Colin Braun breaks PC Class record on Continental tires

Continental Tire debuted in American LeMans Series (ALMS) competition this week, at the famed 12 Hours of Sebring, in a big way.  Rolling on Continental tires for the first time in class history, CORE Autosport’s Colin Braun set a new Prototype Challenge (PC) Class record during Friday’s qualifying session with a fast lap time of 1:53:404 during his final lap of the 15 minute session.  Braun methodically moved his way through the 17-turn road course in the No. 05 ORECA FLM09, knocking RSR Racing’s Bruno Junqueira off the pole.
 
“We really worked hard figuring out the new Continental tires which are great,” said Braun following his qualifying session.  “They should make for a great race.  The new tire seems to hold up pretty darn good.  We could go out in practice and do simulated qualifying runs.  It’s hard to get a sense of it with all the traffic we had in practice, but I was surprised to put in that lap at the end.  We didn’t get to do a lot of simulation to know the drop-off and the optimal temperature, but the tires are holding up really well.”
 
Junqueira’s time was a mere 0.270 seconds off Braun’s record-setting lap while Pierre Kaffer qualified third in the DragonSpeed Mishumotors No. 81 ORECA FLM09 with a lap time of 1:53:838.  The performance of the Continental tires was evident as the top four cars qualified under last year’s record-setting time.
 
Just last week, Continental Tire was chosen as the exclusive tire supplier and title sponsor of the PC Class.  With just one week of testing, practice, and now qualifying, under their belts, all the PC teams seem pleased with the performance of the tires.