The second race of the FANATEC GT World Challenge America at Watkins Glen had the Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo on top of the game, but it all came down to survival in the final moments, which gave the victory to the No. 04 entry from Crowdstrike with Riley Motorsports, driven by Colin Braun and George Kurtz.
The No. 6 US Racetronics Mercedes beat the No. 3 K-PAX Lamborghini in the dash to the first corner, opening the gap by tiny margins in the initial moments. Loris Spinelli took 25 minutes to be out of Jordan Pepper’s field of vision, as the No. 3 fell prey of the No. 33 Winward Mercedes and the No. 13 Triarsi Ferrari that was leading the Pro-Am Cup, losing another position to the No. 04 Crowdstrike Mercedes before the 30 minute mark and evidencing the power deficit of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo at the Glen.
Phillip Ellis pushed until the pit window time to become a threat to Spinelli’s lead, and with only Pro-Am Cup cars behind, Ellis wouldn’t have much interference to attack or to outsmart the leading machine. Stopping in distinct moments of the window changed the order, with Winward making a better job to sent the No. 33 back to the track earlier, consequently getting first place, with the No. 04 splitting the Pro Cup contenders within less than 10 seconds.
Steven Aghakhani was fast but not enough to pass George Kurtz, and things only turned to worse when a suspension failure forced Aghakhani to park the No. 6 with eight minutes to go. The No. 1 K-PAX Lamborghini was in an incredible recovery race from the mid-table with Michele Beretta, but a left rear puncture with four minutes to go brought an unscheduled pit stop, and although it affected its overall position, it had no effect in the Pro Cup order.
There was only three minutes to go, but Russell Ward was forced to back off in order to preserve the No. 33 Winward Mercedes to finish the race, which clearly opened the door for Kurtz to put the No. 04 Crowdstrike Mercedes on top overall before the final lap to not let it go, scoring the second overall win in a row for a Pro-Am Cup entry.
GTWC America - Watkins Glen Race 2 results
The No. 33 Winward Mercedes was salvaged to win the Pro Cup from second place overall with three seconds down to the overall winner, and the demonstration on how scrambled the race was is the fact that the Am Cup winning No. 23 Triarsi Ferrari finished in sixth overall, 22 seconds off the top-5.
Despite losing the winning streak in the season, Andrea Caldarelli keeps the Pro Cup lead with 180 points against 133 from Jordan Pepper. Colin Braun and George Kurtz still lead the Pro-Am Cup with 145 points against 124 from Charlie Luck and Jan Heylen. The competitions now goes to Road America, which will host the penultimate double header of the season on 20 and 21 August.
PHOTO: SRO/Brian Cleary
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