Jason Daskalos Wins Sonoma GT America Race No. 1

CRP Racing/Daskalos Motorsports’ Jason Daskalos led flag-to-flag from pole Saturday (April 6) to win GT America powered by AWS Race No. 1 from Sonoma Raceway. It is the second straight year that Daskalos has won the GT America season opener, having pulled off the feat last year on the Streets of St. Petersburg.

Daskalos’ margin of victory was 4.306 seconds over the Audi of SKI Autosports’ Johnny O’Connell. CrowdStrike Racing by Riley’s George Kurtz was third, then GMG Racing’s James Sofronas was fourth on the road.

In the closing laps, Sofronas was battling for fourth against Turner Motorsport’s Justin Rothberg for fourth. With three minutes to go, contact was made in turn 7, resulting in Rothberg spinning out.

Sofronas was hit with a drive-through penalty for the incident. Since the penalty was assessed after the checkered flag came out, it was converted to a time penalty.

As a result, that dropped Sofronas from fourth to eighth. As a result, Mishumotors’ Mirco Schultis was credited with fourth, while Chouest-Povoledo Raicng’s Ross Chouest was fifth.

Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Elias Sabo was fastest in practice Saturday morning, but chose to withdraw from GT America in order to focus on Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS. As a result, Daskalos started from the overall pole in his Mercedes-AMG GT3.

The start was a bit ragged. Tim Savage hit the wall on the frontstretch before even reaching the start-finish line, while Sofronas nearly went off-course in his Audi.

CrowdStrike Racing by Riley’s George Kurtz was able to get past Johnny O’Connell on the first lap to take second, then immediately pressured Daskalos for the lead. Daskalos was able to hold off Kurtz until they approached the rear of the GT4 field. The slower traffic allowed Daskalos to pull away again.

Kurtz was eventually able to get all the way back up to Daskalos’ rear bumper before he faded greatly in the closing laps. That allowed O’Connell to take second away.

While Kurtz dropping gave Daskalos a decent lead, he did not back off at all. He turned in the fastest second sector of the race on the final lap en route to victory.

TPC Racing’s Aaron Farhadi started on the GT2 pole in his Lamborghini. He was able to take advantage of Savage’s issues to put the Aston Martin between himself and his immediate competitors.

The race for GT2 essentially ended nine minutes into the race. Farhadi had a six-second lead, while Alan Grossberg and Brent Holden collided and spun in turn 7 while fighting for second. Holden was judged to be responsible for the incident and had to serve a drive-through penalty.

Farhadi was easily able to hold on in his Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 to take the lead. He was 84.126 seconds ahead of Holden at the finish.

In GT4 action, Rotek Racing’s Isaac Sherman started on pole in his Porsche. Sherman was able to control the race from the front while ACI Motorsports’ Curt Swearingin was able to move up to second.

Sherman slowly pulled away from the field during the race while Swearingin fell into the clutches of The Heart of Racing’s Gray Newell and Archangel Motorsports’ Todd Coleman.

Newell was able to get past Swearingin with Coleman in tow. However, neither of the Aston Martin drivers could do anything to prevent Sherman from taking his first career win.

The margin of victory was 8.07 seconds over The Heart of Racing’s Gray Newell. Archangel Motorsports’ Todd Coleman was third, then Swearingin and Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Todd Parriott.

GT America Powered by AWS: Sonoma Race No. 1 Results

The fastest lap of the race was set by Sofronas at 94.778 mph. That earns Sofronas the overall pole for Race No. 2. That event is scheduled for 11:55 a.m. ET Sunday morning and will be streamed on the GT World YouTube channel.