Round No. 2 of GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Sunday (April 26) in Austin came down to penalties. JMF Motorsports’ Mikael Grenier was hit with two in the final hour. The second was a 10-second post-race penalty that proved costly.
Grenier and Michai Stephens technically won on the road, but the 10-second add-on gave an overall victory to Wright Motorsports’ Dave Musial Jr. and Ryan Yardley. It is the first overall win for both drivers.
“I just found out that we won overall,” Yardley told SRO America’s Amanda Busick after the race. “I knew that we had the class win, but I didn’t know about overall. That’s pretty awesome. Massive credit to Dave in the first stint and to Wright Motorsports for the strategy. Definitely made my life easier.”
For Grenier, he came away from the race rather confused.
“I knew I had a drive-through penalty, but we lost the radio and I could only hear ‘drive-through’ and the [pit] board, so I did it,” Grenier said after the race. “Somebody else on the team told me that we had a 10-second [penalty], which I didn’t understand. It is what it is.”
Yardley and Musial’s margin of victory after the post-race penalties was 4.351 seconds over Grenier and Stephens. Therese Lahlouh and Thomas Merrill were third in their Porsche, followed by Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg. Rennsport One’s Jan Heylen and Juan Pablo Martinez were fifth.
In Pro-Am, Yardley and Musial won by 8.741 seconds over Lahlouh and Merrill. Heylen and Martinez were third, then came GMG Racing’s Tom Sargent and Kyle Washington. Riley Technologies’ Andy Lee and Slade Stewart were fifth in “Sparklefarts.”
Despite the penalties, Grenier and Stephens still won the Pro class by 6.223 seconds over Foley and Rothberg. McCann Racing’s Michael McCann Jr. and Zachary Vanier were third.
JMF Motorsports’ Michai Stephens led the field to green in this race and was able to open up a small gap over AF Corse’s Matias Perez Companc. The gap did not last for long because Dollahite Racing’s Cameron Lawrence suffered an apparent driveshaft failure and stopped on the side of the track. That triggered the race’s first full course yellow.
Lawrence ended up getting towed back to the garage, where work commenced on his Ford Mustang GT3 Evo. He would eventually get back out on track, 12 laps down.
A second full course yellow followed shortly afterward. This was due to a spin for Archangel Motorsports’ Todd Coleman in turn 12 after contact from TR3 Racing’s Brayton Williams. The spin came due to a flat left rear tire. While limping his McLaren 720S GT3 Evo back to the pits, Coleman’s car shed debris onto the track.
The caution more or less resulted in a split strategy in all three classes. In Pro, only Perez Companc chose to stop, but immediately ran into trouble that saw the team working under the rear of the Ferrari.
Stephens led until he made his first stop 33 minutes into the race for tires and fuel. A quick pit stop allowed him to substantially expand his lead in class. It was around three seconds prior to the stops. After? It ballooned to 10.
From there, Stephens slowly caught up to, then dispatched of the Pro-Am teams that were on an alternate pit strategy ahead of him. 70 minutes into the race, he was back up to second overall and 17 seconds ahead of second in class.
The second round of pit stops saw Stephens exit his Mercedes in favor of Grenier. Another quick stop saw the No. 34 Mercedes get back into the lead. What was a 17-second lead in class was now 28.
But what was nearly a perfect race for JMF Motorsports got derailed in the final 50 minutes. First, Grenier cut the course in the Esses and had contact with Rebel Rock Racing’s Frank DePew. That earned the team the post-race penalty.
With a 23-second lead at the time, that would have been OK. However, that wasn’t the only issue.
Around the same time that Grenier had issues with DePew, he had an adverse interaction with Kellymoss’ Riley Dickinson. There was no contact made, but it appeared that he nearly screened Dickinson into the pit wall.
That earned Grenier a drive-through penalty. Serving it cost him the overall lead, but not the Pro lead.
Yardley ended up in the overall lead in his Pro-Am Porsche, but Grenier was substantially faster. He was able to run Yardley back down and snatched the overall lead back with 20 minutes to go.
Now, the goal was to pull out 10 seconds so that he could overcome the post-race penalty. Grenier tried hard and nearly copped an additional time penalty for track limits, but was unable to open a 10-second gap on Yardley in the remaining time.
In Pro-Am, the second JMF Mercedes of Jason Daskalos started on the pole in sixth overall. He was then able to move up to fourth quickly.
A number of the Pro-Am teams made it into the pits prior to the second full course yellow for Coleman’s spin and the resulting debris. As a result, the field was jumbled up quite a bit.
Daskalos didn’t pit that early, but stopped about 35 minutes into the race with the overall leaders. Drivers such as Musial and Slade Stewart, who had stopped prior to the yellow, stayed out and led the race overall.
Behind them, Kellymoss’ Colin Braun, who was on a more traditional strategy, was the fastest driver on track. Braun ran down Stewart and Lahlouh for second in class from 10+ seconds back.
The alternate pit strategy worked out in favor of those who short-pitted early. Musial handed over to Yardley in second overall, while Merrill was about eight seconds back.
From there, Yardley was able to hold on for the class victory with no real pressure from behind.
In Am, AF Corse’s Oswaldo Negri Jr. and Jay Schreibman led flag-to-flag to take the class victory in 15th overall.
GT World Challenge America powered by AWS: Texas Results
Next up for GT World Challenge America powered by AWS is a trip to Sebring Mother’s Day weekend. Since it’s Mother’s Day weekend, the race will be a Saturday afternoon race instead of Sunday. Round No. 3 is scheduled to go green at 5 p.m. ET on May 9 with live coverage on the GT World YouTube channel.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.