Scott Hargrove, twenty-three years old from Tsawassen, British Columbia, took his No. 96 Pfaff Motorsports Castrol Porsche 911 GT3 R to the top spot of the podium in the first two races of the 2018 Pirelli World Challenge GT Sprint in St. Petersburg, Florida. Hargrove went from last place to first to win Saturday’s opening round of the season. He started from pole position to win the second race by a margin of just 0.4 seconds. Hargrove took home an impressive 51 points of the 52 points that were available over the race weekend. Fellow Canadian driver Daniel Morad pressed Hargrove in his No. 2 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 but eventually finished 3rd.

“It was a great weekend, a little unexpected after yesterday’s qualifying but it was a great comeback for the team, Pfaff Motorsports,” said Hargrove. “Today there was a much better view into turn 1 and when we pulled out onto the track, there were so many marbles from Indy Cars. I knew that I could quickly run into the wall going into turn one like we did yesterday, so I had to be a little bit smarter on that at the start. At the first restart, I had a good jump and I tried the exact same thing the second time but, of course, (Daniel) is smart and he figured out what I was going to do. So he got around me and then it was a fight side-by-side a couple of times, both slipping and sliding.”

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.

Toronto driver Daniel Morad finished 3rd in both races in the GT class in his No. 2 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG. “Overall, third place is a great start to the year,” said Morad.

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.”

Orey Fidani from Etobicoke, Ontario finished in 8th place in round 1 and 11th place in round 2 in GTS Pro in his Porsche Cayman GT4 CS-MR. Full doubleheader race weekend results from St Petersburg can be found at the Pirelli World Challenge website.