Crowdstrike by Riley Mercedes Out Front In Sonoma Free Practices
The 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season began in earnest on Friday at Sonoma Raceway. After weeks of preparation and off-season tests, the first two official Practice sessions were run throughout the day.
The teams and drivers were met with morning rain showers when they arrived Friday morning. The track was damp for the start of Practice 1 at 10:10 AM PDT (local time) but as the track began to dry, more and more cars began to set quick laps around the 4.056-kilometre circuit.
With just under 25 minutes left in Practice 1, the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) of Charlie Luck and Jan Heylen rose to the top of the time sheets. Heylen’s best lap of 1’36.911 was enough to displace the #9 TR3 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Ziad Ghandour/Daniel Morad) from the overall top spot.
This bodes well for the father-and-son-in-law duo of Luck and Heylen, who swept both races at Sonoma in the Pro-Am category with the previous-generation Porsche 911 GT3 R. And it also looks encouraging for the new 911 GT3 R, which is unlikely to avoid the same misfortunes in its GT World Challenge America debut that it did in the Daytona 24 Hours.
A 1’36.990 from Morad would still be enough to hold onto second place in the orange and grey #9 Mercedes. The top Pro class car was the #94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull and Bill Auberlen in third overall, ahead of the #91 DXDT Racing Mercedes (Jeff Burton/Corey Lewis) and the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 991.2 (Adam Adelson/Elliott Skeer) which made up the rest of the overall top five.
In sixth was the #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 (Samantha Tan/John Edwards). Racers Edge Motorsports’ #93 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 of Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher was second-fastest in the Pro class and seventh place overall, ahead of the #53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 992 (Trenton Estep/Seth Lucas) in eighth. The #16 ACI Motorsport Porsche 991.2 (Pedro Torres/Spencer Pumpelly) and the #08 DXDT Racing Mercedes (Scott Smithson/Bryan Sellers) filled out the rest of the top ten from Practice 1.
The only car that didn’t really exert itself during Practice 1 was the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes of George Kurtz and Colin Braun. They never completed more than a handful of installation laps and instead waited until Practice 2 to show their true pace.
At 3:10 PM PDT, Practice 2 began under beautiful, sunny California skies. Braun, the reigning Daytona 24 Hours champion, wasted no time setting the benchmark time of the session – with his first flying lap, he clocked in with a 1’36.853, the best time of the day.
Sellers, fresh off his class win in the Sebring 12 Hours aboard a BMW, turned in a 1’36.960 aboard the #08 DXDT Racing Mercedes – second-fastest in Practice 2 and third-fastest for the entire day.
Auberlen went two-for-two atop the Pro class time sheets in practice sessions today, placing the #94 BimmerWorld M4 into third overall and first in Pro for the second straight session. The BMW racing legend set a 1’37.162 in Practice 1 and then a 1’37.365 in Practice 2.
They were followed by a trio of Porsches from fourth to sixth: The #16 ACI Motorsports 991.2, then the two Wright Motorsports entries led by the #120 ahead of the #45.
MDK Motorsports’ #53 Porsche 992 was second-fastest in the Pro category from Practice 2, ahead of the #21 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 (Manny Franco/Alessandro Balzan) and the #28 RS1 Porsche 992 (Eric Filgueiras/Stevan McAleer), all separated by just 0.042 seconds, with the #9 TR3 Mercedes rounding out the top ten from Practice 2.
GT World Challenge America’s sole Am class entry, the #43 RealTime Racing Mercedes (Anthony Bartone/Andy Pilgrim), ranked 15th out of the 17 cars that set a time in the afternoon session.
Both 60-minute practice sessions were completed without any red flags or major dramas despite the mixed weather conditions in the morning!
A full day of racing from Sonoma is in store today – it begins with Qualifying for the GT World Challenge America round in Sonoma, at 9:20 AM PDT.
As usual, Qualifying will consist of two segments, one for each driver. The Driver 1 segment will set the grid for Race 1 this afternoon, and the Driver 2 segment will set the grid for Race 2 tomorrow.
The green flag for Race 1 at Sonoma flies at 3:05 PM PDT – 90 minutes with one compulsory pit stop, and each team’s lower-graded (Bronze or Silver) driver taking the start in their respective cars.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
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