Simona De Silvestro in the No.16 Acumatica Paretta Autosport Chevrolet says that it was a bit of a difficult day in Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville.
Starting the race from 25th place, the Swiss driver made good progress in the opening stages of the the race, however, on lap 26 she was caught up in one of the many on track incidents which saw her day end earlier.
The retirement was extremely disappointing for the team who, have worked extremely hard to get on track this season.
Nashville had been due to be their last race of the year however, on Sunday morning ahead of the race, they announced they will compete in the season-ending Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Speaking following the action, De Silvestro said:
It was bit of a difficult day. We struggled with pace in general and then had the accident. I was trying to be out of trouble and got sandwiched when the track was blocked in turn nine. It was definitely a matter of wrong place at the wrong time. Life goes on and sometimes street racing is like that. You can get mixed into something not great and other times you can get a bit lucky. Lots of things to think about when we race back on a street course. I’m excited to head to Laguna. I wish we walked out of here with a good result, but I’m really looking forward to Laguna and hoping to have a good ending to the season there.
Team owner and Team Principal of Paretta Autosport, Beth Paretta says:
Team Acumatica Chevrolet had an abbreviated end to our day because what can often happen in a street race happened to us today and that is getting collected in somebody else’s mistake. Unfortunately, Simona took a bad hit from behind. She is okay. She has a small injury to her foot, but it is minor. This tells you it was a hard hit and something we couldn’t recover from and get the car going again, which is unfortunate. Overall, it is great to have new guests and fans here with us in Nashville. It’s been a great event in a wonderful city. It wasn’t a great race for us today, but on to the next one and can’t wait to see everybody at Laguna Seca. Grateful to say our season isn’t over.