“It was a great weekend, a little unexpected after yesterday’s qualifying, but it was a great comeback for the team, Pfaff Motorsports.”Scott Hargrove, 2018 Pirelli World Challenge GT Sprint winner
Hargrove has performed well at the 14-turn, 1.8 mile (2.9 km) temporary street circuit which runs along the St. Petersburg harbour. He won at St Petes in the open-wheel USF2000 series in 2013.
The second race was stopped short on lap 26 due to an accident involving 2016 GT champion Alvaro Parente who had a big impact in turn 10 in the No. 9 K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3. Thankfully he was able to walk away from the incident but the race was over due to the severity of the impact with the tire wall.
Lawson Aschenbach of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida won race 1 and race 2 in the GTS in his No. 1 Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro GT4.R. Aschenbach is the three-time and defending GTS series champion.
“The Camaro has always been good in this kind of race as we showed that last year,” said Aschenbach. “The middle caution definitely helped us and then the red flag at the end too. I was definitely struggling for traction at the end and we still had a car that was capable of winning. But Piana was going to give me a good fight, and I can’t be happier than two first-places to start the season off right. I knew right away coming into the season that Porsche with their updates and Audi’s new car – it’s good for the series, the class and for GT4 globally. I think you’re going to see a ton of different winners this year. Fortunately for us, as long as we get to the lead here, this is a good track for us. All in all, this is what racing is all about – variety and a car that people can have a relationship with. That’s why this class has an advantage right now because we can really drive home the point of win on Sunday, buy on Monday.”
The next Pirelli World Challenge race weekend takes place March 23-25 at the Circuit of the Americas and will feature the GT SprintX, GTS SprintX and Touring Car classes including the all-new TCR division.
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