Alex Job Racing took home the GT Daytona win at the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic round of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship, held at Belle Isle on Saturday. Ian James and Mario Farnbacher‘s #23 Porsche 911 GT America was the fastest car in the field and made a good weekend for AJR even better.
Shortly after the start of the race, Porsche and Alex Job Racing announced that the first two Porsche 911 GT3 Rs have been ordered for their 2016 USCC GTD effort.
Ian James pitted from 6th early in the race. The first full-course caution occurred one lap later, and co-driver Mario Farnbacher inherited the lead when the other drivers pitted. He led the remainder of the race.
“When I took the car from Ian, I tried to keep my pace up,” commented Mario Farnbacher. “Then the yellow came out, and it was actually a very long yellow. There was oil in the track and it was the right decision to clean the track. After a few laps I had a bit of the lead and could concentrate on the lead and my driving style so that was good. The second yellow came out and I thought the lead was over, but the Aston was not catching up, so I was driving my style until the second to last yellow when it started to rain. I was actually pretty slow in the wet, I’m still working on getting up and running, I was going so slow.”
In second place would be the #007 TRG-AMR Aston Martin Vantage of Christina Nielsen and James Davison, with the latter finishing the race just 2.679 seconds behind the winning Porsche.
Starting from pole, the #48 Paul Miller Racing (Dion von Moltke / Christopher Haase) Audi R8 LMS dropped back to third, but set the fastest GTD lap.
Whilst it looked as if the #33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT GT3-R (Ben Keating / Jeroen Bleekemolen) would be a contender for the win, it had to retire on lap 22 after a mechanical issue.
Townsend Bell and Bill Sweedler‘s #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia looked sure of taking the final podium position until it was hit by Jordan Taylor‘s Prototype car.
The next race for the GT Daytona class will be the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen on June 28, at Watkins Glen, NY.
