When few would have expected them to do so, Manny Franco and Alessandro Balzan swept the weekend’s Fanatec GT World Challenge America races at Road America – capped off by a somewhat unlikely win for the #21 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 in Race 2, which became very eventful in the final 30 minutes after a cascade of misfortunes for other top teams.
24 Hours of Daytona winner Colin Braun had won the pole position for Sunday’s race on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, the damage inflicted to the #19 Esses Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Will Hardeman/Adam Carroll) in Race 1, forced them to withdraw from Race 2. Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer would start the race from the rear of the 16-car grid, but they would do so in their backup car – which just so happened to be a newer, 992-generation Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Braun controlled the opening stint of the race in the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes, leading from second-placed Bill Auberlen in the #94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3, and Daniel Morad in the #9 TR3 Racing Mercedes.
Braun handed the controls of the #04 CrowdStrike Mercedes off to George Kurtz, who had a five-second lead once everyone had come in for their compulsory pit stops and driver changes. Even with Chandler Hull now behind him in the #94 BimmerWorld BMW, and Samantha Tan demonstrating flashes of serious pace in her #38 ST Racing BMW, it seemed as if the race was completely under control for the Pro-Am title leaders.
That changed in an instant with 30 minutes remaining. Rookie gentleman driver Paul Kiebler lost control of his #77 TR3 Racing Mercedes at the exit of the Carousel (turn ten), spun off and went into the grass. Kiebler went to rejoin the track, but around a fast corner with very little sight lines, Kurtz had no time to react to the car pulling out in front of him. The end result was a terrible rear-end collision which wrecked both cars. Kurtz and Kiebler were okay, climbing out without any serious injury.
Kiebler was given five penalty points on his competition license for an unsafe rejoin, enough to put him to eight points (including GT4 America infractions) and trigger an immediate two-race suspension.
Hull and Tan did well to avoid the carnage right in front of them, and they would find themselves in first and second overall in a BMW 1-2, as the race would restart with less than ten minutes remaining.
Franco was now third in the #21 Conquest Ferrari, but the car had a pending 2.585-second penalty hanging over it at the end of the race for going under the minimum pit stop time, with Ashton Harrison fourth in the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3.
But off the restart, Tan lost two places as her car wouldn’t get up to speed, and before the field came around to the Carousel, race leader Hull came crawling to a stop with a broken axle – turning what could have been an outright victory into a 14th-place result for him and Auberlen.
Franco’s move past Tan thus gave him the overall race lead, and he would pull out enough of a gap in the final minutes to take the chequered flag and cover the post-race time penalty with more than enough of a margin to spare!
Behind them, another collision had huge implications in the Pro championship battle: Madison Snow in the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 992 made contact with Harrison at turn 13 which sent the #93 Acura spinning off the course and down the order. Snow was given a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, but Wright Motorsports would not serve the penalty on-track, confident that their driver had done nothing wrong.
Snow and Jan Heylen finished second on the road, but a 51.5 second time penalty given after the race dropped them to 11th overall and fifth in the Pro class.
This elevated the #28 RS1 Porsche 992 (Eric Filgueiras/Stevan McAleer), which was running well down the order early in the race, to second place.
Tan would recover from her sluggish restart and keep the field of Pro-Am contenders behind her at bay. Adelson in the new #120 Wright Porsche dropped out of the running when his car needed a splash of fuel just to reach the flag, and that would be enough to power Tan and Neil Verhagen to their first Pro-Am class win of the season in third place overall.
It’s the first GT World Challenge America victory for Connecticut-born Verhagen, in just his second weekend in the series.
Tan recorded her first win in the series last year as part of the only Silver Cup entry at last year’s Indianapolis 8 Hour Race – but this Pro-Am class win was much more fulfilling for her and the rest of the team, and a sign of their upward trajectory in the GT3 racing landscape.
The #53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 992 (Seth Lucas/Trenton Estep) suffered a broken rear diffuser in the first half of the race, but 17-year-old Lucas would ride out the ill-handling car and escape all the carnage to secure fourth place overall and third in Pro, tying their best result of the season.
The #91 DXDT Racing Mercedes of Corey Lewis and Utah’s Jeff Burton quietly recorded its best finish of the season in fifth, to wrap up the rest of the Pro-Am podium alongside the #43 RealTime Racing Mercedes (Anthony Bartone/Adam Christodolou) – which ran as high as fourth, then recovered from a front-left puncture to finish sixth.
Following the collision between herself and Snow, Harrison and Mario Farnbacher would end up seventh in the #93 Racers Edge Acura. The #007 TRG Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Derek DeBoer/Valentin Hasse-Clot) finished eighth, followed by the #08 DXDT Racing Mercedes (Scott Smithson/Bryan Sellers) in ninth.
GMG Racing had a tough start to the weekend after team founder James Sofronas suffered a back injury in a private testing crash earlier in the week, but the new #32 GMG Porsche 992 of Kyle Washington and Jeroen Bleekemolen plugged along to a top-ten overall finish to boost the morale within the team.
With three races left in the season, RS1’s Filgueiras and McAleer have extended their lead in the Pro championship table to 19 points over Harrison and Farnbacher in second. Hull and Auberlen’s late mechanical troubles cost them big time in the race for the title, as they now sit 41 points back, with the duos of Lucas/Estep and Franco/Balzan now within two points of third place.
Kurtz and Braun were robbed of a golden chance to put the Pro-Am championship out of reach, but they’ll leave Road America with a 17-point lead over Adelson and Skeer in second place.
On their own, TRG’s DeBoer is just 39 points back in third, and Tan is just 44 points back in fourth, with 100 more points available in the final three races.
That final push for the championship titles will start on 23-24 September at Sebring International Raceway, for the final double-header weekend of the year.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports Group America
