Canadian Scott Hargrove powered to victory in the first Pirelli World Challenge GT/GTA race of the season on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida driving the Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
“I couldn’t ask for more than this,” Hargrove said after the race. “I had a good start, got up to second, then me and Daniel (Morad) had a battle after the restart. I couldn’t thank the Pfaff guys enough, the car was flawless and we only just about got it ready before the start of the race (after his off into the barriers in Qualifying).”
Hargrove took the lead of the race with 22 minutes remaining, running door-to-door with CRP Racing’s Mercedes AMG-GT3 of Daniel Morad into Turn 1. Morad held the lead from the start of the race, which unfortunately saw three of the 11 starters retire in the Turn 1 chaos.
The opening portion of the race was held under safety car due to the incidents. Daniel Keilwitz, in the debut race for the Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R in North America, made an ambitious move up the inside at Turn 1 on pole-sitter Toni Vilander, the German having to go straight on into the runoff.
Behind, in the melee, Spencer Pumpelly’s TRG Aston Martin made contact with Alvaro Parente’s K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3, sending him into the outside wall at Turn 1, blocking in Parker Chase, who was left with nowhere to go and also hit the barriers and unable to rejoin the race due to gearbox issues sustained in the incident.
As a result of the contact Pumpelly too ended up in another wall at Turn 3. It made for a tough first race for the trio, who lost out on key points to start the year.
After the opening scramble, Vilander, driving the R. Ferri Ferrari had slipped to third behind Morad and Hargrove. But when the race went green again with 30 minutes remaining, the order would change.
Morad was unable to hold back the hard-charging Hargrove, who after a couple of attempts was able to make the move for the lead stick into Turn 1, and hold position until the finish. Hargrove secured Pole Position for Race 2 towards the end of the race too, by setting the fastest lap, a 1:12.059, which is also a new PWC race lap record.
The move for the lead resulted in Morad losing second as well, Vilander following him through during what was a five car train fighting for the lead. He then had to defend hard towards the end, as running and eventually finishing fourth was Keilwitz’ Callaway Corvette, the German fighting his way back from eighth after his mistake at the start, just missing out on a podium spot.
To get there, he had to overtake GTA class drivers Rodrigo Baptista (K-PAX Racing), Yuki Harata (Dream Racing) and Martin Fuentes (Squadra Corse Garage Italia) and Porsche factory driver Michael Christensen who finished fifth in his Alegra Motorsports Porsche. It was a solid drive from Keilwitz, and made for some entertaining moments in a race which unfortunately suffered for a lack of entries.
The GTA class battle was an uneventful affair, Fuentes causing to victory, unchallenged by Harata and Baptista behind after the restart.
Race 2 is set to start at 15:15 local time tomorrow in Florida.
Photo courtesy of PWC
