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GT World Challenge America

Parente/Soucek Bentley Scores Second Win of Season

Lights-to-flag victory for Parente/Soucek at CTMP; Canadian Acura wins Pro-Am…

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO America

Alvaro Parente and Andy Soucek claimed their second Blancpain GT World Challenge America win of the season with a commanding drive at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

The K-PAX Racing duo, driving the No. 9 Bentley Continental GT3, moved to within a point of championship leaders Toni Vilander and Miguel Molina who finished second in the No. 61 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3.

Pole-sitter Parente led through the opening stint but Vilander steadily cut down the Bentley’s advantage before the pair pitted less than half a second apart with 40 minutes of the 90-minute race remaining.

A quicker stop from the K-PAX crew handed Parente’s co-driver Soucek a two-second leg up to Molina in the Ferrari, which ballooned to as much as seven seconds before contracting to a 3.374-second margin at the finish.

Molina was initially forced to defend from Rodrigo Baptista in the sister No. 3 Bentley after a fast driver swap brought the Brazilian within reach of the Ferrari factory driver.

But Molina eked out a six-second gap as the race wore on to secure the second podium spot after he and Vilander won Saturday’s race to seize the championship lead

Baptista’s co-driver Maxime Soulet ran fourth during the opening stint behind Porsche factory asset Dennis Olsen in the No. 91 Wright Motorsports Porsche, but the Bentley jumped ahead in the pits.

The all-Pro lineups came to the fore in the second stint with Patrick Long moving up to fourth in the No. 58 Wright Porsche started by Scott Hargrove.

Dane Cameron and last-minute substitute Trent Hindman scored a fifth-place finish in the RealTime Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo after starting from the back of the 13-car grid.

Hindman made up a handful of positions in the opening stanza to put Cameron seventh overall after the pit cycle, before the two-time IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar champion moved ahead of two Pro-Am cars to reach the top five.

The two Alegra Motorsports Porsches ended up a lap down in sixth and seventh, with Wolf Henzler bringing the No. 24 car home ahead of Daniel Morad in the No. 22.

Canadian Pairing Wins to Extend Pro-Am Points Edge

Racers Edge Motorsports drivers Martin Barkey and Kyle Marcelli bolstered their lead in the Pro-Am class championship with their third win of the season.

Their No. 80 Acura was running third after the driver changes before Barkey moved into second with 23 minutes to go when he overtook David Askew in the No. 63 DXDT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.

At the same time, leader Anthony Imperato brought the No. 91 Wright Porsche in for an unscheduled stop to rectify a fuel rig issue left over from the team’s mandatory service.

This left Barkey clear to take the win along with Marcelli by 11 seconds from Askew, who took over from Ryan Dalziel.

Imperato completed the class podium and was right on Askew’s tail at the finish after making up some of the time lost through his car’s extra stop.

George Kurtz came through in fourth in the No. 04 DXDT Racing Mercedes started by Colin Braun, while Race 1 winners Marc Miller and Till Bechtolsheimer finished third with their No. 5 Gradient Racing Acura.

After finishing unclassified on Saturday, the Turner Motorsports Am-class BMW M6 GT3 of Takuya Shirasaka and Naoto Takeda completed Sunday’s race, two laps down on the overall winner.

RESULTS: CTMP Race 2

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

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