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Third Consecutive Podium for BMW in 2014 TUDOR Championship

 Long Beach didn’t turn out to be the winner everyone at BMW Team RLL hoped it would be but the guys didn’t give up hope throughout the race and managed a more than reasonable result at the end of the day.
Dirk Muller and John Edwards 1 photo
Photo: BMW
The number 56 BMW Z4 GTLM driven by John Edwards (US) and Dirk Muller (DE) managed to cross the finish line second in Long Beach, posting their first podium finish this year.

The other car from BMW Team RLL, the number 55 Z4 GTLM, managed to finish sixth with drivers Bill Auberlen (US) and Andy Priaulx (GB) behind the wheel, despite having an excellent start in the race. During the event, Priaulx nicked the wall and knocked off the right side mirror during a pit lane stop, costing the team an extra 15 seconds to replace the door. Even so, they managed to score some points and, at the moment, they retain the lead in the driver standings.

John and Dirk, on the other hand, didn’t experience any issues and finished the 75 laps of the race 5.408 seconds behind the winners, Jan Magnussen (DK) and Antonio Garcia (ES) in their Corvette.

“Second was a good finish for us today. We got held up in the beginning by one of the prototypes, and that really was the difference. It was unfortunate that Andy came in and just touched the wall and took the mirror off. By the time they replaced the door they had lost valuable time. I was disappointed for the 55 car, but they scored points and kept the lead,” said Bobby Rahal, Team Principal at BMW Team RLL.

“This is my first podium of the year and my first podium at Long Beach. It was a really hard fight, especially with the prototype at the beginning when we lost too much ground, and with no yellows throughout the race we could never make it up. I am happy with second considering all the variables, but I really think we had the pace to pressure Magnussen and Garcia if we hadn’t fallen back at the beginning,” said John Edwards, runner up.

Talking about the incident that cost the number 55 Z4 GTLM 15 extra seconds in the pit stop, Andy said “Unfortunately, I had some bad luck. I got delayed by the prototypes and that cost us some seconds on the way into the pits. I lost the mirror and that cost us some more time. Unfortunately in a short race like this you can’t have that happen. There were no yellows and we just needed one to be back up there. It is just disappointing we are not where we wanted to be, but we are still leading the championship.”
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