MAGNUSSEN: COTA Debrief

If somebody would have told me after the race in Sebring that we would be leading the GT championship in the American Le Mans Series with two races remaining I would have said they had obviously spent the day camped in Green Park devouring a cooler full of beer!

Our plan after the disappointment of falling out of the race early was to go out and win some races and see what happens.

Turns out our plan has worked out quite well. To have made up 37 points in seven races is actually quite remarkable.

In fact, it is actually 39 points in six races – Long Beach was only “ok” for Antonio Garcia, myself and the No.3 crew.

We obviously got rid of the black cat at Laguna Seca that kept crossing our path because from that race forward we have really been on a roll.

The past three races in particular have been quite incredible to take two wins and a second – 56 points out of a possible 60 has really brought us back into contention.

Sadly for our teammates in the No.4 Corvette Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner, we were able to take over the championship lead when they had a DNF at Circuit of the Americas.

Antonio, myself and all of the Corvette Racing crew know we have to keep pushing hard. This championship is far from over.

If we keep scoring consistent points then we’ll be in good shape. However, with extra points up for grabs at Petit and the fact it is such a long race, we are far from celebrating yet.
The race in Texas was a fantastic result and I really have to thank my teammate Antonio for an incredible job he did.

I managed to sneak through into the lead before the first stop at COTA, but the “King of Spain” came under enormous pressure late in the race.

It is really tough when you are out of the car and all you can do is watch.

It is actually worse than driving because when you are in the pit you get ALL the information – every lap, every time, able to look at every car on the TV monitors.

When you’re in the car, you are just pushing on instinct and driving as hard as you can.

He had a pretty easy job at Baltimore when he basically only got one racing lap. His tough job was sitting in the car with no air conditioning under the red flag for an hour.

Antonio certainly earned his pay check at COTA though – Dirk Mueller’s BMW was all over the No.3 Corvette and then the Viper of Jonathan Bomarito was coming fast at the end.

To come away from Texas with a win was actually a bit of a surprise because we really didn’t think we’d be in contention for the top spot at Circuit of The Americas.

So far this year, it has been a good season for the Magnussen family. My son Kevin is leading the World Series by Renault championship with two races to go as well.

His last race is actually in Barcelona on the same weekend as Petit Le Mans.

Hopefully we’ll both have something to celebrate but the work isn’t over yet – we both know we’ll have to fight pretty hard over the next two race weekends.