Herta produced a 65.3095sec lap in the Firestone Fast Six, eclipsing the previous qualifying lap record by 0.9sec and earning pole by 0.4455sec. But he admitted it came as a result of difficulties in opening practice when he was almost seven-tenths off the pace.
“Yesterday was a struggle for us,” he said. “We kind of went to the drawing board overnight, brought something completely different out for today. It worked really well. I was really happy with it.
“Obviously our one-lap pace is really strong. Now we’re kind of shifting focus to the racecar. Seems like we can get up to tire temp really fast, get a lap in, so I was really happy with that.”
The fact that the Long Beach track gave so much grip on Friday in 95-deg heat – 130degF track temp – shocked several drivers. Even now, the reason for this behavior was a puzzle, Herta unconvinced that the presence of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Porsche Carrera Cup was responsible for the “bizarre”…
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