COTA Friday Notebook

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

***The now-annual group photo, featuring all cars competing here, across five championships, assembled for a group photo on Thursday evening. Circuit of The Americas marks SRO America’s home event, as many of the series’ staff are based in Austin.

***This weekend is set to be the organization’s largest-ever event, with pre-event ticket sales having already surpassed the previous series attendance record, which came at last year’s Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS.

***An additional change was made to the GT World Challenge America powered by AWS sporting regulations on Friday morning, confirming that each car must now complete a minimum of three pit stops that includes refueling. As previously defined, any pit stop involving fuel requires a 76-second minimum pit stop time, calculated from pit in to pit out.

***This change comes in the wake of the expanded maximum stint length times, revealed earlier this week, from 50 to 65 minutes in order to bring GTWC America in line with the global GTWC sporting regulations, and also eliminate what was a significant fuel advantage for the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo in the opening round at Sonoma Raceway.

***Daniel Morad, who returns to the series in TR3 Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo this weekend, told Sportscar365: “It takes the strategy out. I feel like having less regulations would make it more open. If you just made it more fluid, and just had minimum drive times and just drive, it might be better for strategy. There are so many limitations because some teams may not have the equipment to do short pit stops. I get it, but you’re almost in a box. You’re in a smaller operating window and you can’t get as creative as a team with strategy.”

***Changes in the curbing in parts around the 20-turn, 3.4-mile circuit have also been made since Thursday, with the apex curbs (pyramids) at Turns 3-7, as well as Turn 9 have been reduced in height. “On Thursday, they were the biggest I’ve ever seen around here,” Kenton Koch told Sportscar365. “You had to drive around them. They’ve now removed them and now they’re all the shorter curbs, so we can run over them now. If anything, it’s the exact same curbs as last year now.”

***The debuting Rebel Rock Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Robin Liddell and Frank DePew got limited track time in Friday’s 90-minute test session after sustaining multiple gremlins, including a vibration, front brake issues and an issue with the car’s transponder. Frank DePew, meanwhile, brought a red flag in the closing minutes of the Paid Bronze Driver test after suffering a comprehensive gearbox failure according to Robin Liddell. The team purchased the car from Jason Bell, who ran it with Racers Edge Motorsports last year.

***Morad’s co-driver, Brayton Williams, who started the year with Will Bamber, is coming off a championship title in a seven-round single-make season in BMW M2 Racing cars organized by the Concours Club near Miami, in a stacked field that included the likes of Helio Castroneves, Johnny Herbert and Romain Grosjean.

***TR3’s Mercedes-AMG is the same chassis that RealTime Racing operated the Bartone Racing Bros. entry in 2023. Anthony Bartone has since graduated to GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup competition with GetSpeed and has made starts in the last two Rolex 24 at Daytona races with the German squad as well.

***Longtime RealTime team manager Nathan Bonneau, meanwhile, has moved on to Precision Racing LA this year and has been reunited with Ryan Eversley in the team’s GT4 America Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 entry.

***Porsche’s replacement for the 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport, has been spotted testing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife ahead of its 2027 debut. Photos have surfaced of a Manthey-prepped Porsche 911 GT4, which will become the German manufacturer’s flagship GT4 machine, and is understood to be powered by a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six.

***The decision to go with the 911 GT4 is understood to have been made prior to Porsche’s u-turn on discontinuing the internal combustion engined version of the Cayman, as the platform was originally tabbed to be EV-only.

***Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Tom Sargent, who is coming off a four-race win streak dating back to last month’s season-opener at Sonoma in Pro-Am, followed by LMGT3 class victory in his European Le Mans Series debut at Barcelona, and sweeping the Porsche Carrera Cup North America event at Long Beach last weekend, believes this weekend will be “more challenging” for he and GMG Racing co-driver Kyle Washington.

***Sargent told Sportscar365: “[COTA] was good for us last year but after our dominant run in Sonoma, I don’t know if it’s going to be a favorable appearance for us. Nonetheless, we’ll give it our best. I think the Evo kit is good for us. I don’t think it’s a huge gain in pure lap pace but it makes us a lot more raceable with a lot more driveability for us during the race run. We haven’t really improved one-lap pace. But for sure over a long run, the Evo kit is a very nice upgrade for us.”

***Triarsi Competizione is making its GTWC America return for the first time in nearly three years, when it last ran a Ferrari 296 GT3 for Ryan Dalziel and Justin Wetherill, sporting a unique bagel-inspired livery for Wetherill’s ‘Jeff’s Bagel Run’ shop, in 2023.

***This time around, the Florida-based team is sporting a striking gold-plated livery on its Prancing Horse for drivers Riccardo Agostini and Sebastian Mascaro.  Triasri most recently competed in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship but has scaled back to a Michelin Endurance Cup-only campaign this year.

***GT4 America Silver class points leader Westin Workman, who along with RAFA Racing Team co-driver Tyler Gonzalez swept the opening weekend at Sonoma Raceway, is set for his longest-ever professional race on Saturday, with the reigning Toyota GR Cup North America champion’s only previous endurance experience coming in an eight-hour WRL race.

***Workman told Sportscar365: “We’ll have to do around three to four driver changes. We’ll see how it goes. That will be the longest competitive race that I’ve ever done. Honestly, it will be the hardest race will do all year, just in terms of the length and the strategy behind it. But I’m excited for it.”

***The three-hour enduro is the only GT4 America race of the year where true strategy comes into play for teams. “We know how unpredictable the three-hour GT4 America race can be,” said Blackdog Racing team manager Ray Sorenson. “From a team side, I think we have to be as close to perfect as possible. We have the car and the people to do the job. As long as we go out and do what we know we’re capable of doing, we should be in really good shape.”

***Hampus Ericsson revealed to Sportscar365 that he had been living in the basement of his brother, Marcus, and his wife Iris’ house but is now getting settled into his own townhouse, ten minutes away in Indianapolis, in order to fully commit to his American motorsports dream.

***The 23-year-old Swede, the defending Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America champion, confirmed that his brother, who has made five previous starts at COTA, including a points finish in the 2018 U.S. Formula 1 Grand Prix with Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, arrived at COTA today in a show of support of his younger brother’s racing.

***When asked if Marcus could join himself and Derek DeBoer in the Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO for the season-ending Indianapolis 8 Hour, Hampus said: “That’s our wish. If we can make it happen, it would be amazing. Obviously me and Marcus raced in Sepang at the end of last year, and to do it again would be magic. That would be really fun, me, Marcus and Derek. We’re working on it. The plan is to do it but it’s still a long way to go.”

***Ford Racing’s global single-make manager Chris Ward, who was appointed into a more over-arching role as global customer racing manager late last year, is on-site this weekend for his first SRO America event in his new capacity, amid the continued growth of the Mustang platform in the paddock.

***Ward told Sportscar365: “We can see SRO America being a really great opportunity of growth for us there. We’ve reacted to the market. Historically we haven’t taken our Ford Racing engineering and parts support trailers to the SRO America paddock for every weekend, but we’ve committed to doing that for our customers. I’ve always been a big believer that when you show a presence in the paddock with support trailers, engineers and parts support, it’s a sure-fire way of attracting new customers.”

***This weekend not only marks a home race for Dollahite Racing, which gave the Ford Mustang GT3 EVO its first-ever global podium finish in competition at Sonoma, but also for its new driver Cameron Lawrence, who calls Austin home. “We know that this carries some extra pressure and higher expectations, but after our first podium in Pro at Sonoma, we’re ready to maximize the performance of the Mustang GT3 at COTA,” he said.

***Plans for Scott Dollahite, who has switched to team manager duties for the team’s GTWC America effort, to race this weekend in GT America with the team’s second Mustang, did not materialize. Dollahite told Sportscar365 that he’s now targeting a Road America GTA debut in order to have a proper amount of testing in the summer in preparation for his racing return.

***McCumbee McAleer Racing’s Jenson Altzman, a Ford Racing Driver Development Team member, is coming off his GT4 European Series debut at Paul Ricard earlier this month, having recorded 11th and 9th place finishes in the Silver class alongside fellow Ford development driver Marco Signoretti in an Academy Racing Ford Mustang GT4.

***SRO America hosted the latest edition of its GT Business Forum on Friday at COTA, which focused on how competitors and companies are tackling AI in the paddock. Host Don Ruse was joined by Peter Czimback, an advisory board member for Cielovision, Felipe Parages, PHD, the chief data and AI officer for the RAFA family of companies and Hans Malzar, the head of creator and content partnerships, for the discussion

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John