Ellis, Burton Take Breakthrough Overall Win in Race 2 at VIR

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Philip Ellis and Jeff Burton have claimed a breakthrough overall victory for Regulator Racing in Sunday’s Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS round at Virginia International Raceway.

Ellis, in a charge through the 12-car starting field, got around the No. 63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alec Udell with 11 minutes to go in the 90-minute contest.

The Mercedes-AMG factory driver then bridged out a gap to take the checkered flag by 1.290 seconds over the Pro class-winning Corvette of Udell and co-driver Tommy Milner, who took top overall honors in Saturday’s race.

It marked the first win for Regulator, an offshoot of the David Askew-owned DXDT squad, in Fanatec GT America competition and came in a reverse driver strategy that the team had utilized all season, with mixed results until now.

Milner controlled the first half of the race but a pivotal full-course caution for the No. 50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Mercedes-AMG that stopped on track set up a round of yellow-flag pit stops that resulted in the No. 63 Corvette losing the lead to the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Adam Adelson.

Adelson took the restart in the lead but got passed by Udell with 20 minutes to go, with the Pro class championship leader ultimately getting spun by the No. 28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen in the final ten minutes while battling for second in class.

Auberlen received a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, promoting the No. 85 RS1 Porsche of Spencer Pumpelly and Trent Hindman to second in Pro and third overall, ahead of Luca Mars and Zach Veach’s No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22, which completed the Pro class podium in fourth overall.

The No. 120 Wright Porsche recorded its first non-podium result of the season in fourth, meanwhile.

Second in Pro-Am went to the No. 38 ST Racing BMW of Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen, with DXDT’s Scott Smithson holding off Justin Rothberg for the final podium position in class.

This came despite the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW having pitted one lap later than the competition while under the yellow because Rothberg was in the restroom and not able to take over driving duties from Robby Foley at the time.

Auberlen, meanwhile, rebounded to finish ninth overall, ahead of the No. 19 Esses Racing Mercedes-AMG in tenth overall.

Saturday’s Pro-Am class-winning No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche of Kyle Washington and Tom Sargent came home 11th after being forced to serve a drive-through penalty for a pit lane infringement, which knocked Washington out of the class lead at the time.

RESULTS: Race 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