LEXINGTON, Ohio (May 5, 2018) – In his first visit to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course since 2012, Jon Bennett qualified 14th for Round Four of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Driving the No. 54 Composite Resources / Flex-Box ORECA 07 LM P2 Bennett’s lap times quickened throughout the 15-minute qualifying session. At the checkered flag, his lap of 1:14.351 (109.329 mph) put him 14th on the grid, only 0.004-second shy of the 13th-place qualifier.
Bennett will start Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute race and hand over to his co-driver Colin Braun for the finish. Weather for the race calls for a chance of rain, which would be similar to Friday’s conditions at Mid-Ohio, when official practice was halted temporarily for rain and lightning.
The race will air live on FS2 at 1pm ET.
Jon Bennett
Driver: No. 54 ORECA 07 LM P2“To be honest, in the past Mid-Ohio has been a challenge for me in terms of learning the nuances of the circuit. We missed an opportunity to test here because of weather. I came here a little tentative, but all the guys have been working like mad on the car and when I went out for qualifying the setup was magic. I took advantage of it with a qualifying time that was respectable. I look forward to capitalizing on a good lap time and to use that at the beginning of the race to put the car in a good position to hand off to Colin.
“I’m a big fan of chaos. I think when things get crazy, opportunities arise and CORE excels in those situations. If I could pick the weather for tomorrow’s race it would be a dry start for me with a wet finish for Colin. We like to focus more on what we can control and the weather isn’t one of them, so it’ll be what it’ll be and we’ll run with it.”