Michael Lewis dominated the first Pirelli World Challenge race of the weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg for EFFORT Racing in the #41 Porsche 911 GT3 R, scoring the team’s second win of the season. His teammate Pat Long meanwhile put up a similarly impressive display, fighting through the field after a lengthy rebuild following his accident at CotA, which forced him to skip Qualifying and start from the back.
“It’s so special to be sitting here,” said Lewis after the race. “I was sitting here in the GTA seat last year, so to get the win overall is incredible.
“This race was a tough one. There were a lot of battles. But it was a lap time battle. I pushed hard in the beginning. I didn’t focus on him (Parente) too much. Apart from the first five laps, it was a push to save my energy.”
The start of the race was a total contrast to last year’s standing start, which was chaotic to say the least. This time it was clean, and the the entire field made it through the first lap unscathed, setting up a relatively trouble-free race.
Lewis held his position ahead of the charging #9 K-PAX McLaren of Alvaro Parente behind through Turn 1, while the rest of the field diced its way through the tightening right-hander.
During the opening laps, it looked as if Parente had the pace to keep the pressure on Lewis, with the gap around just one second. But as the race wore on, the Portuguese driver faded, and finished the race second after a lonely drive 10 seconds behind Lewis, and ahead of the pair of Cadillac’s a further two seconds adrift.
Third place in the end went to the Caddy of Jonny O’Connell, after the reigning champ was able to fend off his teammate Michael Cooper in the other ATS-V.R.
Cooper’s start from fifth was really good, allowing him to overtake Austin Cindric’s McLaren into Turn 1 and never look in his mirrors again. Cindric would hold station in fifth; resulting in a very promising outing for the K-PAX crew.
However, the real story of the race – Lewis’ control at the head of the field aside – was the performance of Pat Long in the #31 EFFORT Racing Porsche. His drive from 19th on the grid was masterful, especially after turning no laps in the car during Practice or Qualifying; he carved up the field and managed to finish seventh overall in the short 50-minute race.
On lap 1 alone, Long made up three spots to vault himself to 16th place. A few laps later he then rose to 15th, before going on a tear and overtaking Colin Thompson, Kyle Marcelli, Ryan Eversely, Adderly Fong, Andrew Palmer, Bryan Heitkotter and Andrew Davison in the remaining laps on his way to the finish.
He was also aided by JD Davison’s trip to the pits after the rear wing of his #33 Always Evolving Nissan GT-R GT3 collapsed after tagging a guardrail. Davison returned to the race after the team ripped it off and but would have to settle for last place, struggling for any sort of pace due to a lack of downforce.
“Shoutout to Patrick Long,” Lewis later said, praising his teammate in the post-race presser. “He finished a strong seventh. Having his voice in my head before I got in the car for practice and qualifying helped. He would have been up there for the win had he been able to drive the car.”
The other classes in the race weren’t much of a contest. Martin Fuentes once again dominated a depleted GTA category in the Hublot Ferrari, ahead of just the sole DIME Racing Mercedes SLS of Frankie Montecalvo. Sloan Urey meanwhile, took home the silverware in the GT Cup class.
Tomorrow’s race is due to start at 3:15pm local time in Florida.
Stephen Kilbey
