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Three Mercedes-AMG GT3 Teams Qualify for Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen

– WATKINS GLEN, NY.

Owen Trinkler and Hugh Plumb co-drove the No. 46 TeamTGM Mercedes-AMG GT4 to a top-five overall and Grand Sport (GS) class finish in Saturday's four-hour IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race at Watkins Glen International. Earlier in the day three Mercedes-AMG GT3 teams qualified for Sunday's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.

Trinkler, Plumb and the TeamTGM No. 46 were the top performing Mercedes-AMG GT4 for the second-straight IMSA Continental Tire series race on Saturday. One race ago at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Trinkler and Plumb co-drove the No. 46 to a fourth-place result, the best IMSA Continental Tire series finish to date for the Mercedes-AMG GT4 in its first year of North American competition.

Other Mercedes-AMG GT4 teams were also competitive in Saturday's four-hour race at The Glen. Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss co-drove the No. 56 Murillo Racing Mercedes- AMG GT4 to an eighth-place finish after Foss led the race twice for a total of eight laps.

Alexandre Premat qualified the No. 92 Ramsey Racing entry third and frequently ran in the top three in the first half of the race before finishing 10th with co-driver Mark Ramsey.

Saturday's IMSA Continental Tire series race was The Glen weekend's main support event for Sunday's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen. Round 5 of Eleven GT Daytona (GTD) class races on the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule, the six-hour race is also Round 3 of this year's Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup (NAEC), a four-race championship centered on the season's long-distance races.

The six-hour race can be seen live in its entirety on Sunday, July 1, on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) beginning at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Daniel Morad, a winning Mercedes-AMG GT3 driver in Pirelli World Challenge competition, was a late-addition to the No. 71 P1 Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 team this weekend. He qualified the No. 71 for co-drivers Juan "JC" Perez and Loris Spinelli and was ninth fastest in the GTD field in Saturday morning's 15-minute qualifying session. After the qualifying session was complete, the P1 Motorsports team made the strategic decision to have Perez start tomorrow's race and will start from the back of the field.

Morad was closely followed in qualifying by Kenny Habul in the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Ben Keating in the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Habul, who co-drives with Thomas Jaeger and Mikael Grenier, will start 9th on the GTD grid.

Keating, who was clocked just 0.001 seconds behind Habul, will take the green flag from 10th on the grid in the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3. Keating co-drives with Jeroen Bleekemolen and Luca Stolz.

Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen race day begins Sunday with a final 20-minute warmup session for the IMSA WeatherTech Championship at 8 a.m. EDT before the official start of the six-hour race at 9:45 a.m. EDT.

Owen Trinkler, Driver – No. 46 TeamTGM Mercedes-AMG GT4: "It was awesome to have a strong showing for TeamTGM, especially being the top Mercedes-AMG GT4 in the race as well as in the points. We haven't been on the podium yet but we have been really consistent, so it's great for Mercedes-AMG, and we hope that Mercedes can recognize what we are doing here at TGM, which is a great team with a great set of drivers. The car is developing really well and we can't wait to see what it can do next week at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park."

Eric Foss, Driver – No. 56 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4: "The Mercedes- AMG GT4 performed flawlessly today. The Murillo Racing guys did a really great job on strategy and we were looking like we had it in the bag with about even two hours to go. When it's that situation you are thinking 'just execute here' and hoping you have some luck and unfortunately the luck just didn't quite go our way. We were just

about to pit when they threw a full-course yellow, so we got a little leapfrogged by some cars, but we still thought we were going to be alright there. We had some good pace compared to the other cars, but we just found in the draft we were struggling a little bit to keep our pace. The Continental Tires were great, and Jeff Mosing did a fantastic job. He's really stepped his game up. He has had a lot going on, but he put his head down, drove his butt off, and I am really proud of him and thankful for him having me here as part of the Mosing Motorcars/Murillo Racing team."

Ben Keating, Driver – No. 33 Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: "We did a lot of data and video analysis after the morning session. I felt like I was ringing it out, I felt like I was getting all of it, but of course the numbers don't lie. The data acquisition showed otherwise and then we broke out the video and compared my line to Jeroen's line. It was really awesome to then go out and take full second off of my time in qualifying. I am OK with where we qualified. I had a significantly quicker time going on my last lap but literally ran into the back of another car on the last turn and the lap was trashed. I set a time 1/10th  of a second behind Daniel Morad and just 1/1000th of a second behind Kenny Habul. We didn't want a whole gaggle of Mercedes-AMG GT3s together on the grid, but that is what we got. There is all kinds of crazy stuff that happens at the beginning of this race when you are going up the esses on cold tires. I am going to try to be safe and try to keep my cool. Given what we have, and what our team is made up of, I am happy with where we are."

Kenny Habul, Driver – No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: "I like this place. I raced NASCAR here and had some good results. I know the track but was unfortunately overseas yesterday and missed some practice. I thought that would put me behind but to be honest I got in and pretty much straight away I had a good time. I feel comfortable, the handling of our Mercedes-AMG GT3 is in the window but the car feels very heavy still. That's my worry, but six hours gives us a better chance than a sprint race. We will hopefully stay out of trouble and for us a top-five will be good."

Thomas Jaeger, Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing Program Coordinator and Driver – No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: "Kenny did a very good job in qualifying and Ben was pretty close, just one- thousandth of a second back, so the performance of the cars is pretty close together. I think for the race it looks good. We still have to improve a little bit here and there because for the distance we are struggling a little bit with too much understeer.
Hopefully we can solve this tomorrow in the warmup. Our car is good on tires, so when it's getting hotter and hotter we might have a little bit of an advantage towards the end of each stint. So hopefully we have a good result at the end of the weekend."

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