Championships at Play Entering Crucial Sebring Weekend

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Championship battles are coming into focus as Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS heads into its penultimate event of the year this weekend at Sebring International Raceway.

A total of 14 cars are set to do battle in the pair of 90-minute races, with Pro and Pro-Am honors still up for grabs.

While Conquest Racing’s Manny Franco and Alessandro Balzan swept the weekend last time out at Road America, the RS1 pairing of Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer hold point in the Pro championship, with a 19-point lead over Racers Edge Motorsports’ Ashton Harrison and Mario Farnbacher.

A total of 100 points, between the two races at Sebring and the double-points paying Indianapolis 8 Hour finale, are still to play for in the final three rounds of the season.

The Pro-Am title fight has narrowed to a 17-point gap between CrowdStrike by Riley’s George Kurtz and Colin Braun and the Wright Motorsports duo of Elliott Skeer and Adam Adelson, after Kurtz and Braun scored only two points in Race 2 at Road America after Kurtz got collected in an accident triggered by Paul Kiebler, who has been placed on a two-race suspension.

Derek DeBoer, who is third in the points standings, will welcome back Ross Gunn as his co-driver this weekend, replacing Valentin Hasse-Clot, who has been at the wheel of the No. 007 TRG Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for the majority of the season.

The No. 33 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of Ryan Dalziel and Justin Wetherill, meanwhile, returns to action after missing the Road America round, although the No. 16 ACI Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R is set to sit out its second consecutive event.

Neither TR3 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo is entered this weekend, nor partial season competitors Esses Racing and GMG Racing, which had both not planned to contest the Sebring event.

Official track action kicks off on Friday with a pair of practice sessions, followed by qualifying on Saturday morning and the first of two races set for 3:05 p.m. EDT on Saturday. Race 2 gets underway Sunday at 1:45 p.m., both of which will be streamed live on SRO’s GT World YouTube page.

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