Team Hardpoint EBM Has IMSA GTD Porsche, Two Carrera Cup Entries Ready For Road America 04.08.2021: Katherine Legge and Rob Ferriol Return To Co-Drive No. 88 Richard Mille/Grid Rival Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Riley Dickinson and Efrin Castro Each Piloting Porsche Carrera Cup Machines

Katherine Legge and Rob Ferriol Return To Co-Drive No. 88 Richard Mille/Grid Rival Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Riley

Dickinson and Efrin Castro Each Piloting Porsche Carrera Cup Machines


 


Team Hardpoint EBM returns to a Road America circuit this weekend that is familiar to the team’s drivers. Rob Ferriol and Katherine Legge will co-drive the No. 88 Richard Mille/GridRival Porsche 911 GT3 R in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona (GTD) class, with Riley Dickinson driving the No. 53 Porsche Austin/Team Hardpoint EBM Porsche 911 GT3 Cup and Efrin Castro in the No. 65 Fine Fare Supermarkets /GoDominicanRepublic.com Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in Porsche Carrera Cup North America Pro and Pro-Am classes, respectively.



The Porsche Carrera Cup North America runs a pair of 45-minute races on the weekend. Race one, which is round seven of the 16-race season, begins at 11:35 a.m. CDT on Saturday, August 7, with race two at 9:45 a.m. CDT on Sunday, August 8. The two-hour, 40-minute IMSA WeatherTech Championship race begins at 1:40 p.m. CDT on Sunday. The Carrera Cup races can be seen live on IMSA.com/tv, while the WeatherTech race can be seen via TrackPass on the NBC Sports app or delayed at 8 p.m. EDT on NBCSN for cable and satellite subscribers.



The team’s Porsche GT3 R continues to progress during its first full season in GTD competition, including a test less than two weeks ago at Road America. That test was a valuable tool for the team, as post-COVID event schedules often condense the amount of practice time on a weekend. This weekend’s schedule features an hour of practice on Friday and an additional hour on Saturday morning prior to qualifying.



“Every time we roll our Porsche 911 GT3 R off the hauler we add to the knowledge bank, and our test a few weeks ago was no different,” Ferriol, also the team owner, said. “With the compressed race weekend schedules that have become the norm post-Covid, it’s rare we get an opportunity to focus solely on engineering sweeps, gathering data for Owen Hayes to plug into his toolkit.



I’m confident that with this test, and the data we’ve compiled through the first half of the season, we are coming into Road America more prepared, and more competitive, than we have been all year.”



The fast, flowing 4-mile circuit is also the site of Ferriol’s first career IMSA win, coming in what was then called Porsche GT3 Cup in 2019.

 


Both Dickinson and Castro earned wins as well in the Porsche GT3 Cup and hope to carry that momentum into this weekend’s doubleheader. Though both drove for different teams prior to the advent of the Team Hardpoint EBM, they each earned wins at Road America in 2020 – Dickinson in the Platinum Cup and Castro in the Gold Cup.



Dickinson enters the weekend fifth in the Pro Class championship point standings as the season approaches its halfway point, just one point behind fourth place and only three out of the bronze medal position. Castro is second in the Pro-Am class and earned his first win of the season the last time out at Watkins Glen International.



The race weekend, known collectively as the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America, begins at 8 a.m. CDT with Porsche Carrera Cup practice. Both Carrera Cup and WeatherTech Championships will have an hour of practice during the day on Friday, with Carrera Cup qualifying on Friday afternoon. The weekend continues into Saturday’s Porsche Carrera Cup race, with WeatherTech qualifying at 1:50 p.m. CDT, before Saturday and Sunday’s respective races.



Legge, along with a host of other popular IMSA drivers, will participate in a Fan Forum at Road America’s Tufte Center on Friday morning at 10:45 a.m. CDT. The session is free for all fans in attendance at the track.

 


Rob Ferriol, Driver, No. 88 Porsche 911 GT3 R: “I shouldn’t say it out loud, since VIR is where we call home, but man I really like Road America! It’s been a favorite of mine since I first drove it in 2018, made even more special after it became the site of my first IMSA win in 2019. Road America is all about big speed and big commitment, pulling sixth gear at three different points around the track. The topography, the location, the fans, it is definitely a high point of the season.”




Katherine Legge, Driver, No. 88 Porsche 911 GT3 R: "Road America is one of my favorite tracks on the schedule. I really enjoy driving here, it's just a great old-school race track! We came and tested a couple of weeks ago and are hoping that this is the turning point of our season."




Riley Dickinson, Driver, No. 53 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup: "I'm looking forward to this weekend at Road America in the Porsche Austin/Team Hardpoint EBM Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. Week in and week out, the Porsche Carrera Cup North America has provided some of the best races at each respective event. It won't be any different at Road America. During testing we were able to judge where we stand, and just like always its very tight at the sharp end of the field in both Pro and Pro-Am. It's going to come down to us hitting on all the small details, and I"m very confident that we can do so."




Reece White, Sideline Sports Photography