Muniz on GT4 Title Prospects: “We Can Win This Thing”

Photo: Tyler Duane/Ford

Frankie Muniz believes he and TechSport Racing co-driver Tyler Stone are now in prime position to win the Pirelli GT4 America Am class championship, amid an ultra-close title fight heading into this weekend’s season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Muniz and Stone took over the points lead with their third class victory of the season last time out at Barber Motorsports Park but hold only a singe-point advantage over the BimmerWorld duo of James Clay and James Walker Jr.

A total of five driver pairings head into Saturday’s penultimate race of the season still with a mathematical chance of the title, with the top three separated by just 14 points, in what’s the closest championship battle of the three classes in the series.

“I’ve never in my whole racing career ever been close to being in this position,” Muniz told Sportscar365.

“There’s oddly an added pressure but I’m not trying for there to be. We’ve just got to be doing what we’ve been doing.

“We’ve really been clicking as a team. Tyler’s been driving good, and I’ve some crazy passes in the races and some good battles.

“It’s been really fun. We can win this thing.”

Muniz and Stone, who took their No. 30 Ford Mustang GT4 to a breakthrough class victory and sweep of the weekend at Road America, were on track to take a significant points haul at Barber until Muniz had an incident with another class competitor, which knocked them out of Race 1.

“I think everybody in the Am class has had some amazing races and then really, really bad luck,” he said.

“Even last week at Barber, I crashed passing for the lead. If we just finished that race, we would have had a way bigger lead.

“Then the 36 broke both times and at Road America, the Garcia’s had a bad weekends.

“We’ve all kind of traded bad weekends. It all comes down to this. Hopefully it’s just a good battle.

“Hopefully nobody has bad luck and we get to see who really deserves to win the championship.

“It’s close enough to where whoever wins the races or is the top finisher of those contenders is going to win the championship.”

The 40-year-old former Hollywood star, who has been undertaking a dual-series NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign, was due to miss Friday’s qualifying at The Brickyard to take part in the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

However, the decision was made following the Road America event that he would skip the Truck Series race in order to put he and Stone in the best possible position to fight for the GT4 America title.

“The plan was that I was going to miss [Friday] here and just start last,” he said. “But now that we’re in the title fight, I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to Charlotte.’

“There’s no way for this team and the championship and for Ford, ‘Sorry guys, I’m going to go race the Trucks so I can’t qualify.’

“Because it would make us start last for Race 1.”

Muniz said he’s already looking forward to next year, in what’s believed to be a more focused effort on Ford Racing’s sports car racing programs.

“I’m happy to be here,” he said. “I love racing in this series. I love racing in NASCAR but this is a different thing showing up and feeling like we can win. I haven’t had that many times in my career.

“My confidence is just getting more and more. I can’t wait already until the start of next year.

“What I learned this year, and I how I feel in the car, if we started at Sonoma now, I think we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John