King Looking to “Hit the Ground Running” in Long Beach Debut

Harry King says he’s looking to “hit the ground running” when he takes on the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach for the first time this weekend.

King will share AO Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo with FIA Silver-rated driver Mikkel Pedersen in a one-off appearance in the GTD category for the team.

The Porsche-contracted driver has never raced at the Long Beach circuit before.

He said he has “done a lot of work on simulators” to prepare for the event, aiming to “eliminate those few extra laps in Free Practice at the start of the weekend.”

“I’m keen. I enjoy street circuits,” he told Sportscar365. “I feel like I deliver better on them than I do on normal race circuits.

“With the strategy and the driver changes, it’s very rare that you get an endurance race on a street circuit, so it’s one that’s very special.”

King is still relatively new to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, having made his debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January, sharing AO’s full season GTD Pro Porsche with Nick Tandy for the season and Alessio Picariello for the endurance races.

As rated Gold by the FIA, King’s Long Beach debut will be the first time that he is the highest rated driver in the team’s lineup.

“It changes your aspect [in the team],” he said. “You’re there to support the Silver and bring them on as much as possible.

“I’ve seen his [Mikkel’s] performance, and I know his previous results, and he’s a guy I know I can trust.”

AO won its class in Long Beach last year with another one-off GTD appearance driven by Laurens Vanthoor and Jonny Edgar.

“I know the car well but it’s just the circuits,” he said. “When you know the car well it makes it a little bit easier.

“I’ve got a very good support network over there [at AO] with guys who are dedicated to bringing me on as quickly as possible.”

King Looking to “Achieve the Maximum” in GTD Pro

Looking ahead to the rest of his GTD Pro season, King said: “We have to try to achieve the maximum that we can.

“If that means taking victories, great. If that means collecting points, we’ll just have to do that.

“It’s motivating to see the turnover that we produced after Daytona. The team really did work incredibly hard, and I saw that with my own eyes.”

The team finished ninth in class at the Rolex 24, before missing out on a Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring class victory by just 1.4 seconds.

“As a driver when you see the extra effort put in, it pushes you to go that little bit more, and we certainly delivered on every front during the Sebring weekend,” he said.

King admitted that, while he was “relatively satisfied” with AO’s result in Sebring, “the racing driver inside of you is always wanting a bit more.”