Parente OK After Massive Race-Ending Crash

Alvaro Parente has escaped serious injury following a massive accident in the closing stages of Sunday’s second round of the Pirelli World Challenge GT season in St. Pete.

The former series champion made heavy contact with barriers in the Turn 10 runoff area after a suspected failure to his K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3 on the high-speed back-straight.

Parente climbed from the car, which landed on top of a pile of tire barriers, under his own power and was evaluated and released from the trackside medical center.

It’s understood the Portuguese driver was complaining of some pain in his ribs, but was otherwise fine.

The accident, with 12 minutes remaining, brought an early end to the the race, which was won by the No. 96 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Scott Hargrove, who swept the weekend in his PWC debut.

Substantial front-end chassis damage was sustained to the Bentley, meanwhile.

The team released the following statement:

Team statement regarding incident in the second round of @WCRacing Sprint GT competition at @GPSTPETE: pic.twitter.com/mcMxHQojUq

— K-PAX Racing (@KPAXracing) March 11, 2018

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