When Ziad Ghandour was unable to race at VIRginia International Raceway this weekend due to a personal commitment, TR3 Racing made the call to move up to the Pro class of GT World Challenge America and pair Daniel Morad with GT4 America standout Kenton Koch.
The two young drivers then led the orange and grey #9 Mercedes-AMG GT3 to the overall victory in Race 1 at VIR on Saturday, as Morad fended off the ageless Bill Auberlen and local squad BimmerWorld Racing to earn a hard-fought win.
Koch, who has been balancing a full-season schedule in GT4 America with a four-race slate in IMSA’s Michelin Endurance Cup at the wheel of a similar Mercedes-AMG GT3, won the pole for Race 1 earlier in the day. George Kurtz, coming off an LMP2 Pro-Am class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans a week ago, put the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes on the outside of the front row.
The #9 Mercedes led the field away from the drop of the green flag – as Koch began to build a lead, Kurtz came under pressure from Chandler Hull in the #94 BimmerWorld Racing BMW M4 GT3. Hull would eventually fire up the inside of Kurtz on the approach to the Roller Coaster chicane, braking just late enough to take second position without much fuss.
Koch had stretched his lead to eight seconds just as the pit window opened for driver changes. It should have been as straightforward as a clean pit stop and a change of drivers to Morad, but Koch accidentally pulled into the Triarsi Competizione box, two stalls short, before eventually making his way to the correct stall.
Morad was able to exit the pits with the lead ahead of the #94 BMW of Auberlen, but now the gap was just a few car lengths between them.
The lead inverted when, according to Morad, the radio antenna inside the #9 Mercedes came loose and swung at his eye just as he was rounding Oak Tree Corner. That little mishap caused Morad to lose concentration, run wide into the dirt, and allow Auberlen to sail through into the lead with just over 45 minutes left.
But in the space of just two laps, the lead changed hands again when Auberlen clipped too much of the kerb at the inside of Turn 5 – that caused the BMW to get unsettled and slide off into the grass, and Morad was back up front as quickly as he’d fallen behind.
Morad had to hold on for dear life while dealing with handling problems inside the Mercedes – he nearly slid off again at Hog Pen Corner while leading, but kept it on the road, and ahead of Auberlen to take the chequered flag by just three-quarters of a second.
This gave TR3 Racing its first GT3 win in SRO America competition since Daniel Mancinelli won the 2018 Long Beach round at the wheel of a Ferrari 488 GT3. TR3 Racing switched from Ferrari to Lamborghini two years ago, then to Mercedes-AMG this season – and the team from South Florida was able to reap the rewards of this latest change of machinery, and the chance to race as an all-Pro team.
Auberlen consolidated a close second for BimmerWorld, the team based in Virginia just a couple hundred kilometres northwest of VIR in the town of Dublin. It was exactly what BimmerWorld needed after a difficult weekend in VIR, some of it of their own creation.
Not far behind them at all, Kurtz and Colin Braun came home third in the #04 CrowdStrike/Riley Mercedes. That makes it two wins in two weeks, in two different cars and across two continents, for Kurtz and Braun in the CrowdStrike red and grey colours.
The win also helps the CrowdStrike/Riley duo gain ground in the Pro-Am championship standings, after the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (991.2) of Adam Adelson and Elliot Skeer finished 12th overall (seventh in class) after an unscheduled pit stop for a puncture set them back early.
The #53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 992 (Seth Lucas/Trenton Estep) finished a solid fourth overall and earned third-place points in the Pro class.
In fifth place overall was the #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3. This was another team that made a change of drivers this weekend, with young American BMW junior Neil Verhagen taking the place of his experienced compatriot John Edwards.
Samantha Tan’s weekend at VIR couldn’t have gone worse after one of her cars was all but written off minutes into the first race last year, and this time, her team avoided the same catastrophe – Tan and Verhagen finished second in the Pro-Am class to gain valuable points.
Likewise, Conquest Racing was hoping to bounce back after Manny Franco was wiped out in Race 1 at Circuit of the Americas. The rebuilt #21 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Franco and Alessandro Balzan finished sixth overall and fourth in the Pro class, followed by the #33 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari (Justin Wetherill/Ryan Dalziel) which finished a season-best seventh place.
After three weekends with a Race 1 victory, the #28 RS1 Porsche 992 (Eric Filgueiras/Stevan McAleer) could fare no better than eighth overall and fifth in the Pro class, 37 seconds off the win.
The #007 TRG Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Derek DeBoer/Valentin Hasse-Clot) survived a couple of run-ins during DeBoer’s opening stint, but powered through to finish ninth, ahead of the #43 RealTime Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, which was making the step up to Pro-Am after three weekends as the sole Am class entrant. Newcomer Adam Christodolou set the fastest lap as he and Anthony Bartone recorded the team’s best finish of 2023.
An opportunity for Racers Edge Motorsports to gain ground in the Pro class championship went to the wayside after a tough race for the #93 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher. Within the final 25 minutes the red Acura suffered two left-rear punctures, one caused by an off-track excursion and a piece of debris cutting down the tyre. Harrison and Farnbacher were last in class and 16th overall, last of the classified finishers.
Only the #16 ACI Motorsports Porsche 991.2 (Pedro Torres/Spencer Pumpelly) retired from the race not long after Torres went off track during his opening stint.
After seven races, Filgueiras, McAleer, and RS1 still lead the Pro championship standings, now 19 points ahead of Harrison, Farnbacher, and Racers Edge.
Kurtz, Braun, and CrowdStrike/Riley close to within 17 points of Adelson, Skeer, and the Wright #120 in the Pro-Am championship.
Images © SRO Motorsports Group America
