Hindman, Pumpelly Take Race 1 Win for RS1

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Trent Hindman and Spencer Pumpelly took top overall honors in the first Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS race of the weekend at Sebring International Raceway.

Hindman drove the No. 85 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R to a 0.789-second victory over the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Elliott Skeer in the 90-minute race, which ran without a full-course caution.

Having started second overall on the 12-car grid, Pumpelly put initial pressure on Philip Ellis in the pole-sitting No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo but ultimately dropped nearly 15 seconds behind the Mercedes-AMG factory driver over the course of the stint.

Hindman took over the overall lead from Ellis’ co-driver Jeff Burton, who was on a reverse Pro-Am driver strategy, with 26 minutes to go in the race and stabilized his lead over Skeer.

Burton dropped to a fifth place overall finish, third in the Pro-Am class, behind the class-winning No. 38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen.

It came despite the BMW having overcome a 4.28-second post-race time penalty for having too short of a pit stop.

The No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg finished second in Pro-Am and fourth overall, followed by the No. 28 ST BMW of Bill Auberlen and Varun Choksey, who completed the Pro class podium with a sixth place overall finish.

Racers Edge Motorsports’ Zach Veach and Luca Mars came home seventh overall and fourth in Pro, followed by GMG Racing’s Pro-Am pairing of Tom Sargent and Kyle Washington.

The No. 04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG rebounded from an early race drive-through penalty due to a race start violation for George Kurtz to finish ninth overall and fifth in Pro-Am with Colin Braun taking it to the checkered flag.

Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Andy Lee and Elias Sabo completed the overall top-ten in their No. 8 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.

The highly anticipated SRO debut for the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R ended early when Scott Smithson and the No. 50 Chouest-Povoledo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Ross Chouest collided in the early running, sending both to the pits with damage.

Smithson was handed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

Race 2 is scheduled for Sunday at 11:15 a.m. EDT, with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube page and on Twitch.

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