SRO America, Sebring: Sunday Pre-Race Notes

Good morning from beautiful Sebring International Raceway! The sun is shining over the circuit this morning, but this afternoon is expected to be a whole ‘nother story.

There is an 80 percent chance of rain for today’s GT World Challenge America Race 2, which is scheduled to start at 1:15 PM this afternoon.

Tropical Storm Ian is bearing towards the Florida panhandle after this weekend, and we wish for the safety of everyone traveling out of Sebring – and to everyone living in the area.

Good news for BimmerWorld Racing supporters, their #94 BMW M4 GT3 is repaired and ready to race this afternoon!

Bill Auberlen will start from the back of the grid today. He and Chandler Hull are trying to bounce back from a crash at the start of Race 1, the team’s first retirement of the season.

Unfortunately, the other car involved in yesterday’s start crash, the #43 RealTime Racing Acura NSX GT3 (Erin Vogel/Michael Cooper), will not start Race 2 today after the damage they sustained.

Vogel would have had to take a five-place grid penalty for causing the collision with Hull, which, ironically, would have put the #43 Acura next to the #94 BMW on the starting grid if they’d been able to race.

This now brings the grid to 13 cars for World Challenge today, with Turner Motorsport’s planned withdrawal after Race 1.

The sudden reversal at the final corner of the GT4 America race yesterday saw the #18 RS1 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport of Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer slow down suddenly, allowing the #34 Conquest Racing/JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 (Michai Stephens/Gavin Sanders) to take the overall and Silver class wins.

The car had suffered a fuel pump issue on the last lap, which has been rectified in time for Race 2 this morning.

McAleer posted to his social media: “Something broke on the car coming into the last turn and all I could do was coast across the line doing 15mph with a broken car as our Championship contenders took the win! Hard one to swallow but this is racing.”

As for the #120 Premier Racing Cayman RS (Adam Adelson/Elliott Skeer), they suffered a fuel pick-up problem early in Race 1 which dropped them out of contention.

Adelson and Skeer are now tied with the #47 NOLASPORT Cayman RS (Scott Noble/Jason Hart) for the lead in the Pro-Am standings with three races remaining.

In GT America Race 1, Ross Chouest was given a 40-second post-race time penalty for causing a collision with Jason Bell. This does not impact the points table, as Chouest already ran out of fuel on the last lap and finished 11th on the road – the penalty dropped him to 12th place.

The updated results have been added to our report of yesterday’s race.

Images © SRO Motorsports Group America, and yours truly

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