Sargent: Fourth Place Gold Finish in Spa Debut “Mind-Blowing”

Photo: JEP/SRO

Tom Sargent said claiming a fourth place class finish in both Wright Motorsports and all three drivers’ CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa debuts is “mind-blowing” after a flawlessly-executed race for the Ohio-based squad in its first overseas outing.

Sargent, a Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver, and co-pilots Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer finished 16th overall in the stacked 74-car starting grid for the Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup enduro.

What’s more, they scored IGTC points for the German manufacturer after being the second-highest finishing Porsche 911 GT3 R.

The No. 120 entry narrowly missed out on a podium finish in the Gold Cup class, coming just one lap away from the third place-finishing No. 111 CSA McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, in a category that largely utilized four-driver lineups.

“It’s weird because you feel a little bit disappointed at the moment because we were close to getting a podium,” Sargent told Sportscar365.

“But ultimately if we look back at it and we thought that we were going to actually finish the race.

“Before we started the race, we wanted to finish, let alone finish where were did is just mind-blowing.

“We’re super excited. It’s crazy to think we just did what we just did.

“We came from America; we’ve never been to the track before; none of us had ever seen this event, with a driver combination of a Silver-Silver-Gold in a Gold class, with three drivers, is mind-blowing.

“I’m super proud of the team and super happy with Adam and Elliott. They drove amazing all 24 hours.

“If a few little things went our way, we would have probably been on the podium. But that’s motor racing.”

The U.S.-based Australian, who dovetails his endurance role with Wright alongside a full-season campaign in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS with GMG Racing, said the team faced no issues or setbacks in the race.

“I can’t think of anything that went wrong,” said Sargent. “The team executed [26] absolute mint pit stops, everything with the driver changes.

“The car probably wasn’t the fastest on track; we didn’t quite have anything for Aston and the McLaren. But we showed what we could.

“For never being here before, I think that’s pretty cool.”

Adelson: Spa Debut Was “Unimaginably Difficult” But Rewarding

Wright team owner/driver Adelson, meanwhile, characterized his and the team’s maiden run at Spa-Francorchamps as being one the most “mentally and physically grueling and challenging” experience he’s ever taken on.

“For us we came into this as a learning experience,” he told Sportscar365. “There aren’t many 24-hour races that I envision us doing with a three-driver lineup to practice for hopefully Le Mans one day.

“Spa has been my favorite track since I became interested in motorsport. I’ve always wanted to race here.

“The prestige of the Spa 24 is just unbelievable. It’s one of the major 24-hour races in the world. It was just the most insane race I could ever dreamt of.

“It was unimaginably difficult. Everybody always says this is the hardest 24-hour race and I just didn’t understand what that meant really.

“It’s not something that I don’t think anyone can understand until you participate in it. It’s the most mentally and physically grueling and challenging experience that I think I’ve ever had.

“To come away in fourth place in Gold, the second Porsche on the road, with two Silvers and a Gold, I just couldn’t be more proud of the whole team effort.

“Not enough can be said about how amazing the whole Wright Motorsports crew is.”

Adelson paid tribute to the team, which completed back-to-back races on two continents in as many weeks, in what came as a new experience for the majority of the crew.

“We flew straight from Watkins Glen to here and it has been really rough on the team,” he said.

“It’s been rough on everyone. It’s stretched the capacity of many individuals on our team and people have been operating off insanely little amounts of sleep, and everyone still operated flawlessly.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the whole team and my co-drivers. I’m just so happy to have performed the way we did.”

When asked if they plan to return next year, Adelson said: “Absolutely.”

He added: “The fact that we, in our first go-around, we finished fourth, so close to a podium, we’re way more hungry for it now.”

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