- K-PAX Racing continues amazing streak in Pro class
- Triarsi Competizione cars atop podium in both Pro-Am and Am
- Provisional Results
Alton, Virginia - Michele Beretta captured the pole position for the #1 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Saturday morning, and from the drop of the green flag for Race 1 of the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS, Beretta kept his position in the front of the pack and never looked back, finishing with the win. This was the 10th consecutive Pro class win for K-PAX Racing, a streak that began in 2021.
Just behind, a strong back and forth jostling between the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 driven by Michael Dinan and the #6 US RaceTronics Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Steven Aghakhani, who was given a warning by race control for unnecessary contact.
Following a full-course yellow to remove the #9 TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 driven by Ziad Ghandour, the fight for position resumed when the race went to green. With a compressed field towards the middle of the pack, an incident occurred involving three cars, the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 driven by Ashton Harrison, #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Samantha Tan, and the #61 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 with Jean-Claude Saada at the wheel. All sustained damage that took them out of the race. Fortunately, none of the drivers were injured in the incident.
Following clean-up, at the re-start, Dinan and Aghakhani picked up where they left off battling for position. Dinan moved into second position after Beretta, with Goikhberg retaining third and Aghakhani challenging for position. Spirited side-to-side contact as the two headed into the Rollercoaster made for an exciting moment for both drivers. The contact looked to cut the tire of Goikhberg who fortunately wasn’t far from pit lane.
After taking over for Aghakhani, Spinelli lost positions going off course at Turn 12 but recorded the CrowdStrike Fastest Lap of the race with a lap time of 1:44:150 on his way to a fourth-place finish.
The Pro class podium finished with the #1 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan (Michele Beretta/Andrea Caldarelli), second the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 (Michael Dinan/Robby Foley) with the #3 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan (Misha Goikhberg/Jordan Pepper) in third.
“This weekend was not easy. The car was pretty good, to be honest, and we’re struggling a little bit with speed. I’m very happy for nine wins in a row and we’ll look forward to ten tomorrow,” said Andrea Caldarelli.
Earning their first win as teammates in the Pro-Am Class was the #13 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 duo of Justin Wetherill, who is in his rookie season in GT3 racing, and Ryan Dalziel. Wetherill’s seat time competing in both Fanatec GT World Challenge and GT America to gain more car and track time looks to be paying off. “What a step forward for everyone, the team, Justin, and even myself trying to figure out this Ferrari. He did a heck of a job at the start and I had to stay in front and not mess up too bad,” said Dalziel.
Racing on home soil, taking second on the podium in the Pro-Am class was the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R (Charlie Luck/Jan Heylen) who swept the podium at Sonoma, and is currently in third place in the team points standings. Third place was the #63 DXDT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (David Askew/Dirk Muller).
With the #61 AF Corse Ferrari out of the race, the #23 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Charlie Scardina and Onofrio Triarsi took their third consecutive win. “The team did a phenomenal job giving us a great car. Charlie at the start of his race did a great job staying up front, and we maintained the pace and stayed clean the whole race,” said Triarsi.
We’ll look to do it all over again with Race 2 action on Sunday, June 19 at 1:15 PM EST.
The weekend schedule, live timing and scoring, and session reports are available at Gt-World-Challenge-America.com. Check out race live streams for free on YouTube at GT World.
For up-to-the-minute info on the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS social channels on Facebook at @gtworldchallengeamerica, Instagram at @gtworldchallengeamerica, and Twitter at @gtworldcham.