Daskalos Takes Season-Opening Win at Sonoma

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

Jason Daskalos grabbed the first win of the GT America powered by AWS season following a controlling run in Saturday’s opener at Sonoma Raceway.

Daskalos, who started on pole, overcame an early challenge from George Kurtz to take a flag-to-flag victory in his CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

He finished 4.306 seconds ahead of Johnny O’Connell’s SKI Autosports Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, who passed Kurtz in the final five minutes of the 40-minute contest, which ran caution-free.

Kurtz, in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG, came under attack from O’Connell in the second half of the race, with the former Corvette and Cadillac factory driver capitalizing on an apparent issue for Kurtz.

Justin Rothberg in the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 and James Sofronas’ GMG Racing Audi came together with less than three minutes remaining while battling for fourth, leading to a spin for the GT3 rookie.

Sofronas, who set the race’s fastest lap, dropped to eighth after a post-race time penalty equivalent to a drive-through was assessed for incident responsibility.

It promoted the Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R of Mirco Schultis to fourth, with Ross Chouest fifth in the debuting No. 50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Mercedes-AMG.

Rothberg rebounded to come home sixth ahead of Jason Bell’s Flying Lizard Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

GT2 class honors went to the No. 127 TPC Racing Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 of Aaron Farhadi.

It came after Alan Grossberg and Brent Holden came together while battling for second on Lap 5, with Holden’s No. 44 GMG Mercedes-AMG GT2 served with a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

Rotek Racing’s Issac Sherman, meanwhile, came out on top in GT4 in his series debut, finishing eight seconds ahead of the No. 25 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT4 of Gray Newell in second.

Todd Coleman completed the class podium in his Archangel Motorsports Aston Martin.

The second and final GT America race of the weekend gets underway Sunday at 8:55 a.m. PDT (11:55 a.m. EDT) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube page and on Twitch.

RESULTS: Race 1

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