Heylen Paces Opening Practice at Sonoma

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Jan Heylen led the way in the first official practice for this weekend’s Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season opening rounds at Sonoma Raceway.

Heylen took his Pro-Am class No. 45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R to a quick lap of 1:36.911 to edge out the No. 9 TR3 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Daniel Morad by 0.079 seconds.

The No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen was third overall and the quickest of the Pro class competitors, followed by the No. 91 DXDT Racing Mercedes of Corey Lewis in fourth.

Wright’s previous-generation Type-991.2 Porsche, driven by Elliott Skeer, completed the top five overall, with ST Racing’s BMW M4 GT3 and the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 in sixth and seventh, respectively.

The No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche of Trenton Estep, which wound up eighth, topped the time charts early in the 60-minute session that started in damp conditions and saw limited track action.

Seventeen of the 18 cars recorded representative times in the session, with only the No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes completing numerous in and out laps.

The second and final practice session of the day is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. PT.

RESULTS: Practice 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