RNW Staff

Brandon Gdovic certainly enjoys some home cooking. For the second straight year, the Virginian won a Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America race on his home track, taking overall and Pro class honors Sunday in the second race of the VIRginia International Raceway weekend.

Team Antonelli Motorsport duo Alexander Moiseev and Alexey Nesov completed a fruitful weekend at the Paul Ricard circuit, in the Kaspersky backed-outfit Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, in the second of the six International GT Open rounds.

Porsche Carrera Cup GB – the fastest single marque GT racing championship in the UK – moved to Oulton Park in Cheshire for Rounds Five and Six of the rapid-fire 2020 season. Mixed weather conditions resulted in a wet first Practice session topped by Porsche GB 2020 / 2021 Junior Harry King (Team Parker Racing) and teammate Josh Webster (Team Parker Racing). The pair resumed their intense battle for supremacy in the afternoon’s dry second Practice, ending the session in the same order. Teammates Ryan Ratcliffe (Team Parker) and Esmee Hawkey (Team Parker) topped a session each in Pro-Am, while Justin Sherwood (Team Parker Racing) stamped his authority on the weekend as Friday’s quickest Am.

With a closely-matched field of GT-only machines taking on the two-hour, 40-minute Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway, it was a tight race to the finish for the No. 57 Heinricher Racing with Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 on Saturday. The car finished seventh in the GTD order.

The FUJIMAKI GROUP SUZUKA GT 300km RACE, Round 3 of the 2020 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series took place at Suzuka circuit (one lap 5,807m × 52 laps) in Mie Prefecture on August 23 (Sun). In the GT500 class, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH GT-R (Tsugio Matsuda/Ronnie Quintarelli) came through with a magnificent first win of the season in a race interrupted by three Safety Car breaks. The GT300 class race was also won by a NISSAN GT-R, the No. 11 GAINER TANAX GT-R (Katsuyuki Hiranaka/Hironobu Yasuda).

Teams and drivers in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America championship faced a long Saturday at VIRginia International Raceway. Their day was bookended by a pair of qualifying sessions early in the morning and the first of two weekend races in late afternoon.

The Porsche GT Team has concluded round five of this season’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on positions three and five. In an eventful race at the Virginia International Raceway in the east of the USA, Britain’s Nick Tandy and his French teammate Frédéric Makowiecki scored a podium result instead of the deserved victory in their No. 911 racing car. Bad luck plagued the sister car of reigning champions Earl Bamber from New Zealand and Laurens Vanthoor from Belgium. Midway through the race, a damaged diffuser threw them far down the field. The No. 912 car took the flag in the GTLM class in fifth. As at the previous two races, the 2019-generation Porsche 911 RSR was the fastest vehicle in the fierce GTLM-class competition among manufacturers. Once again, however, fortune did not shine on the North American factory squad. In the GTD category, the Porsche 911 GT3 R fielded by the customer squad Wright Motorsports finished on sixth.

 It was a full throttle sprint to the finish for Mario Farnbacher on Saturday, as he took the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 from fourth to second in the final five laps of the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. Farnbacher was relentless in his pursuit of the fabled VIR Michelin Man trophy, optimizing every opportunity to move froward late in the race to claim a runner-up result for the second IMSA race in a row.

BMW Team RLL drivers Connor De Phillippi and Bruno Spengler shared the duo’s first ever podium with a second-place finish in today’s Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. The pair, driving the No. 25 BMW M8 GTE, completed 85 laps around Virginia International Raceway in the two-hour-and-forty-minute race, finishing 3.5 seconds behind the winning No. 3 Corvette. Teammates John Edwards and Jesse Krohn fell victim to a mechanical issue early in the race and ultimately finished 19 laps down.

The qualifying for the FUJIMAKI GROUP SUZUKA GT 300km RACE, Round 3 of the 2020 AUTOBACS SUPER GT series took place at Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture on August 22 (Sat). In the GT500 class, the No. 64 Modulo NSX-GT (Takuya Izawa/Hiroki Otsu) won pole position, which for Izawa was a personal first PP in his 13-year GT500 career. In the GT300 class, the No. 31 TOYOTA GR SPORT PRIUS PHV apr GT (Koki Saga/Yuhki Nakayama) won pole position. These two cars will start at the front of their respective classes in tomorrow’s race starting at 1:00 in the afternoon.

Qualifying at Virginia International Raceway saw the top eight GTD machines separated by just three-tenths of a second with Misha Goikhberg closing out the session eighth in the No. 57 Heinricher Racing with Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 for Saturday’s Michelin GT Challenge.

The two Porsche 911 RSR will take up round five of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from the first grid row. During the qualifying on the Virginia International Raceway (USA), Frenchman Frédéric Makowiecki clocked the best time in the No. 911 car. His works driver teammate Laurens Vanthoor from Belgium planted the No. 912 vehicle on the second grid spot. The Porsche GT Team gave an all-round impressive performance. In the notoriously competitive GTLM class (GT Le Mans), the 515-hp racers from Weissach held a lead of more than half a second over their strong rivals. At this IMSA event, only the two GT classes are contested. The faster prototypes do not race at Virginia this weekend.

WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Toni Vilander (Kankaanpää, Finland) will start the IMSA WeatherTech Championship Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) from seventh in GTD.

A very wet and rainy day one at Virginia International Raceway saw the No. 86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 of Mario Farnbacher and Matt McMurry only post 27 laps ahead of the Friday evening qualifying session. Making his third qualifying run of the 2020 IMSA season, McMurry put the No. 86 Acura in fourth for the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR on Saturday. With rain forecasted for the first day of on-track activity at Virginia International Raceway the morning practice session was the only opportunity for Farnbacher and McMurry to get a feel for the Acura NSX GT3 under somewhat dry conditions.

BMW Team RLL qualified third and sixth in the GTLM class for tomorrow’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Michelin GT Challenge race at VIRginia International Raceway, in Alton, Virginia. Connor De Phillippi qualified the No. 25 BMW M8 GTE in the third starting position with a 1:41.095-minute lap, only .706 seconds behind the pole-winning Porsche. De Phillippi and co-driver Bruno Spengler stand sixth in GTLM driver points. With a 1:41.716-minute lap, John Edwards will start the No. 24 BMW M8 GTE from the sixth position tomorrow. Edwards and co-driver Jesse Krohn, the third-place finishers at Road America and two of the four BMW Team RLL quartet that won the 2020 Rolex 24 At Daytona, stand fourth in GTLM driver points.

Henrique Chaves arrives at the stage where he debuted in the GT world – Paul Ricard, France – in the lead of International GT Open standings and will work hard to open his advantage in the second season’s event.

At round five of the IMSA SportsCar Championship at the Virginia International Raceway, the Porsche GT Team will field two 911 RSR in the GTLM class. As the two faster prototype classes will not be contested on the 5.263-kilometre racetrack, the sports car manufacturer will fight for overall victory for the first time in this IMSA season. Last year, Porsche scored a one-two result on the tradition-steeped North American circuit. One customer squad joins the two ca. 515-hp factory-run RSR racers from Weissach on the grid for the race over two hours and 40 minutes: Wright Motorsports campaigns a Porsche 911 GT3 R in the GTD category.

Nielsen Racing is delighted to confirm that team regulars Tony Wells and Garett Grist will be joined at the 88th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans by Alex Kapadia at the wheel of the #24 Oreca Gibson. For the British-based team, the September 19-20 event will mark their debut in the blue riband event, having earned the entry by winning the Asian Le Mans Series in February.

BMW Team RLL hopes to keep the podium momentum, a third-place finish at Road America in the last round of the 2020 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, at this Saturday’s Michelin GT Challenge at VIR. VIRginia International Raceway, in Alton, Virginia, is one of North America’s oldest natural terrain road racing courses. Featuring cars in the GTLM and GTD classes, the two-hour-and-forty-minute Michelin GT Challenge was the site of the first win and double-podium finish for the BMW M8 GTE program in 2018.

WeatherTech Racing drivers Cooper MacNeil (Hinsdale, Ill.) and Toni Vilander (Kankaanpää, Finland) are heading to Virginia International Raceway (VIR) for the IMSA WeatherTech Championship Michelin GT Challenge, August 21-23.