Pintos, Schmidt Take Last-Gasp Saturday Victory at Sonoma

Photo: Dan Bathie/McLaren

Tommy Pintos and Spencer Schmidt emerged victorious in Saturday’s opening round of the McLaren Trophy America season following a late-race caution and restart at Sonoma Raceway.

Pintos, in the No. 11 RWE Motorsport McLaren Artura Trophy EVO, passed the pole-sitting No. 8 Forte Racing entry of Kaia Teo on the restart with two minutes to go and held off a hard-charging Patrick Liddy for overall honors.

It came after the No. 74 RWE McLaren of Sam Neser appeared set to take a commanding victory in the race until suffering a suspected right-rear puncture that led to the race’s only yellow with six minutes to go.

Teo inherited the lead but came under heavy pressure from the top contenders on the green, white, checkered restart and ultimately dropped to a fifth place overall result and second in the Pro class in the car that led the early stages in the hands of co-driver Paul Holton.

Liddy and co-driver Tanner Harvey took the Pro class win with the second place overall result, 0.513 seconds behind Pro-Am and outright winner Pintos.

The No. 22 Greystone GT McLaren of Oliver Webb and Ryan James finished third overall and second in Pro-Am, with the late yellow benefiting the British squad after an early spin by James.

Cooper Broll, in his first race as a solo driver, picked up the win in the Am category, finishing fourth overall in his No. 100 Forte entry, while the pair of GMG Racing McLarens bounced back to finish sixth and seventh overall.

It came after a spin by Deniz Teoman in the No. 5 GMG entry on Lap 3.

Holton held command of the 50-minute contest from pole, extending his lead to as much as three seconds over the No. 74 RWE McLaren of James Li prior to the mid-race pit stop, that saw Li’s co-driver, Neser, take the lead until suffering late-race misfortune.

Neser and Li finished last in the 16-car field.

Race 2 is set for Sunday at 9:50 a.m. PST (12:50 p.m. EST) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World and McLaren’s YouTube channels.

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