaming and timing will be available at imsa.com, and the race will be broadcast at 6:30 p.m. (ET) Sunday, Aug. 10 on FOX Sports 1.

 

Adam Sinclair