R. Ferri Beats Alegra to Race 1 Win at Portland

Photo: Brian Cleary/PWC

Toni Vilander and Miguel Molina extended their championship lead by winning the first GT race of the Pirelli World Challenge weekend at Portland on Saturday afternoon.

The R. Ferri Motorsport drivers secured their fourth SprintX win of the season by passing the Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R in the pit stops.

Molina’s No. 61 Ferrari 488 GT3 exited the pits just ahead of Spencer Pumpelly’s Porsche after Michael Christensen had led the opening stint of the race from pole position.

The Spanish driver remained out front for the rest of the 60-minute race to win by 1.5 seconds.

All other Pro entries had problems and dropped back at various stages in the race, including both K-PAX Racing Bentley Continental GT3s and the CRP Racing and Pfaff Motorsports cars.

Alvaro Parente crashed his K-PAX Bentley early on, bringing out the full course caution for seven minutes, while a mechanical issue in the No. 3 car took Rodrigo Baptista and Maxime Soulet out of the race.

Daniel Morad ran in third behind Christensen and Vilander during the first stint but a slow stop pushed his CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 down the field with Matt Brabham ultimately finishing seventh.

Pfaff Motorsports’ Scott Hargrove and Wolf Henzler were denied a strong result after being given a drive-through penalty for failing to meet the minimum pit stop time.

Dalziel Holds off Segal for Pro-Am Win, Third Overall

Ryan Dalziel survived a late-race charge from Jeff Segal to secure the Pro-Am class win and third position overall for himself and co-driver Parker Chase.

The TruSpeed Autosport drivers led the class from start-to-finish after Chase started from sixth overall in their No. 19 Audi R8 LMS GT3.

Segal settled for second in Pro-Am and fourth overall in the TR3 Racing-run Ferrari he shares with Wei Lu.

They benefitted from the problems had by several Pro class competitors including Parente and the CRP and Pfaff cars.

Caesar Bacarella and Martin Fuentes continued their domination of the Am class to come out on top in the three-car all-Bronze field.

Molina set the fastest lap to secure pole for Sunday’s Race 2, which is scheduled to get underway at 2:25 p.m. PT.

RESULTS: Race 1

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.