The return of GT World Challenge America powered by AWS to the Circuit of the Americas had a dominant team in the weekend, but this time it was TR3 Racing celebrating the clean sweep thanks to inspired performances of Martin Fuentes and Rodrigo Baptista with the No. 1 Ferrari 488 GT3.
Race 1 started having the No. 1 TR3 Ferrari jumping to defend the initial lead from the No. 93 Racers Edge Acura and the No. 33 Winward Mercedes, and with the Silver Cup entries fighting for position and the class lead behind his back, Martin Fuentes had room to open a bit of a gap.
As a surprise from these initial moments, the top GT Sports Club America contenders were just outside the overall podium, as the No. 14 GMG Audi and the No. 27 Daskalos Audi were showing the worth of what is quite old machinery compared to the new cars, as the pair of R8 LMS is at least two generations behind the newest GT3s on track. The No. 14 remained on top without threats, and James Sofronas won the GT Sports Club America Race 1, while the No. 311 311RS Porsche of Ryan Gates was the best GT2.
The No. 1 and the No. 93 came first to the pits, but even the extended drive time for Alec Udell in the No. 33 wasn’t able to change the order, leaving the overall fight between Rodrigo Baptista and Trent Hindman. While Baptista took time to go away from Hindman, there wasn’t any sort of close combat between them as their class wins were secured, so the No. 1 won overall and in the Pro-Am Cup and the No. 93 won the Silver Cup.
Race 2 had an unusual Pro-Am Cup front row, and Jan Heylen in the No. 20 Wright Porsche decided to jump and steal the lead from the No. 1 TR3 Ferrari while the rest of the field was still finding their positions.
While the things remained unchanged in front during the first half of racing, the No. 31 TR3 Ferrari took the GT Sports Club America from the No. 27 Daskalos Audi, and the lead turned into a certain win when the No. 27 spun after pushing too hard that it lost control in the kerbs. Ryan Gates was again the best GT2 entry to keep his winning streak.
The Pro drivers in the overall leaders just kept their cars on track for as long as possible, a thing that benefited the No. 20 Wright Porsche in its position defense, but Martin Fuentes put the new tires to good use in the No. 1 TR3 Ferrari by passing on the outside the No. 20 and go away with both the overall and the Pro-Am leads.
Fred Poordad in the No. 20 wasn’t able to cope with Fuentes’ pace, and this turned into a battle to defend the second place from the No. 93 Racers Edge Acura, but the Silver Cup still was able to make the decisive move to change the order, though with a big gap to the leader, there wasn’t much left to do for the No. 93 than to celebrate the Silver Cup win while the No. 1 conquered the overall and Pro-Am victories.
In the Silver Cup standings, Blackstock and Hindman have the title as they have 250 points against 72 of Russell Ward, mostly because the leading duo was the only Silver Cup entry of the season. Baptista and Fuentes lead the Pro-Am table with 200 points against 149 of Colin Braun and George Kurtz, who were forced to miss this second COTA round, and 134 of David Askew and Ryan Dalziel.
The next and final meeting GT World Challenge America meeting will be at the Intercontinental GT Challenge’s American round on 4 October, with the first three hours of the Indianapolis 8 Hours counting points for the American series.
PHOTOS: SRO/Brian Cleary
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