Tommy Milner and Alec Udell picked up their fifth consecutive Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS victory, continuing their undefeated streak in the Pro class Saturday at Road America.
Milner took over the overall lead of the race from the No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jeff Burton with 38 minutes to go and stretched out to a lead over Zach Veach, who came home second in the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22.
It came despite a late-race yellow for the No. 28 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Varun Choksey, who ran out of fuel on track, and set up a five-minute shootout to the finish that saw Veach initially challenge Milner but cross the line 0.771 seconds behind.
Veach’s co-driver Luca Mars charged to the lead of the race at the 30-minute mark but the car lost time in the pits during the driver change with an issue with their seat insert that initially put them out of contention until the late-race yellow.
The No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Elliott Skeer and Adam Adelson completed the overall and Pro class podium in third, despite having a slow pit stop to tear off the car’s damaged diffuser, which appeared to give Skeer an advantage in straight line speed afterwards.
Robby Foley, meanwhile, passed Burton for the Pro-Am class lead and eventual win with two laps to go, moments after Burton’s Mercedes-AMG nearly spun and dropped down the running order.
It came after Burton’s co-driver Philip Ellis started from the rear of the 15-car starting field due to a technical infringement in qualifying and moved into the lead during the pit stop sequence.
Foley shared top class honors in his No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW with Justin Rothberg, who rebounded from an early race spin.
The No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche of Tom Sargent and Kyle Washington finished second in Pro-Am after a late-race battle between the Australian and the No. 92 MMG Porsche of Kyle Marcelli, who completed the class podium with fellow countryman Jean-Frederic Laberge in his Fanatec GT America debut.
Am class honors went to the No. 19 Esses Racing Mercedes-AMG of Will Hardeman and Alan Metni, which finished seventh overall after running as high as fourth in the early stages of the race that was marred by a series of early race pit stops and penalties.
It included an opening lap spin by the debuting No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW of Madison Snow, which collected Bryson Morris’ No. 08 DXDT Corvette in Turn 3 and brought out the race’s first yellow.
Bill Auberlen in the No. 28 ST BMW was served with a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
Race 2 for Fanatec GT America gets underway on Sunday at 2:15 p.m. CDT, with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel and on Twitch.
RESULTS: Race 1