Davis Takes First Career Win in Hard-Fought Sebring Race 1

Photo: Andrew Miterko/SRO

Tony Davis took a first career victory in Race 1 of the GT America powered by AWS weekend at Sebring, bringing an end to Memo Gidley’s dominant run of wins at the beginning of the season.

The former Ferrari Challenge North America champion crossed the line to win in his No. 04 HP-TECH Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, just 0.742 seconds ahead of Gidley in the No. 56 SKI Autosports Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

Gidley, who has won every race of the season thus far, finished just 0.474 seconds ahead of Kyle Washington in the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo.

Davis’ hard-fought win came after a race-long battle with SRO3 points leader Gidley.

He led from pole position, maintaining a lead as Gidley fought with Washington in the No. 32 Porsche.

Gidley overtook Washington to take second place early on. The leading duo pulled away from the rest of the field and Gidley remained on Davis’ tail for much of the first half of the race.

Former IndyCar driver Gidley chipped away at Davis’ advantage, even making several unsuccessful lunges for the lead.

However, Washington began to improve his pace throughout the race, having set a fastest lap of 2:03.803, and gained on the leading pair and join the battle for victory in the final quarter of the competition.

He came within a second of overtaking Gidley for second place, but was unable to get past the No. 56 Audi.

Chouest Povoledo Racing’s Ross Chouest overtook Mirco Schultis in the No. 70 Misumotors Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R early on, maintaining his fourth place position for the rest of the race.

Marc Muzzo completed the top five in the SR03 category in his No. 013 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari.

The GT4 class win went to Jason Bell’s No. 2 Aston Martin Vantage GT4 in his return to series competition.

David Lecko claimed victory in the Cup class in his RacingSupport Ginetta GTP8.

Lawrence Tomlinson returned to race at Sebring for the first time in two decades to debut the Ginetta G56 GT2 in SRO America competition. The Ginetta chairman finished in 15th overall in the No. 62 Dollahite Racing machine as the only GT2 class car in the field.

The second 40-minute race of the weekend will get underway at 10:10 a.m. EST on Sunday, with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch.

RESULTS: Race 1 

Finlay Ringer

Finlay Ringer is a freelance motorsport journalist covering the 24H Series for Sportscar365. He is also a journalism student at City St George's, University of London, and has contributed to publications such as The Race and Autocar.