Henri Zogaib and Ryan Dalziel posted a strong second place finish in the Bosch Engineering 250 at VIR as Dalziel brought the SAMAX Motorsport BMW-Riley to the finish line less than one second behind the race winner.
The race result marks Henri Zogaib's debut Rolex Sports Car Series podium and his best career Rolex race finish, and matches the best finish in Rolex competition for the SAMAX team. Zogaib started the event from the back of the pack after a driveline failure kept him from setting a fast time in Saturday's qualifying session, and he moved up in the order at the start before turning the car over to Dalziel to take to the finish.
“We had our work cut out for us today after we started from last on the grid,” said Zogaib, “so to end the day on the podium is just fantastic. The team did an excellent job, and I can't say enough about the job that Ryan did out there. It is difficult to learn a new track in just one day and expect to put in consistently quick lap times. But I was very confident starting this weekend after moving up from 16th to 8th in Mexico and all I wanted to do was to get the car to Ryan in good shape for him to take it to the finish. Hopefully there are going to be more podiums to come, and now I just can't wait to get home and celebrate with my kids!”
Dalziel proved a threat to take the lead in a series of thrilling last laps to the finish, but despite shadowing the leader at every corner, never found a clean way by and elected to bring the car home in second position, without a scratch on the silver and black Riley.
“I think, realistically, we had the legs on him a little bit as far as lap time went, but we just didn't really have the straight line speed,” he said. “We ran a little more downforce. I think that was the right thing to do, to get any confidence. It's Henri's first time here, he struggled a little bit with the track time. I told him last night to give me the car on the lead lap and we'll go on from there. He's done a spectacular job this year for somebody who's in his first year of racing, staying out of trouble and giving me the car in one piece.
