Travis, Hart Take Nolasport Porsche GT4 To Race 1 Win

Photo: Porsche

Nolasport has claimed victory in the first Pirelli GT4 America SprintX race of the weekend at Circuit of The Americas, following a dominant run by Matt Travis and Jason Hart.

Hart took the No. 47 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport to a 8.226-second win over the No. 77 Park Place Motorsports entry of Trent Hindman following a late-race full-course caution and restart.

It marked the first win in global competition for the new-for-2019 Porsche GT4.

Having starting from pole, Travis bridged out an early lead and held more than 25-second margin to the second-placed No. 36 Andretti Autosport McLaren 570S GT4 of Karl Thomson prior to the race’s one-and-only yellow with 15 minutes to go.

A restart with six minutes left on the clock saw Hart quickly bridge out a gap, thanks to lap traffic from behind, and Thomson fade under pressure from both Hindman’s Porsche GT4 and the No. 89 RENNtech Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Parker Chase.

Hindman, who charged through the field following an opening corner spin by co-driver Alan Brynjolfsson, came home second overall and first in GT4 East.

Chase, meanwhile, held on to the final position on the overall podium and second in GT4 East, in his Mercedes GT4 debut, ahead of Thomson, who shared driving duties of the Andretti Autosport McLaren GT4 with Jarett Andretti.

The pairing, meanwhile, picked up GT4 SprintX Am class honors.

The No. 91 Rearden Racing Audi R8 LMS GT4 of Jeff Burton and Vesko Kozarov completed the top-five overall following a strong early race run by Kozarov, who passed Andretti for second at the time. 

Race 2 for GT4 America SprintX/East/West gets underway Sunday at 10:10 a.m. CT.

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