Chouest Scores Maiden GT3 Win in Second Sonoma Round

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

Ross Chouest held off Johnny O’Connell to score his first victory in GT3 competition in only his third start following Sunday’s action-packed GT America powered by AWS round at Sonoma Raceway.

Chouest took his No. 50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to a narrow 0.550-second win over the No. 3 SKI Autosports Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of O’Connell in a dramatic start and finish to the 40-minute contest.

Contact between the pole-sitting No. 14 GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of James Sofronas and George Kurtz’s No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG on the opening lap led to a partial spin by Sofronas and a drive-through penalty for Kurtz.

The incident opened the door for Chouest and the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Justin Rothberg to jump into the leading positions ahead of O’Connell and Race 1 winner Jason Daskalos in the No. 27 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG.

However, Rothberg was turned around by Daskalos while battling through GT4 traffic in the closing ten minutes, which opened the door for O’Connell to move into second and Sofronas to complete the podium in third.

Daskalos, meanwhile, served a drive-through for incident responsibility, initially promoting the No. 32 GMG Porsche 911 GT3 R of Kyle Washington to fourth and Mirco Schultis’ Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R to fifth.

However, both of those cars came together on the final lap, promoting Kurtz to a fourth place finish despite his early race penalty.

Schultis was penalized for incident responsibility, while Washington was credited with a fifth place result in the SRO3 class.

Aaron Farhadi scored a sweep of the weekend in GT2 with his No. 127 TPC Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 after issues for the No. 44 GMG Mercedes-AMG GT2 of Brent Holden, who led early on.

TPC teammate Alan Grossberg finished second in class in his No. 102 Lamborghini.

GT4 class honors again went to the No. 098 Rotek Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport of Issac Sherman, who also picked up the win on Saturday.

The No. 69 Archangel Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT4 of Todd Coleman finished second in class, with Gray Newell completing the class podium in his No. 25 Heart of Racing Team Aston.

RESULTS: Race 2

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