The first race of the 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS at Sonoma Raceway ended the way last year’s races at Sonoma ended, and indeed how most races in 2021 wrapped up: With the black #1 K-PAX Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Jordan Pepper and Andrea Caldarelli putting their stamp on an authoritative overall victory from pole position.
Before Saturday afternoon’s race, the two Acura NSX GT3s – the #43 RealTime Racing and #93 Racers Edge Motorsports entries – were moved to the back of the grid due to post-qualifying technical infringements.
Also before the start of the race, the Pro Cup field grew by two cars in an instant! Both the #3 K-PAX Lamborghini (Misha Goikhberg/Giacomo Altoe) and the #96 Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 (Michael Dinan/Robby Foley) were moved out of Pro-Am Cup after a review of the provisional Bronze driver categorisations for both Goikhberg and Dinan.
The green flag waved at 2:21 PM local time, and Pepper led the field of 20 cars up the hill through turns one and two. Behind him, Russell Ward in the #33 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 settled into second, while Steven Aghakhani in the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3 slid past Dinan into third. Behind them, the #61 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 of Jean-Claude Saada and the #63 DXDT Racing AMG GT3 of David Askew spun going up to turn two.
At the end of the first lap, Justin Wetherill’s #13 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari ground to a halt in the run-off after the start/finish line, and retired from the race.
Pepper, meanwhile, built up an astonishing lead – over three seconds at the end of the first lap, over six seconds after three laps, and then upwards of ten seconds after just five laps.
While the black K-PAX Lamborghini comfortably broke away from the field, Aghakhani overtook Ward for second place on lap 10, and Dinan fell into the clutches of Goikhberg who was fifth overall. The #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R of Charlie Luck was now the Pro-Am Cup leader, fighting off Chandler Hull in the #94 BimmerWorld M4 GT3.
Askew’s tough stint continued when he slid off into the tyre barriers at the Carousel Corner (turn six), but he was able to drive away and bring his car back to the pits for repairs. The #63 DXDT AMG GT3 would retire after just one more lap before calling it a race.
After 40 minutes of racing, the compulsory pit window opened for tyre and driver changes. The #33 Winward AMG GT3 and #3 K-PAX Lamborghini pitted from third and fifth overall on lap 23, while the Pro-Am class leading #45 Wright Porsche and #94 BimmerWorld M4 also came in. The #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3 pitted on the following lap along with the #96 Turner M4.
Finally, on lap 25, Pepper pitted the #1 K-PAX Lamborghini, after leading by nearly 40 seconds before the pit window opened.
When routine pit work was completed, the #1 held its 40 second advantage, now in the hands of Andrea Caldarelli. But Philip Ellis in the #33 Winward AMG GT3 had successfully jumped ahead of the #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3, now driven by Loris Spinelli, for third place. Robby Foley in the #96 Turner M4 and Giacomo Altoe in the #3 K-PAX Lamborghini held fourth and fifth.
Jan Heylen in the #45 Wright Porsche kept the Pro-Am Cup lead, with Colin Braun in the #04 CrowdStrike Racing by Riley Motorsports now four seconds behind him. Braun and the #38 ST Racing M4 of Nick Wittmer had jumped ahead of the #94 BimmerWorld M4 after pit stops, with Bill Auberlen now at the wheel of the BimmerWorld entry – though Auberlen was eventually able to work his way past Wittmer for what was eighth position.
Meanwhile, the #61 AF Corse Ferrari, now in the hands of Conrad Grunewald, had caught the #23 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari of Onofrio Triarsi for the Am Cup lead – after the latter was hit with a drive-through penalty for a pit lane infraction. In the last twenty minutes, Grunewald and Triarsi were running tail-to-nose, in clean air and in traffic.
On lap 36, Grunewald finally made his move past Triarsi into turn eight – in the process, Foley in the #96 Turner M4 made contact with Triarsi, opening the door for Altoe in the #3 K-PAX Lamborghini to swipe fourth place overall from Foley out of turn nine!
Soon, there was a chase for the lead in Pro-Am Cup as Braun had now closed to within a second of Heylen, shaving off about a second a lap out of the #45 Wright Porsche’s advantage.
At the front, Caldarelli completed the impeccable drive that his team mate began 90 minutes earlier, taking the win by 51.886 seconds after 54 laps of uninterrupted green flag racing.
It is Lamborghini’s first GT3 victory worldwide in 2022, and follows up a clean sweep of the Sonoma weekend from 2021.
“What a great way to start this season for K-PAX Racing,” K-PAX Racing Programme Manager Darren Law said. “We had a very strong run with the No. 1 car to back-up our championship run last season with Andrea and Jordan. We are very proud that we were able to deliver Lamborghini its first professional win worldwide this year.”
“We had a lot of tough conditions, but you know, the great thing is that this is our second year with this Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO platform.”
“It was good to be at our home track – a track we know well. Having to go through the various track conditions can be challenging, but it just reaffirms where we are with this program. It showed today.”
Ellis took a strong second place finish for the Winward Racing team.
And Spinelli held off a hard-charging Altoe by less than half a second, to keep US Racetronics on the overall podium in third, leaving the #3 K-PAX car to settle for fourth overall.
“The class change really caught us by surprise,” Law said of the #3 car’s dilemma. “[The series] literally changed our class five minutes before the race. I’m really not sure what the reasoning was behind it. Based on what we’ve read in the rules, I don’t see how they can make this call based on a wet qualifying session in changing conditions. We’re going to speak to them about it. I don’t know if there is anything that can be done, but we were not happy hearing about [their decision] five minutes before the race.”
“We have to hand it to Misha Goikhberg and Giacomo Altoè. Those guys had a phenomenal race and almost pulled a podium out of the Pro class.”
Foley took fifth place as the Turner Motorsports crew, perplexed by their recent upgrade to Pro Cup, led the new M4s in their SRO race debut.
Heylen was able to fend off Braun, giving the reigning Pro-Am Cup Champions at Wright Motorsports a class win (sixth overall) in which they did not concede the net lead in the class.
“I don’t know of any father and son-in-law combination that’s ever won.” Luck spoke of his win with Heylen. “Jan’s proven himself, he’s been a winner for years and years. It’s incredible.”
“This driver pairing is pretty special,” Heylen stated about being teamed up with Luck. “We had a tough time leading up to the race, as we didn’t feel the speed in the car so much during practice. So great driving by Charlie. He was a bigger factor today in giving us a win.”
Braun and George Kurtz finished second in Pro-Am, seventh overall, with Braun taking the flag just six-tenths behind Heylen for the class victory.
BimmerWorld’s sole remaining M4 of Auberlen and Hull rounded out the Pro-Am podium with an eighth place overall finish, ahead of the #191 Zelus Motorsports Lamborghini (Jeff Burton/Corey Lewis) which was ninth overall.
ST Racing rounded out the overall top ten with their #38 BMW M4 GT3 of Wittmer and Samantha Tan.
The #93 Racers Edge NSX of Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher fought back from their back-of-grid penalty – and a drive-through penalty for changing tyres on the grid too late – to finish 11th, ahead of the #43 RealTime Racing NSX (Erin Vogel/Michael Cooper). DXDT Racing’s sole remaining #08 AMG GT3 (Scott Smithson/Bryan Sellers) was 13th.
Grunewald’s late move for the Am Cup victory put the #61 AF Corse Ferrari 14th overall, ahead of Triarsi and Charlie Scardina in the #23 Triarsi Ferrari in 15th.
The #9 TR3 Racing Lamborghini (Ziad Ghandour/Michele Beretta) suffered a drive-through penalty and finished 16th, while the #88 Zelus Lamborghini (Jason Harward/Madison Snow) and the #12 Ian Lacy Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 (Frank Gannett/Drew Staveley) were the last of the finishers.
NOTE: The #33 Winward AMG GT3 was demoted three positions after the race, for a technical infringement related to an inoperable data logger. The decision promotes US Racetronics to second, K-PAX #3 to third, and Turner Motorsports to fourth.
Images © Fabian Lagunas, Brian Cleary, Regis Lefebure / SRO / K-PAX Racing
