Rob Ferriol and Spencer Pumpelly Co-Drove the Audi R8 LMS GT3 In a True Team Effort Out West
MONTEREY, California (November 2, 2020) – Team Hardpoint earned a top-10 finish at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Sunday, finishing 10th in a hard-fought IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona (GTD) race. Co-driver Rob Ferriol and Spencer Pumpelly teamed to drive the No. 30 GridRival/Team Hardpoint Audi R8 LMS GT3 in a condensed weekend that showed the heart and soul of the young team.
The challenges began with the opening practice on Saturday morning, when the car broke an axle leaving pit road. That cost the team most of that session and left Ferriol with just 10 laps in the car prior to Sunday morning’s qualifying.
Ferriol qualified and opened the race in 12th and ran his 45 minute-stint on the lead lap before the entire GTD field stopped for the first time under green. The Hardpoint crew made a flawless start, leapfrogging one position with the driver change, fuel and tire.
That set the table for an eventful stint for Pumpelly in the final one-hour, 55 minutes.
The sandy surface surrounding WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca places tire wear at a premium throughout a stint. On fresh tires, the Pumpelly and Audi combination were the fastest car on the track. Three laps into his first stint, Pumpelly turned the fastest GTD lap of the race and had cut as much as seven seconds into the team’s lead.
The end of the stint was less kind, however. Team Hardpoint made a strategy call to stay out longer than any other GTD team, hoping for a caution that never came. Though he climbed to seventh position, Pumpelly stayed on worn tires as much as 15 minutes longer than the competition and, when the final pit stop happened under green flag conditions with 53 minutes to go, Team Hardpoint fell a lap down in 12th place.
The first and only full course caution of the race didn’t come until just over 20 minutes remained in the race. Following the restart, Pumpelly quickly made up two spots to move into the top ten, and then with eight minutes remaining passed the leader on the track to get back to the lead lap.
Though running times that matched the leaders and were often faster, the two-hour, 40-minute clock expired before Pumpelly could gain any more positions.
“We had a lot of difficult circumstances going into the race. We lost basically 50 percent of practice availability which left us with just one session,” Ferriol said. “We came together for practice two and learned as much as we could going into the race. We would have liked a better result, but we can’t beat each other up. We still managed a top 10.”
Team Hardpoint heads to Sebring International Raceway for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, November 11 – 14. The Michelin Endurance Cup race, still part of the full-season WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, was a late addition for Team Hardpoint’s 2020 plans and will mark the team’s debut at the 68th annual event.
About Hardpoint Motorsports:
Hardpoint Motorsports was founded by Rob Ferriol in 2018 with the vision of combining his experience as a successful entrepreneur with his passion for racing. The Hardpoint brand brings together three distinct entities into one motorsport ecosystem. Team Hardpoint is the brand’s racing arm, providing its partners and customers opportunities to compete, brand, and promote in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona class and the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. Hardpoint Outfitters helps other teams and drivers extract more value from their motorsport investment by bundling branding, activation, and digital marketing services into customized turnkey packages, including design, apparel, hospitality, and social media management. The Hardpoint Paddock Foundation is the newest element of the ecosystem, created as a charitable foundation to support out of work paddock workers through the COVID-19 shutdown. As the shutdown comes to an end, the 501(c)3 Foundation is expected to grow into a more sustained model of providing vocational and educational support services to the professional sports car paddock community. More information on all of the Hardpoint Motorsports enterprises can be found at www.hardpoint.com or through its strong social media presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
