The #3 K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3 of Rodrigo Baptista and Maxime Soulet won the opening World Challenge SprintX race of the season yesterday at Circuit of The Americas.
It was a race interrupted by a red flag for almost half an hour, after an early full course yellow as the result of the #63 DXDT Mercedes-AMG GT3 of David Askew going off the track at the Esses eventually prompted the organisers to stop the race.
Once it went green again, battles ensued in the top three places. Baptista and Soulet in the #3 Bentley Continental GT3 and the #22 Alegra Porsche 911 GT3 R, driven by Daniel Morad and Michael De Quesada scrapped for second place, but in the end, the #3 would go on to overtake the sister #9 K-PAX Bentley and win the race.
The #9 Bentley of Andy Soucek and Alvaro Parente jumped into a good lead at the start of the race but after the red flag and restart, their teammates in the #3 machine finished the race strong and demoted them to second. The result meant a 1-2 for the Californian team and a win for the new Bentley on its World Challenge debut.
Scott Hargrove and Patrick Long ended up finishing a distant third in their Wright Motorsports Porsche, moving up into the top three after the aforementioned Alegra Porsche was forced to serve two drive-through penalties during the race.
The R Ferri Ferrari 488 GT3 of Miguel Molina and Toni Vilander finished fourth, ahead of the TR3 Racing’s Ferrari of Jeff Segal and Wei Lu, which in turn won the Pro-Am class.
The Am class was won by 2018 Am Champions Martin Fuentes and Caeser Bacarella in the #31 TR3 Ferrari 488 GT3.
Photo courtesy of World Challenge
