Turn five, flat out on the edge of adhesion. Into the Carousel, rotate the car, back to power, onto a long straight, and then into the heavy braking zone int turn seven, a double apex turn. Watch through the esses. Slow down a bit in the second half. Through turn nine, a slow corner. Good corner exit is crucial. Flat out into turn ten and into turn 11, the hairpin, a great passing opportunity and that is a lap 'round Sonoma. In qualifying, Andrea Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper were pushing hard. This will be the largest season long GT3 grid in the entirety of North America. Jordan Pepper and Andrea Caldarelli want to defend their title. Caldarelli says that he is ready to go. They have a full season under their belts and are trying to gain pace, and improve their setups.
They have had good pace in the test session and are ready to go. 15 cars in Pro-Am and the sister car for K-PAX with Giacomo Altoe, the Italian, and Canadian Misha Goikhberg. The global manufacturers' fight has already begun. BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Mercedes are scoring points in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. We have seen the season begin for Australia at Philipp Island and saw a scintillating opener for GT World Challenge Europe last weekend in Imola, Italy. Right now, in the global series, Audi leads over Mercedes AMG, McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and BMW M who have yet to score points. That is an appeal of the GT World Challenge format.
Turner Motorsports is now in Pro-Am with the BMW M4 GT3. The car is a formidable competitor. They have run well at Mugello in a 12 Hour event and then last weekend in Long Beach, California in IMSA. Michael Dinan now in Pro-Am and on pole in class. We will also look at the #33 Pro class Winward Racing Mercedes AMG GT3. Phillip Ellis and Russell Ward are sharing that car for the season in GTWC America. There are other AMG Mercedes cars. A huge shakeup on DXDT Racing's team. Bryan Sellers will share with Scott Smithson and Dirk Mueller will team with David Askew. Pro-Am has 15 cars. Jan Heylen and Mario Farnbacher among others. The Wright Motorsports Porsche, the Racer's Edge Motorsports Acura, it will be amazing.
The depth of the field is awesome. The Am driver must qualify and start the race and halfway through the Pro drivers will drive. #93 had an overboost issue. Ashton Harrison will start caboose on the grid. Another Acura NSX had woes in qualifying and will go to the tail of the field. That is Erin Vogel in the #43 RealTime Racing entry, a team back in World Challenge and who have had a long history in this category of racing. Vogel sharing the car with Michael Cooper. They have switched from DXDT Racing and Mercedes to RealTime and Acura. Back in 2019, RealTime won their 100th race at Road America with Mike Hedlund and Dane Cameron. Peter Cunningham, team owner, has had a longstanding association with Acura. We have three Ferrari 488 GT3's in this field, two in Am and one in Pro-Am.
Triarsi Competizione has two cars. Their Pro-Am entry is #13 with Ryan Dalziel and Justin Wetherill while the Am entry has Charlie Scardina and Onofrio Triarsi sharing the driving chorse. The third Ferrari is the #61 AF Corse car for the Am team of Conrad Grunewald and Jean-Claude Saada. Robby Foley says there is a lot of intention to get Michael Dinan more experience in the car and getting a clean start and having a clean race. They are going for points. Passing will be a major deal and so will track position and tire degradation on the Pirelli P Zero tires. The new M4 GT3 is kinder to the tires than the old M6 GT3. More understeer is built into the setup with rear tire grip. The front engine cars will have an advantage. The rear engine cars like the Porsche, the Acura, and the Ferrari, those teams are playing massive catch up.
This is a 90-minute race with pit stops right around halfway. Tire warmers are now allowed in the championship as the engines have fired. This is the second full season with tire warmers in 2022. 20 GT3 cars are ready to go. The Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 has been upgraded to the Pro class. It is indeed official. The second K-PAX Lambo of Misha Goikhberg and Giacomo Altoe has also been promoted to the Pro class. Some drivers were derogated and have been reorganized with their FIA ratings. The trouble with being moved is that your points are scrubbed. But it is better to do it now than later on in the season. Chandler Hull in the #94 Bimmerworld BMW M4 GT3 is going to be an intriguing entry. Hull qualified sixth on the grid. Hull crashed the car in testing at Virginia International Raceway. James Clay gave his car to Chandler Hull and Bill Auberlen. Clay is the Bimmerworld team owner.
Halfway through the second of two formation laps looking for the lights to extinguish on top of the safety car. The backstretch is the drag strip for the NHRA straightliners. Chandler Hull is now pole man in Pro-Am. Let's turn them loose for the opener. 90 minutes of racing ahead as Jordan Pepper blitzed the field in the rain in qualifying, in Q1. Texan Russell Ward alongside. Green flag! We are racing! Jordan Pepper is off like a rocket as Michael Dinan gets chopped by Steven Agakhani. Dinan is moving fast. Treacherous conditions trying to find the edge of adhesion into turn six and down through The Carousel. Charlie Luck has Chandler Hull to his inside and here comes Dinan on the inside of Agakhani already!
Dinan pokes inside but Agakhani slams the door in his face. Dinan is pushing hard as this is a class position battle in Pro. Justin Weatherill is fighting with Erin Vogel. Ashton Harrison on the outside of Scott Smithson and makes the pass stick. Trouble for the Triarsi Competizione Ferrari already as Justin Weatherill has cut a tire down. Jeff Burton at the wheel of the first Zelus Racing Lamborghini moving in on Ziad Ghandour. Samantha Tan has moved to seventh. He swept the weekend a year ago with K-PAX and Andrea Caldarelli. Pepper is three seconds ahead of Russell Ward in the Winward Mercedes. Misha Goikhberg on debut with K-PAX Racing. He has run in Lamborghini's before. He is in a Pro-Am car for K-PAX sharing with Italian Giacomo Altoe, a full factory driver at Lamborghini. He drove with both Ziad Ghandour and Martin Fuentes last year.
George Kurtz is giving chase to Onofrio Triarsi. This team dipped their toe in last fall at Sebring Raceway and have come back for 2022 run out of the shop at the Ferrari of Tampa Bay dealer. Michael Dinan applying the blowtorch to Steven Agakhani has they have dropped Goikhberg by the wayside just a wee bit. Charlie Luck has had a great start and he is being hounded by Chandler Hull right now. Steven Agakhani, 19 years old, from Los Angeles, and a Lamborghini veteran. Jan Heylen, Charlie Luck's co-driver at Wright Motorsports says that Luck is doing very well and they want to really go for it. Luck is Jan Heylen's father-in-law. Heylen raced with Fred Poordad in 2021.
Wright Motorsports won the titles in GTWC America and GT America in 2021. Trouble for the #93 Racer's Edge Acura. Ashton Harrison may be doing a drive through penalty or have mechanical issues. They had the overboost and an electrical fire to deal with. Russell Ward now is second in the #33 entry. Ashton Harrison has also been racing in GT3 with Mario Farnbacher in other championships. Harrison ran at Sebring in IMSA and did very well there. She is embedded with Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA as well. Michael Dinan is pushing hard as Racer's Edge were penalized for putting the tires on too late after they came out of the tire blankets. They were a tad late and it causes a drive through. Justin Weatherill is stopped on course after one lap. Tough luck for Weatherill and co-driver Ryan Dalziel.
The Charlie and Chandler show continues. Charlie Luck ahead of Chandler Hull for position. He is stepping up to the plate. Charlie has racing history in the 1980s racing in the old NASCAR Busch Grand National Series in an Oldsmobile in 1986. He came back to racing with Porsche and is now back in GT World Challenge America. His family is related to the Petty family, the first family of NASCAR. The red, yellow, and white represent for Charlie Luck the colors of his high school, his college, and his company. Oh dear! Commentators curse as we talk of Charlie Luck, he runs wide in the chicane! The antilock brakes take away the braking force. Chandler Hull closes up.
Hull will take the initiative if there is an opening. Luck hangs on ahead of Hull. Off and on for Scott Smithson as well. Erin Vogel in the Acura went in deep and nudged the side of Scott Smithson in the Mercedes. Smithson off the road and back on again. A big difference for Vogel changing over from the Mercedes AMG GT3 platform to the Acura NSX GT3 which is a lighter car to drive and steer because of the mid mounted engine compared to the big V8 in the front of the Mercedes. During testing, RealTime had wet and dry running and were lucky to get it because of the wet conditions for qualifying in the morning before this race.
Hull still chasing Luck. Michael Dinan has dropped behind Agakhani and Jordan Pepper is ahead by 18 seconds. The delta will not be there in the race's second half. A safety car could put the cat among the pigeons. There are no performance differences between the cars. All are GT3 cars. Justin Weatherill, game over. Fuel pump failure for the Triarsi Competizione Ferrari. Well, at least one of their cars. The second car is still in it. Chandler Hull has packed a lot of experience in a short time racing touring cars, GT4, Asian Le Mans Series in GT3 and the Nurburgring in GT3. He ran 34 races across 28 weekends in 2021. He has vastly improved. Agakhani tries to pass but can't get around the outside and will have to give the spot to Russell Ward. He is defending but the stewards might not let him have it.
Ward ran wide and Agakhani got the run but the front end washed away. The stewards are giving a warning to Agakhani for blocking. So, Agakhani is promoted over Russell Ward, who won in class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2021. New team manager Ed Hall at Winward Racing, he ran with Nic Jonsson in World Challenge at Kinetic Motorsports. Ziad Ghandour is under pressure from David Askew in the other DXDT Racing Mercedes, one of three. Michele Beretta is the new co-driver for Ziad Ghandour this year. Beretta is a European Le Mans champion, a GT Open champion and an Italian GT champion. Loris Spinelli, co-driver with Steven Agakhani hopes to have the pace to go after the Lambo in his stint.
This is a new team for him and they will see where they stand later on. Loris Spinelli ran in Lamborghini Super Trofeo in both America and Europe and has been racing with Mercedes Benz as well. Spinelli went straight for karting to GT racing. Samantha Tan is running well and has the best corner speed at turn 11. Tan tied with Pepper and Burton in turn 11 at 49 miles an hour while Charlie Luck ran 48.2 miles an hour and Giacomo Altoe at 47.2 miles an hour through that very slow turn before the front straight. Samantha Tan has run other championships in SRO America but is now in GT3 with the new M4 GT3. 22 M4 GT3's have been built thus far. ST Racing won the first global race for the M4 GT3 at the 12 Hours of Mugello in March for the Cteventic championship. They want to get to Le Mans in 2024 when the GT3 cars become eligible in ACO racing.
The M4 GT3 cars that are run in America, they could also race in the 24 Hours of Spa later in the year, the blue riband SRO race. Onofrio Triarsi leads in the Am class for Triarsi Competizione sharing the car with Charlie Scardina. Some of the drivers at Triarsi are in their first race with pit stops. Jordan Pepper turns the fastest lap so far at 1:37.617. Staying on the lead lap will be critical. Mario Farnbacher will take over the Acura for the second half of the event. Pepper continues to look to the outside and Harrison is holding her own as we said. Pepper is really having to push. He is driving the Lamborghini at ten tenths. A Full Course Yellow will not bother him. He is going for broke before the pit window opens.
Steven Agakhani is being harried by Russell Ward, still. Russell Ward is really upping his game. Russell presses himself but is still a great driver. Onofrio Triarsi was pushing and Charlie Scardina actually started the motor race and will swap for tomorrow's race. Sorry for slighting you, Charlie. Wow! Mega slide there for Russell Ward! The tires are beginning to give up. Tire degradation has been a major issue through the day for this first day of racing altogether. The Pirelli P Zero tires now have to be managed. Sonoma and the track surface is very low grip. Michael Dinan, as we look again at trap speeds is now the fastest overall at nearly 143 miles an hour followed by Chandler Hull at 141.6. So the M4 GT3 BMW's showing their speed.
Samanta Tan is next at 141.6, so yet another BMW is in the mix followed by the Mercedes entries for George Kurtz and Russell Ward both at 139.8 miles an hour. But the BMW's seem to have the legs over the Benzes right now. BMW team director Jay O'Connell says that the M4 is achieving the top speed really on the uphill through turn two. Now, one of the AMG's is off the road and it looks like it is David Askew. He skids wide off the course and into the grass, and... wallop! He sideswipes the tire barriers! These Mercedes' are strong cars but Askew has right front damage and he hopes to hand it over to Dirk Muller. Is the suspension tweaked? Is the track rod busted?
They have to wait ten minutes for the pit window to open. You can service the car during refueling. But the damage has to be examined. The Charlie Luck and Chandler Hull story is still being written. Bimmerworld are indeed making inroads. Into the lane comes the #63. Chandler Hull will hand the car to Bill Auberlen soon. Another look at the #63 crash and Askew got it wrong right from the beginning and cresting the hill into The Carousel, he could not stop after getting out in the mud. The pit window will open soon. Get it done as quick as possible. Tomorrow, there will be a reverse with the Pro driver starting and the Pro-Am driver getting in for the second half of the race. The pace between pro's on old tires and amateur drivers on new tires will be a tad negligible. Be flexible with the situation. Do not lock in your strategy.
Game over for David Askew. So, poor old Dirk Muller won't even get to compete in race one and they will be back tomorrow. Good scrap here between Erin Vogel and J.C. Saada. They are right ahead of Jordan Pepper. Pepper, the overall race leader. Pepper to the inside and Vogel gives him space as she ought to. We knew Pepper was quick. He is employed by K-PAX and not by Lamborghini. He was seen as an all-around great driver. K-PAX did the very same thing with Alvaro Parente, the Portuguese driver who was a McLaren factory ace. But they brought him on a few years back and he did a brilliant job just as Pepper is doing now. There are some great drivers out there but a few who are special. So, Charlie Scardina has caught the sixth and seventh place battle for the Pro-Am lead. Scardina was a Porsche man for a while. He nearly won a Porsche driver shootout that gave the deal to rapid German Marco Holzer.
He had a shot to run with the UPS Porsche Junior Team, but it never really materialized. Scardina went to start a business and then came in out of nowhere in 2021 at Sebring. More family relations in that Charlie Scardina and Onofrio Triarsi are brothers-in-law. Charlie Luck in the meantime has done very well and has had a solid drive. Jan Heylen has to be happy. Heylen originally from Belgium who is now in Clearwater, Florida. Jan Heylen and Fred Poordad won the championship with Wright Motorsports in GTWC America in 2021. Consistency was the name of the game for them. Jan Heylen now, he will be racing in the rest of the FIA World Endurance Championship in GTE Am with Fred Poordad in 2022 but missed the opener at Sebring last month.
The pit window will open soon. Depending on where you are at the 50-minute mark, that is when the pit window opens, and it will be an Oklahoma land rush. Pepper's lead is nearly unassailable at 40 seconds. The service window is ten minutes and there is a minimum delta. First takers in the lane now. 87 seconds is the delta. Or, you run afoul of a penalty with a joker that could apply. Ziad Ghandour, Charlie Luck, Misha Goikhberg, Chandler Hull, Charlie Scardina, George Kurtz, many are in the lane. You cannot lollygag. Push, push, push. Misha Goikhberg turns over the #3 to Giacomo Altoe and Jan Heylen now replaces Charlie Luck. Wright Motorsports and K-PAX are both vastly experienced. Sit and wait to make sure you do not run afoul of the delta time.
Altoe back in the motor race trying to move up from fifth spot. Philip Ellis and Madison Snow are going to be pushing. A tight pit exit there between Bill Auberlen and Onofrio Triarsi! That's a drag race and a squeeze play rolled into one! Triarsi balks Auberlen a wee bit. Charlie Luck is told he was leading Pro Am. He is stunned. He came up from GT America and says this class is far more competitive. He's bewildered. Icing on the cake! Turner Motorsports and K-PAX both pit. Jordan Pepper is in the lane set to hand over to Andrea Caldarelli. Caldarelli has to be the fastest Lamborghini driver. Fast driver and a nice bloke. He runs the FFF Racing Team and was a regular with Paul Miller Racing in IMSA winning with them at the Rolex 24 in 2020.
Andrea Caldarelli is married to former GTWC Europe pit reporter Dakota Jane. Dakota is here at the races in Sonoma. So, Caldarelli is back in and the #12 Ian Lacy Racing Aston Martin is going for it with Frank Gannett at the controls sharing with Ian Lacy. Gannett and Lacy are confident but were compromised after a crash at Indianapolis at the season closer in 2021 and coming off the back end of this global pandemic that has been happening. Gannett and Staveley are both really set on having a good season this year again. Bryan Sellers has now taken over the #08 DXDT Racing Mercedes that had Scott Smithson at the wheel of it in the first stint.
Philip Ellis has now brought the Winward Racing Mercedes back to second place. Likewise, Loris Spinelli has taken over from Steven Agakhani in the #6 SADA Systems/USRT Mercedes AMG GT3. Spinelli and Agakhani will be top of the shop for tomorrow's race. Just one second difference between Winward and US Racetronics in the pit lane while K-PAX and other teams all had the fastest equal time at 1:27 combined spent in the lane. The one second joker can be used just once a weekend. The teams build a monitor or something for releasing the car into their computer software to properly use the joker. Chandler Hull and Bill Auberlen have dropped to ninth chasing the ST Racing BMW which dropped like a stone. Colin Braun has the Mercedes #04 for Riley Motorsports, a veteran team in sports car racing. They even built an IndyCar years ago.
40 minutes to go. Riley Motorsports have more ability to focus on a single entry compared to this same team racing with DXDT Racing in years past. Seventh overall and second in Pro-Am as Braun chases Jan Heylen. The pit window has closed, and it is the run to the end as we are in the second half of race one for GTWC America here at Sonoma. The gap has closed to 3/10ths of a second now between Jan Heylen and Colin Braun. Jan Heylen ran open wheel racing in Champ Car and now has come back to sports car racing with Porsche and won the 2021 Porsche Cup, a global championship winning a street legal Porsche. The RealTime and Racer's Edge Acura's have found each other and there's star power here. Michael Cooper fending off Mario Farnbacher. How about that. Mario Farnbacher is a quick shoe in an Acura having won two titles in North America while Cooper himself is a four-time SRO World Challenge America champion racing with the likes of General Motors, McLaren, and Mercedes Benz.
Ashtyn Harrison is the next in a long line to graduate into a race seat at Honda Performance Development. We saw that in 2021 with Taylor Hagler and Dakota Dickerson along with Jacob Abel. Really sorry yours truly tried to commit to blogging SRO America last year and could not do so save for the first and last races of the year. This year, hoping to do all of it. Andrea Caldarelli is giving Nick Wittmer all he can handle. Not for position. Caldarelli is now 44 seconds ahead of Philip Ellis. Samantha Tan and Steven Agakhani, hanging out after their respective stints watching their co-drivers. The plot thickens with the two Mercedes as Loris Spinelli is monstering Phil Ellis.
Second place in the Am class, Conrad Grunewald is running ahead of these two. Onofrio Triarsi is closing in on the Am class leaders. Just over half an hour to go in race one of round one of the season. Andrea Caldarelli maintains the lead of the motor race. Loris Spinelli pouring the pressure on Philip Ellis who ran with Winward in DTM. He is British and lives in Switzerland. Charlie Scardina says he loves the track here at Sonoma. He will be a full-season driver in GTWC America. He knows he has to be patient. Be patient but have fun at the same time. Phil Ellis wriggles his way down the hill ahead of Conrad Grunewald.
Scardina is probably looking at the lap times knowing the lead is in a spot of trouble. Half an hour to go. 2/3rds of race one complete. The order sees K-PAX racing on top. Caldarelli leading Ellis, Spinelli, Robby Foley, Giacomo Altoe, among others. Michele Beretta has brought the TR3 car to the lane after Ziad Ghandour started. Drive through penalty for the #9 for making a mess out of the pit window. Beretta ninth in class as we see Jan Heylen leading Pro-Am over Colin Braun. Heylen giving it everything leading Pro-Am. He won three races in Pro-Am with Fred Poordad last year. Nick Wittmer is fourth followed by Corey Lewis co-driving with Jeff Burton. We look at corner speeds at turn six, the Carousel. Bryan Sellers fastest at 97 and a half miles an hour while Jan Heylen runs 96.9. 95.6 for the Aston Martin of Frank Gannett. Nick Wittmer in the BMW M4 has an identical speed to Gannett, and at 94.6 miles an hour it is Loris Spinelli in the Mercedes, car #6.
Bryan Sellers has transitioned over to a Mercedes after years of running a Lamborghini and noting how different that car is. In his other sports car racing program in North America, Sellers is piloting a BMW M4 GT3. The Mercedes is not so edgy to drive and Sellers says he is working on getting used to that characteristic. Sellers actually won last weekend in IMSA with the BMW on the Long Beach, California street course. Well, well, well. Spinelli and Ellis have caught the Am class leader, Triarsi. He wants to fend off the challenge from Grunewald. What will Philip Ellis do? He could balk Spinelli and nurse a gap for the final 27 minutes.
Watch this pass in turn one, folks. Phil Ellis vs. Onofrio Triarsi. Ellis has his hands full with Triarsi and Spinelli is closing. He smells blood in the water. Spinelli wants to walk right through the door. Triarsi is being told to move over. Triarsi has Conrad Grunewald on his six. He wants to race his own lap time and now he runs wide while Ellis passes and Spinelli has to fight. Spinelli is past but that was a hairy moment. With 25 minutes on the clock, the fight is on between the Ferrari's in Am. Triarsi has the lead. Grunewald wants it. Conrad Grunewald raced the Asian Le Mans Series in the winter months. He has far more experience than does Onofrio Triarsi.
Triarsi and his family have a Ferrari dealer. Now, he is in a Ferrari, racing. Triarsi is loose into the turn and here comes Grunewald. Grunewald needs no second invitation and takes the Am class lead. Now Grunewald goes off the road and into the grass. Triarsi might get him back. Triarsi resumes in the lead. Triarsi had the sweet spot, or thought he did, got on the ABS, and once you get too hard into the antilock brakes, you do skid and end up in over your head. Grunewald now has to play catch up. This goes to show you need just two cars to have a race. Pirelli have a quick and reliable new tire. More scraps to look at too including the one between Robby Foley and Giacomo Altoe.
This is a Pro-Am battle that has now become a Pro battle. Altoe is half a second down on the sister car. You need a car that both drivers need to compromise on. Will Turner, team boss, looking on. Turner is a taco man and so, he and the team probably ate tacos at lunch today. Team manager Jay O'Connell has been able to dial in this program. He is a great engineer and had worked with Team RLL and Multimatic as well. He is now in the crew with Turner Motorsports. Michael Cooper is building a cushion over Mario Farnbacher. Two positional battles are about to be intermingled. Cooper wants to beat Mario Farnbacher in an identical automobile.
Down they go through turn six, The Carousel. Off turn six and down the backstretch which doubles as the NHRA drag strip here at Sonoma. Conrad Grunewald and J.C. Saada won the championship in Am last year. SRO President Stephane Ratel is here to check out the racing. Triarsi has not given Grunewald any space to attack. Triarsi has to mind his P's and Q's though in turns seven and 11. Downhill to turn four they go. Foley and Altoe are coming in a hurry. Passing is at a premium here at Sonoma. Great to see the green grass here at Sonoma while it is brown in the summertime. Instead of using lawn mowers and tractors, they use sheep who graze on the trackside grass. Now, we will talk more about the sheep another day. We have ourselves a motor race to finish.
The battle is on between Triarsi and Grunewald. Wow. Conrad to the inside and Onofrio Triarsi is pushing everything. AF Corse and Triarsi Competizione, a veteran stalwart team vs. a brand-new team. Grunewald should let Foley go but Foley isn't close enough yet. 15 minutes to go. This will likely become a high-speed game of chicken. Grunewald wants to move in but can't quite make it. Not close enough. Every one of these cars is similar spec and they are all aerodynamically dependent. That is why passing is so, so difficult. Same as Formula 1 used to be. Triarsi is wide and wriggles around. Grunewald can scamper away but now it is three-wide as Triarsi gets mugged by both Giacomo Altoe and Robby Foley at the same time.
Three into two will end in tears. Giacomo Altoe, the daredevil, he makes the move passes Foleyu and passes Triarsi. They've dropped Onofrio Triarsi and now Lamborghini runs ahead of BMW. K-PAX run first and fourth with Altoe driving the car started by Misha Goikhberg. Charlie Luck gets past Onofrio Triarsi as well. Jan Heylen, the Belgian, in sixth, he wants by Robby Foley as well. Colin Braun has eaten away a second and a half out of the gap between himself and Heylen. Heylen won race one at Sonoma in Pro-Am a year ago and finished second with Fred Poordad in race two. Charlie Luck, new co-driver, leading. But Colin Braun is on the charge.
11 minutes and change remaining. Corey Lewis has passed in the Zelus Motorsports Lamborghini around Nick Wittmer in the ST Racing BMW M4 GT3. Braun sends it on Heylen but goes wide. Braun has raced in sports cars and in NASCAR, both. But he is really an expert in sports cars. Heylen on the defensive line. Braun has oodles more grip than Heylen in the Porsche. Heylen defends. This is a cat and mouse game. Bill Auberlen runs third but is down on time on these two. He could pick up the scraps if these chaps take each other out. Auberlen, last month at Sebring celebrated 500 starts as a BMW driver and was inducted into the Long Beach Walk of Fame last weekend. Braun pressing Heylen big style. Both of them want this and it could end in tears. 2021 was frustrating for Colin Braun and George Kurtz.
Two very different engines and cars carrying them. The classic flat six Porsche 911 with a rear mounted engine and the classic V8 thunder of the Mercedes with the engine in the front. Braun tries to have a run to turn seven but he is losing time to Heylen ahead. The Mercedes carves the chicane very effectively and has the speed while the Porsche has the handling in the twisty parts. Mario Farnbacher passes Michael Cooper in the battle of the NSX cars. Great to see RealTime Racing back in SRO racing. Philip Ellis is next up and he is not under pressure, with his gap having ballooned over Loris Spinelli. Winward had opportunities slip away last year at the hands of the Lamborghini boys. But this might be the year for Winward. K-PAX are based here at Sonoma.
They changed from the Bentley to the Lamborghini and ran in GTWC Europe in 2020 in a Bentley but came back with a vengeance last year. Cooper has a decent margin back to Bryan Sellers in the DXDT Racing Mercedes, car #08. That is the Qelo Capital sponsored entry. Bryan Sellers was a driver coach for Scott Smithson when he raced in TCR competition. Bryan Sellers ran with K-PAX in a McLaren years ago and in a Bentley for them at the California 8 Hours. It has been a while since we have seen Bryan Sellers racing in SRO America. Spinelli, his Mercedes could have the handling going away just as we saw with Colin Braun. The Mercedes is likely sprung softer than the other GT3 cars.
Too much roll and less and less rear tire grip. Giacomo Altoe runs fourth in the second K-PAX Lamborghini. Altoe's lap times are very consistent and has 4.4 seconds in hand over Robby Foley. Misha Goikhberg has prototype experience and did race a Lamborghini in IMSA in 2021. He can really lay down lap times. He ran with Meyer Shank Racing in a GT3 Acura a couple years ago in IMSA. In Pro-Am, Colin Braun has caught Jan Heylen. Heylen knows where to place the Porsche and does not close the door completely, but he can really place a car in the right spot. Two more laps to go. Robby Foley is losing pace, unfortunately. Braun is closing in fast. Andrea Caldarelli has had a lock on this race for a while and was top of the shop in qualifying absolutely motoring in the dry.
Heylen and Braun will fight to the bitter end. That's how the cookie crumbles with time on the clock up but a lap and a half left to run. Will Robby Foley in the BMW get in the way? Eight times, Caldarelli and Pepper won last year en route to the title. Now, they win again. Caldarelli, Pepper, and K-PAX have done it. They are even tougher than in 2021. Altoe right on Spinelli's gearbox. Spinelli goes defensive. Here comes Altoe. It's an Italian race. Mercedes vs. Lamborghini. Spinelli slams the door in Altoe's face. Spinelli ahead. Altoe has to push now. He is going to go for it. No dice. Phil Ellis in second and Loris Spinelli in third. Altoe, Foley, Heylen, Braun complete the top seven.
Overall/Pro: #1 Caldarelli/Pepper K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3
Pro Am: #45 Heylen/Luck Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R
Am: #61 Grunewald/Saada AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3
So, one race done and dusted for GTWC America with a dominating performance by K-PAX winning the motor race by a remarkable 51 seconds! Holy mackerel! It is also special to see Jan Heylen and Charlie Luck win together for Wright Motorsports, father-in-law, and son-in-law. Jan Heylen and Fred Poordad won the whole deal in 2021 with the same team, but now, there is indeed a new driver team.
Jean Claude Saada and Conrad Grunewald want to pick up where they left off last year and that could very well ahppen.
Jean Claude Saada says he is having a wonderful time in these races. So, we will see you tomorrow for more racing at Sonoma and we have more today in other classes. So, stay tuned for that. Such a shame that the second DXDT and Triarsi Competizione cars could not prove their potential in today's race. We shall see tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment