Filgueiras, Edwards Claim Sonoma Poles

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Eric Filgueiras and John Edwards have scored pole positions for this weekend’s pair of Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season opening rounds at Sonoma Raceway.

Filgueiras, in his GT3 debut, recorded a 1:37.026 lap time in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R to outpace the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Type-991.2 Porsche of Adam Adelson by 0.669 seconds in a red flag-impacted Q1.

An off for Anthony Bartone in the lone Am class entry early in the 15-minute session resulted in a four-minute shootout to the checkered flag, which saw competitors only get one or two flying laps.

It resulted in a jumbled qualifying order for this afternoon’s first race of the season, with Pro and Pro-Am cars all mixed within the top-ten overall.

Chandler Hull qualified his No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 in third, followed by George Kurtz’s No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and the No. 14 GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of James Sofronas, who completed the top-five.

Seth Lucas was sixth in the No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche, ahead of Will Hardeman’s Esses Racing Mercedes and the Samantha Tan-driven ST Racing BMW in eighth.

Q2 saw BMW factory driver Edwards reel off a 1:35.237 to put ST Racing on pole for Sunday’s 90-minute round.

Edwards edged out Colin Braun, in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes, by 0.355 seconds, with Daniel Morad set to start third in the No. 9 TR3 Racing Mercedes.

The No. 120 Wright Porsche of Elliott Skeer was fourth, with Mario Farnbacher fifth overall and the Pro class pole-sitter in the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22.

Race 1 gets underway at 3:05 p.m. PT (6:05 p.m. ET) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube page and its Twitch channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying 1/Qualifying 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