Monday, May 8, 2017 – Fresno, CA— The fourth round of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship at Circuit of the Americas started out very promising for the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports team. Drivers José Gutierrez and Marco Bonanomi showed competitive times in each of the three practice sessions, and Gutierrez qualified P5 for the start of Saturday's Advanced Auto Parts Sportscar Showdown.

However, before the green flag fell, the No. 52 machine ran into an issue on the pace lap which forced the car to return to the garage before they could even complete a single race lap.

"On the pace lap, a piece of rubber or debris from the track hit the FIA shutoff/neutral button on the car. That button essentially acted like a master switch and shut off the entire car," explained team principle Bobby Oergel.

"The car had to be towed back to the garage from the Turn 7 area, which is a Texas-mile away from the paddock, before we could begin to run diagnostics for this problem. Our initial thought was that it was the master switch. When we concluded it wasn't the master switch or batteries, we thought it was another button within the cockpit. In the end, the source of the issue turned out to be a piece of debris that had collided perfectly with one of the FIA neutral safety buttons on the pace lap."

"It was definitely an amazingly unlucky way to begin the race. Both Josè and Marco were ready to take the fight forward and the event was stacking up to show a nice result for the program. I can't thank all of the crew guys enough for working so hard all weekend. After getting the car back on track, they performed with great pit stops and kept pushing hard. My hat's off to José and Marco for doing an incredible job all weekend. José had a great qualifying session, sadly enough he wasn’t able to show how that was just the tip of the iceberg."

The next race for the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports team will be the Detroit Grand Prix on June 3. Be sure to follow PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date with all of our team and driver updates.