With challenging weather conditions all weekend long, the Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 of Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley was able to showcase a strong performance in early practice sessions as well as qualifying on Saturday with a sixth place starting position for today’s race.
The entire Turner Motorsport team entered today’s Acura SportsCar Challenge at Mid-Ohio with optimism for strong results on the 2.5-mile 15-turn road course in central Ohio for the third round of the 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Foley took the green flag for the two-hour and forty-minute contest behind the wheel of the blue and yellow BMW M6 GT3 with a strong start to gain several positions in the opening corners before contact from a fellow GTD entry forced Foley into a spin. The contact and spin caused Foley in the No. 96 BMW to sustain heavy front end damage sending the Turner BMW straight to the garages just seconds into the race.
“It’s almost surreal that this happened to us so quickly in the race,” commented Robby Foley. “We had a great start to the race allowing me to make up several positions in the opening corners but contact from the Porsche behind us spun me and forced me to make heavy contact with a prototype. We had a solid car that we were looking forward to push throughout the race to achieve some strong results, can’t say we are not disappointed with this outcome today.”
The quick ending comes after the Turner BMW appeared toward the tops of the timing and scoring charts all weekend long.
“This one was hard to take, the entire team was really excited for this race at a track where we have had so much success over the years,” said Will Turner. “Our BMW has been a solid contender this season so far, we just haven’t had the right opportunity to really be there at the end of the race to show it.”
With Mid-Ohio in the rear view mirror, the team will now prepare for the next round in Detroit at the end of this month.
On Saturday, the Turner team and driver pair of Bill Auberlen and Robby Foley finished eleventh in the dramatic 2-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race behind the wheel of their BMW M4 GT4.
The duo started from fifth position to make their way up to second before varying weather conditions forced the No. 96 GS entry into the pits for a stop and tire change.
With one extra stop to switch back to slicks from rain tires, the Turner BMW dropped back to sixteenth to fight back to eleventh before the checkered flag.
“We had such a great car this weekend,” said Bill Auberlen. “Robby Foley had a great start to run up front and I think we had what we needed to battle for a podium in the end but our decision to change to rains prevented us from being there.”
The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix is Saturday June 1st 2019 at 12:30pm ET televised live on NBC Sports Network.
