RS1 Porsche Claims Maiden GT World Challenge America Victory In Sonoma
The new #28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer picked up right where the team left off in their ascent from GT4 America to GT World Challenge America – leading virtually from flag to flag to win Race 1 of the GT World Challenge America round at Sonoma Raceway, California.
Making his first start in a GT3 car from the pole position that he’d won that morning, Filguieras took the early lead into the first few corners in his new type 992 Porsche, followed by Adam Adelson in the older type 991.2 #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche, and Chandler Hull in the #94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3. Second-year GT3 driver Hull was determined to continue his strong form off the back of his Asian Le Mans Series GT title over the winter, and he got past Adelson to take second position overall.
Further back, DXDT Racing’s pair of Mercedes-AMG GT3s were having trouble keeping their composure around the undulating, sweeping first sector. Scott Smithson spun his #08 Mercedes up the hill into turn three, but he was able to return to the track. Utah’s Jeff Burton, on the other hand, wasn’t as fortunate – he spun his #91 Mercedes going up the hill out of turn one and spun off at turn two as he clipped a tyre barrier. The Safety Car was deployed after three laps of racing. Burton and Corey Lewis were the first retirements of the race, the damage to their red and black Mercedes was too great to continue.
Off the ensuing Safety Car restart, the #14 GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of James Sofronas had to serve a drive-through penalty – for not having their tyres properly mounted at the scheduled time before the start of the race. Sofronas and Tom Dyer finished five laps down in 16th place.
Up front, Filgueiras went back to work to build his lead over Hull: 3.5 seconds after 30 minutes of racing, and 8.5 seconds by the end of his stint in the #28 Porsche. It was what many had been used to seeing from the past Road to Indy ladder standout from Miami during his run to the GT4 America Silver class titles last season.
After 40 minutes of racing, the pit window opened up with Filgueiras, Hull, and Adelson still running first through third, with George Kurtz in the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes fourth, and Manny Franco in the #21 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 in fifth. Down in sixth place, Seth Lucas in the #53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 992 was the first car that was able to come in for a compulsory pit stop and driver change.
On the next pass-around, Filgueras brought the #28 Porsche in for its stop and handed the cockpit over to his co-driver McAleer. Once all of the cars had made their pit stops, McAleer was able to preserve the eight-second advantage that he had over the rest of the field.
But there was a change for second position coming out of the pits: Elliott Skeer in the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 991.2 was able to edge ahead of Bill Auberlen in the #94 BimmerWorld BMW. Auberlen drove out of the pit lane ahead, before being asked to redress the position due to an unsafe pit exit, and dutifully tucked in behind Skeer.
With the pace of the Pirelli tyres dropping off towards the end of the closing stints, McAleer wasn’t able to pull away from the pack like he did so many times in GT4 America last year – far from it actually, as Skeer was able to bring the margin down over the final minutes. Ultimately, the savvy Scot had enough pace in hand to hold on and take a sensational maiden GT World Challenge America victory for the newest Porsche 911 GT3 R model – and the first GT3 victory for Filgueiras, McAleer, and the RS1 (Rennsport One) team.
“I tried my hardest at the start there to conserve some tyre because of how well Eric had done on the first stint,” McAleer remarked – before embracing his co-driver Filgueiras, and telling him, “we just won a GT3 race!”
“I saw a couple of cars catching me at the end there. I think they were still gonna get to me, but I had saved enough tyre that when they got to me, I was fairly comfortable I could hold them up. It gets greasy out there, and it was a lot of fun holding on.”
“It’s incredible – our first GT3 race ever as a team, driver pairing, and our first win!” Filgueiras added.
Skeer’s late charge to close in on McAleer couldn’t bring them the overall victory, but with a second-place overall finish, he and Adelson picked up the Pro-Am class win in their first GT3 race as a pairing in the previous-generation Porsche.
“It really feels that way,” said Adelson, who said earlier in the weekend that he was ‘born to drive a GT3 race car’ and made a strong first impression in the category.
“This guy right here,” he said, pointing to Skeer, “taught me everything I know about how to drive a car, and that’s ultimately what got us here today. It’s teamwork – Wright Motorsports put up an incredible team effort: World class, they’re a team that can go and compete with anyone, anywhere, and dominate. And I just can’t tell you how happy I am right now! Incredible!”
“We did Dubai [24 Hours] earlier this year, and that was a very good showing,” Skeer said about his team’s preparation for their step up to GT World Challenge America this season. “We just kept the momentum going with that. I kept telling [Adam], you know, going with Wright was making the right choice – I think we’ve shown that it was.”
“This kid just keeps surprising me with [the car] – in GT3 cars, it’s all about the qualifying, and that was definitely him there – I just had to manage,” Skeer recalls about Adelson’s second-place effort in Qualifying earlier in the day. “Now we get to go and do it again tomorrow!”
This is Wright Motorsports’ third straight Pro-Am class win at Sonoma after Charlie Luck and Jan Heylen swept the weekend last year.
With an opportunistic move around the outside of Auberlen at the turn nine chicane, Daytona 24 Hours champion Colin Braun drove the #04 CrowdStrike/Riley Mercedes up into third place overall and finished second in the Pro-Am class alongside Kurtz.
The #16 ACI Motorsports Porsche 991.2 of Pedro Torres and Spencer Pumpelly picked their way through the field from 13th on the grid. Torres was eighth at the end of his opening stint, and once Pumpelly got on board, the veteran driver from Virginia quickly made his way through the field to finish fourth overall, and third in Pro-Am – not a bad start for the Tennessee team with the ex-KCMG Porsche chassis.
Auberlen slipped from third to fifth in the final 12 minutes of the race, but in the Pro class he was still able to hold on to second place and maintain 18 points for himself and Hull.
Another hard charger in the race was the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22. Ashton Harrison was mired down in 14th on the grid after getting caught up in a skirmish for track position in qualifying. But the trailblazing Pro-Am champion regained her composure in the race and fought her way up to seventh place at the end of her stint.
Farnbacher took over for the second half and worked his way past the #21 Conquest Racing Ferrari of Alessandro Balzan to secure sixth place overall and the last spot on the Pro-Am podium.
Trenton Estep finished seventh aboard the #53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 992, while Charlie Luck recovered from a spin after the Safety Car restart, and left co-driver and son-in-law Jan Heylen in position to finish eighth in the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 992.
Despite a weight break and a power boost handed down before the race, the best that the new Ferraris could manage was ninth from the #21 Conquest Racing Ferrari of Franco and Balzan. The #19 Esses Racing Mercedes (Will Hardeman/Adam Carroll) finished tenth overall, with Carroll putting up a stingy but fair defence of his track position to hold off the #9 TR3 Racing Mercedes (Ziad Ghandour/Daniel Morad).
GT World Challenge America will turn around for Race 2, Sunday at 2:15 PM PDT. The #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Samantha Tan and John Edwards may have retired in the final minutes, but they’ll have a great opportunity to turn their fortunes around from the overall pole position.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
The post RS1 Porsche Claims Maiden GT World Challenge America Victory In Sonoma first appeared on dailysportscar.com.