IMSA WEATHERTECH SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP: SAHLEN'S SIX HOURS OF THE GLEN

June 27, 2026

Jack Aitken

Jeremy Clarke

Jack Hawksworth

Zacharie Robichon

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're pleased to be joined by drivers that will be starting from the pole position in tomorrow's Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. Let's start with our GTD pole setter for the race, which the grid was set by other means, which is team points. Zacharie Robichon will start from the GTD pole in the No. 27 Heart of Racing team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. The team also started from the GTD pole last year and won the race here. That was first win here at Watkins Glen International.

Zach, weird way to get the pole, but good starting spot. Just tell us what you're looking forward to tomorrow.

ZACHARIE ROBICHON: Yeah, I don't think I'd call it pole. I think we're just starting from first because of what happened. Definitely a weird way. It's too bad we weren't able to get a proper session in because I think there's a few cars that were deserving to battle it out.

Great place to start. Obviously there's a benefit to leading the championship, a position when things do go awry, that it falls back. Yeah, I think we had a chance to be there, anyway. So I don't know. We'll go in for a good race and a clean race. And we know it can be a bit chaotic here, so we can keep our nose clean, we'll be happy.

THE MODERATOR: We'll go to two of our GTD PRO Motul Pole Award winner, the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing with Dreyer & Reinbold Lexus RC F GT3. Jack Hawksworth's best lap was 1 minute 43.701 seconds, beating the previous GTD PRO 1 minute 1:44.203 (indiscernible) set by Daniel Serra in 2024. This is Jack's 17th pole, which breaks a tie with Ben Keating for the most poles in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship era which began in 2014. Second pole here at Watkins Glen for Jack. Last was in 2018 in the GTD class. This is his third pole of the season. Looking for his third win here at Watkins. Won the sprint race here, the 2-hour-and-40-minute race in the GTD class, and the six-hour race in GTD PRO in 2023. The top eight were within 0.959 seconds among seven different manufacturers.

Jack, a little bit of track adjustment there going into qualifying. Just talk about maybe how that affected things tonight and what you expect for tomorrow.

JACK HAWKSWORTH: Yeah, it was definitely a strange day. Obviously feels like we've been here for 24 hours. You know, we did the one practice this morning and then, yeah, we sat around really for seven or eight hours waiting to go out and qualify. Finally GTD PRO side anyway got the opportunity to do that.

The changes to the Bus Stop were pretty dramatic. Going out there and trying to figure out the track and understand exactly how much of the curb you could take compared to practice was interesting.

Yeah, obviously we've had kind of a really good weekend so far. The car has been working really well. Glad we could get a pole and this marathon day at Watkins Glen. Looking forward to race day tomorrow.

As Zacharie said, it's usually very chaotic here. A lot can happen. You want to be up front and out of it, and there are a lot of decisions to make tomorrow, strategic decisions, and then decisions on the racetrack. Hopefully we can make good ones and be there and try and win the race.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Question for both of you guys. You guys talking about the track situation, was there any difference in terms of the sensation today?

JACK HAWKSWORTH: It's wildly different. I mean, certainly in our car, I don't know about the Aston, but the curb that was previously in the Bus Stop, when we hit that with the center of the car, it was quite a big jump, which really changed the whole feel of the Bus Stop. Now you can really almost be up to the metal fence. Kind of like the NASCAR guys do. It really doesn't affect the car.

It opens up the corner a lot more. The corners are quicker. Certainly for us in our car it was very, very different. It did all right, because you've got that guardrail. Normally when we're driving really close to guardrail, it's second, third gear corners, so it's easier to judge exactly where the side of your car is. When you do it fourth gear entering at 110 miles an hour to a corner like that, it's quite difficult.

It's a challenge, but it's balls to the wall. It was fun to drive, that's for sure.

Q. Then just lastly, obviously this weekend Vasser Sullivan is carrying Dreyer & Reinbold partnership on there in honor of the late Dennis Reinbold. What are your thoughts on that?

JACK HAWKSWORTH: I personally never met Dennis, but I knew of him and competed against him in INDYCAR for a number of years in the Indy 500 and stuff. I know Jimmy and Sully had a really good relationship with him. I've only heard (indiscernible) things, and I think you can see how much it means to Jimmy and to Sully that they put the name, the team name, alongside of the Sullivan name for this weekend.

Yeah, I kind of -- thoughts are with his family and all of his loved ones and stuff. Hopefully we can pay really good respect to him this weekend with a good result.

Q. Zach, you did some laps with the new configuration. Can you share your thoughts on that?

ZACHARIE ROBICHON: Yeah, we basically did one lap. Honestly, we kind of went through there not knowing, to Jack's point, how much of that -- call it a curb, call it whatever you want to call it, so we're going to do one lap where we beat it completely, and then we were going to actually push. Then after that we saw what happened.

I think potentially that's what happened to the 57 car. If you hit that curb wrong, because now if you kind of look before you start, as touched upon, you kind of ramped over it. Whereas now I think if you were to attack that turtle or whatever, if you hit it wrong, you can have some consequences. We'll see what they do tomorrow, and definitely changed the race because even just on a sighting lap, it looks totally different.

Q. I guess competitors are allowed to inspect the track until 8:30 tonight.

THE MODERATOR: We won't hold you up.

ZACHARIE ROBICHON: Yeah, I mean, until you drive it, doesn't really mean much.

JACK HAWKSWORTH: I will not be staying until 8:30 (smiling).

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for coming in.

We're joined now by our Motul Award winner in the LMP2 class, Jeremy Clarke in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07. Jeremy's best lap was 1 minute 35.124 seconds. It's his third career pole as well as the third pole for Inter Europol. First pole here at Watkins Glen International, top 4 in LMP2 recovered by 0.753 seconds. Pole position for a six-hour race, what's it mean?

JEREMY CLARKE: Yeah, it's a great start for the team. It's going to come down to surviving those first couple of stints tomorrow and handing over the car to teammates and letting them take it the rest of the way.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. We had the GT guys in here a second ago, and they talked about how some of the track repair work made it a little bit different through the Bus Stop. Getting your take on what it feels like now in the LMP2 car.

JEREMY CLARKE: It changes the whole (indiscernible) for P2 because we use a lot less curbing than the GTs. Now that the curbing is mostly gone, it changes the line for us, and we're able to kind of get more over and it opens up the entire corner. I'm sure we carry much more speed through there now.

Yeah, it's a benefit for us, for sure.

Q. How do you think that will play into effect because you're the unique class in the sense that -- how do you think that will play with traffic, I guess is what I'm saying?

JEREMY CLARKE: I think it will -- you know, we're able to -- with that new line, I think we can be a little bit more aggressive going into the brake zone of those corners where we have a bit more space now on the inside, to whereas before if you're not quite alongside a GT before that section, they're going to kind of squeeze you over into a spot that if you go over that, the car is done.

It just gives us a little more (indiscernible) because it's a good passing zone. We're able to just kind of get an extra pass done that maybe we would have had to wait until the exit of the Carousel.

Q. Obviously you were faster than PJ, even without him having to serve whatever the penalty is. How close? Do you see this as really being pretty tight between the two cars?

JEREMY CLARKE: Oh, absolutely, yeah. PJ is very strong. You saw this morning we were separated by 3,000ths of a second. He and I are always close. I think it's always going to be a battle between us, for sure.

Q. I'll ask if what you did in qualifying is kind of, you know, we can do that without you even having this (indiscernible) --

JEREMY CLARKE: Yeah, it was nice to get it done, even without the penalty, and be able to put down the lap when I needed to. It's always good to come in first.

Q. Can you talk about the strength of Inter Europol right now? It was a really strong performance at Le Mans and coming into here.

JEREMY CLARKE: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. You saw it at Le Mans, 1-2 finish. The team is very strong. We're here all day always looking at data, figuring out how can we squeeze out another half a tenth in this corner. I mean, the team, very dedicated to getting the job done and being as fast as we can.

THE MODERATOR: Best of luck tomorrow.

Now we have our GTP Class Motul Pole Award winner, No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series R, Jack Aitken. Jack's best lap was a new GTP track record 1:31.284. It beats the previous record of 1:31.558 set by Renger van der Zande last year. This is Jack's fourth career pole, second of the season. His other pole came at Sebring in March. This is his first pole here at Watkins Glen International. It's the 35th pole for Cadillac since 2017, and the third street pole for Cadillac, which were (indiscernible) different drivers: Louis Delétraz at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Earl Bamber at Detroit.

Jack, certainly a lot of good momentum, you (indiscernible) into this event and as we saw here in qualifying. Talk about that a little bit. You guys are really on a roll.

JACK AITKEN: Yeah, I think it's been a bit of a -- it feels like it's been quite a (indiscernible) spread through practice. I have seen a bunch of different manufacturers and teams in the mix in the longer run pace.

I think we've been doing a pretty good job of getting a lap in and extracting performance from the tire, but when you look a little bit deeper, then I think it's going to be a really cool race tomorrow.

So I was expecting similar in quallie, that it would be quite tight. Track changed a little bit, not just physically, but weather being a bit cooler at night, or evening. It's quite quick. We got a lap in early, and then just couldn't really improve after that.

I tried a few times, and then just accepted that that was as good as it was going to get. It was more dreading someone else was going to pop a lap in, but it didn't happen, thankfully.

I think, like you said, Whelen Cadillac have been on a great roll, and we've got Fred back with us this weekend. He's been doing a great job with the car as well. Nothing has really changed from the last couple of races. We're still having a great time.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Obviously you were top on all these sessions. I mean, how confident were you that this was going to happen? How significant is it to win pole here?

JACK AITKEN: It's definitely one I wanted to get because we came very close last year. I think this is also the place (indiscernible) first ever IMSA qualifying session back in '24. So it's a really cool track. I love going around here on low fuel, new tires. The cars sing around here. It's a lot of fun. It's a place I haven't, yeah, quite cracked in previous years. So it was cool to do it today.

I wasn't massively confident. I try not to be too optimistic going into these things. We saw that the 5 was very quick in FP2. There were a bunch of other cars in the mix as well, and I knew it's very easy to make a mistake around here. It (indiscernible) push a lot, and you can trip over yourself. I tried to take it steady, get a clean lap in, and I ended up with a good one.

Q. I don't mean to hit on a sore subject, but is there any extra motivation in light of how last year's race ended and everything like that to do what you guys have done?

JACK AITKEN: I didn't look at it. Selfishly, I was just thinking about my qualifying (indiscernible). I could have maybe got pole last year with a perfect lap. I was trying to get revenge for that.

We'll see about tomorrow. Hopefully we have a better race. We were in obviously last year and getting caught out. We've been on a great run since then, so we'll see.

Q. How was it through the Bus Stop and the curbing there?

JACK AITKEN: It was okay. It's just (indiscernible). Any time the track changes through a weekend, it's not ideal. But I think IMSA did a good job under the circumstances. I think it hasn't changed the line a huge amount for us. GT guys, they get a lot more now, but we just don't have the clearance for that. There's still a few little curbs that potentially could cause damage. I think a chat before the session of maybe you could cut it (indiscernible) 180K or whatever it is, obviously (indiscernible) quite a big one (indiscernible) first one to do it. If I see someone try it, then I might. I don't think it did, not that I saw.

Q. Do you think it could cause a complication in traffic, perhaps, or does it change anything?

JACK AITKEN: We have corners on the calendar where GTP can cut a lot more than the prototypes. It does make it a bit awkward sometimes. It's something we haven't -- that happened before. It's not ideal. If this is the best we can do, (indiscernible).

Q. Just kind of curious with the way that Daytona and Sebring kind of played out, you're always having to fight Filipe. How crucial is this in terms of the endurance and trying to shift the momentum for this?

JACK AITKEN: I don't even know where we are in the Endurance Cup. I haven't checked it in a second. It would be nice to get more points, though.

I think we're in a position where if you're doing a good race anyway, then you will pick up those points naturally. Yeah, we keep an eye out for them, but I think we focus on winning the race and then deal with the other stuff.

Q. In light of getting back in the groove of things, because it's been a couple of months since your last race at Long Beach and been three months at Sebring.

JACK AITKEN: It's cool to have him back. We (indiscernible) here at Watkins two or three weeks ago, so we (indiscernible) -- has been keeping up doing bits and bobs here and there for our shakedowns or sim work or when I'm keeping in touch with the program, which is great.

He's got a lot of talent. He settles back in quick. So we're looking forward to using him tomorrow. I mean, there's a few other cars out there with three drivers as well, and it's always nice to gets a bit (indiscernible), which it always can this time of year. Two or three drivers, it's always debated. It can go either way. You can win the race both ways, so yeah.

Q. For you and Earl in particular, a little extra fire there heading into this week, the disappointment at Le Mans?

JACK AITKEN: Probably. Still a bit fresh. It's always worse when you do well. I mean, I've not got the best record at Le Mans. I keep telling them they probably shouldn't take me anymore. I've got a curse or something. I haven't finished on the lead lap at Le Mans, so I need to change that.

Like I said, it's more because we were leading the race at some points, and we were truly in the fight. So yeah, we picked ourselves from that and thrown ourselves back in the IMSA side of things. There's a lot we've learned from that race as well.