Scott Hargrove and Wolf Henzler, driving the Castrol/Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, capped their first Pirelli World Challenge SprintX race at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas with a podium finish in race two – the top-placed Porsche team all weekend.
After struggling somewhat with setup during practice, the Pfaff Motorsports team qualified the #96 911 GT3 R strongly and finished fourth in the first race of the weekend on Saturday, the top-finishing Porsche of the day, despite a 15-kg “balance of performance” weight penalty and being down on power compared to its competition.
Orey Fidani and Kyle Marcelli, driving the #13 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR, finished 18th in the first GTS-A class race, the top Porsche in the field. In the Touring Car race, P.J. Groenke, driving a Subaru BRZ, finished third in his class.
In race two, Hargrove had an excellent battle with second-place Mike Skeen, after charging through the field in the second half of the race. He and Henzler were just over four seconds behind the top finisher, showing just how competitive the field was.
Fidani and Marcelli had a disappointing end to their second race. After charging hard through the field and running in 6th, their car was hit from behind by another competitor and was unable to finish the race. Groenke was third in class driving his Subaru.
The team now looks forward to the Grand Prix of Long Beach in mid-April. Follow along at pfaffmotorsports.com.
