SEBRING, Fla,—Muscle Milk Pickett Racing’s drivers Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr pushed the team’s brand new HPD ARX03c-Honda to the fastest time of the two-day American Le Mans Series Sebring Winter Test, surpassing their 2012 Sebring 12 Hours qualifying time with ease
In GTE Risi Ferrari team came back in style, topping the GTE roster.
BAR1 (which was the Merchant Services team last season and Intersport before that,) was quickest in PC, and in GTC, Flying Lizard turned in the quickest time of the event.
It is no surprise that Muscle Milk topped the time sheets—theirs was the only P1 car. What was surprising is that the team beats its 2012 Sebring 12-Hour qualifying time by more than a second, in an unfamiliar car that was turning its first hot laps.
Klaus Graf set fast lap in the Friday morning’s session, barely beating team mate Lucas Luhr’s best effort in the final session, 1:46.368 at 126.579 mph to 1:46.855 at 126.003 mph.
Klaus Graf said the ARX 03c with the wider front tires was “certainly an improvement from last year’s car” and the lap times bore that out. “We are still fine-tuning the package, it’s still relatively new,” he said. “I think we will get a lot faster.”
Graf emphasized that a good test did not equate to a guaranteed repeat of the team’s 2012 championship success. “I am sure Dyson didn’t sleep over the winter; nor did Rebellion and we know what Audi’s doing to improve their package so we will see how it all comes together when we come back here for the race.”
Lucas Luhr was asked about the reliability issues which plagued Muscle Milk Pickett racing for the first three quarters of the 2012 season.[etssp 604] [etssp 605]
“We made some small adjustments last year and suddenly there were no issues,” Luhr responded.
“It was always a very small issue, like a penny part, which would cause the car to shut off or the electronics to fail so during the season we said, ‘We cannot continue like this,’ so changes were made” to improve communication and oversight between the mechanics. “Everybody is kind of looking over everybody’s shoulder,” he explained.
Klaus Graf elaborated. “We changed a lot in the way we operate within the team, especially quality control.
“We implemented some of the standards we have at the Cytosport factory where where we have a highly sophisticated quality control for our products which people actually drink and eat, so that’s quite important. So that’s what we did last season and over the winter, and it shows. It improved the performance.
