ACI’s Baltas Quickest on Thursday at Sonoma

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Yves Baltas topped the time charts following two practice sessions for this weekend’s pair of season opening Pirelli GT4 America races at Sonoma Raceway.

Baltas, in the No. 7 ACI Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport, laid down a benchmark 1:42.133 in his Silver class entry late in Thursday’s second session, outpacing the No. 94 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO of Kenton Koch by 0.230 seconds.

While Koch still led Pro-Am, it was a late flyer by Westin Workman who put his No. 68 RAFA Racing Team Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 third on the overall time charts and second in Silver.

It demoted Tyler McQuarrie’s No. 38 BimmerWorld BMW to fourth and the Luca Mars-pedaled No. 028 RS1 Porsche to fifth.

Matheus Leist was sixth quickest in the No. 47 Nolasport Porsche, in a last-lap improvement that bumped the No. 98 Random Vandals BMW of Josh Green to eighth.

James Clay led the way in the Am class in his No. 36 BimmerWorld BMW, thanks to a 1:42.880 lap time.

Nearly all of the times from Practice 2 were quicker than the opening session. Both sessions ran without any red flags stoppages.

While the No. 21 ACI BMW of brothers Michael and Alex Garcia did not set a time in either session, the No. 33 Blackdog Racing McLaren missed the majority of the opening practice as the team replaced an alternator belt.

Michael Cooper promptly set the session’s third quickest time once on track.

Qualifying is on tap for Friday at 10:40 a.m. PST (1:40 p.m. EST), followed by Race 1 of the weekend at 1:55 p.m. PST (4:55 p.m. EST) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch.

RESULTS: Practice 1/Practice 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