Westphal, McAlister Team Up in Carbahn with Peregrine Porsche

Photo: Phil Abbott/IMSA

Carbahn with Peregrine Racing will focus its sports car racing efforts on IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and VP Racing SportsCar Challenge this year, with the new season-long pairing of Jeff Westphal and Sean McAlister in the GS class and Mark Siegel and Sameer Gandhi splitting driving duties in VP Challenge.

The California-based team announced Thursday that 2019 Pilot Challenge GS champion Westphal will make his full season return to team up with McAlister in the No. 39 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport. The duo will be joined by Nolan Siegel for the two long-distance races at Daytona International Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“As we embark on the sixth year of Carbahn with Peregrine Racing in IMSA, I am particularly looking forward to the new challenge of getting acquainted with our Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport and diving back into the depths of the IMPC GS field,” said Westphal, who previously spearheaded the team’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD class effort.

“The series has stellar car counts, and has created some of my more fond memories behind the wheel due to the proximity of the cars at all times during the race. This team is, and has proven to be, a force in any championship we compete in and I credit that to our owners and engineers for demanding excellence.”

McAllister, meanwhile, moves from fellow Porsche squad Team Hardpoint, where he teamed with Nick Galante in the 2022 season.

“I’m extremely excited to be joining Peregrine Racing for a full season of IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge,” McAlister said. “I’m also thrilled to be joining Jeff Westphal, my coach for the first six years of my career and good friend, in this effort for a run at the championship.

“We’ve had success in the past when we first drove together in an endurance race, the California 8 Hours at Laguna Seca, and he’s helped develop my driving to what it is today.”

Team founders Mark Siegel and Gandhi, meanwhile, will share driving duties of the No. 93 Porsche in VP Challenge, the new-for-2023 single-driver sprint race series.

Siegel is set to kick off the season next weekend at Daytona.

“We’re taking on a new challenge this season, running the Porsche in two different series,” he said. “Jeff Westphal and Sean McAlister will have their eyes on the IMPC Championship, which we hope to reclaim after our win in 2019, and Sameer and myself will be driving in the VP Series against a competitive field of other gentleman drivers.

“We had last season to learn the new car, and I’m confident that this year we’ll be able to keep it at the pointy end of the field.”

Gandhi added: “Even though we won’t be driving on the same weekends, Mark and I have been driving together since the beginning of this team and I’m very comfortable sharing the car with him in the VP Racing sprint series this year.”

The team’s WeatherTech Championship program, in which it campaigned a Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo last season, has been discontinued.

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