Saturday Pro-Am Victory for George Kurtz and Colin Braun in No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 Anchors Four Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing Podium Appearances in Fanatec GT World Challenge Competition at NOLA Motorsports Park
A Saturday Pro-Am class victory by George Kurtz and Colin Braun in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 anchored a strong run of four podium finishes and an overall pole position by Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams in a successful weekend of Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS competition at NOLA Motorsports Park. The Pro-Am win Saturday was the first of the season for Kurtz and Braun who followed it up with a third-place class finish in Sunday's second and final 90-minute GT World Challenge race of the weekend. The No. 6 US RaceTronics (USRT) Mercedes-AMG GT3 also secured a pair of Pro-class podium finishes on the weekend with co-drivers Steven Aghakhani and Loris Spinelli, who finished third Saturday and second on Sunday. Spinelli also won the overall pole for Sunday's sprint and led the opening laps of the race before Aghakhani brought the car home in second.
This weekend's success gave Kurtz, Braun and the No. 04 team a perfect four-for-four run of podium finishes to start the season. In last month's season-opening doubleheader at Sonoma Raceway in California, Kurtz and Braun co-drove to second and third place finishes in the weekend's race.
Saturday's victory came after a late charge by Braun from third to first in the final two laps of the race. Making the most of a late-race restart that created the two-lap dash to the finish, Braun passed for second at the drop of the green flag and then took advantage of a skirmish just in front of him a few corners later to make what turned out to be the winning pass. He took the checkered flag not only first in Pro-Am but a solid third overall behind a pair of Pro-class competitors.
Aghakhani, Spinelli and the USRT No. 6 were the only Mercedes-AMG GT3 team competing in the Pro division at NOLA and capably represented the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport brand. Spinelli set a track record in qualifying Saturday morning and then joined Aghakhani in contending for the Pro-class victory in both races.
After a strong opening driving stint by Aghakhani in Saturday's race, Spinelli took over and battled doorhandle to doorhandle with the competition in the lead pack. A late contact incident with a Pro-class competitor briefly delayed Spinelli, but he quickly continued the charge and brought the No. 6 across the line in third.
From the pole, and with rain falling on one half of the track but dry conditions on the other, Spinelli immediately took control from the start of Sunday's race. He led every lap of his opening stint and pitted from the lead at the one-hour mark to hand the No. 6 off to Aghakhani. The driver change went smoothly but the team encountered an issue changing the front tires.
The delay in the pits put Aghakhani back in the race a lap down to the Pro-class leaders and deep in the overall top-10 running order.
Undaunted, Aghakhani put on a charge that was a highlight of the closing 30 minutes of the race. He caught and passed the second-place Pro competitor but didn't have enough time left on the clock to reel in the race leader.
Spinelli's Sunday pole was one of several top qualifying efforts by Mercedes-AMG GT3 competitors at NOLA. Aghakhani qualified second in the No. 6 for Saturday's race while Braun was third quickest in Pro-Am qualifying in the No. 04 for Sunday's race.
Co-drivers Bryan Sellers and Scott Smithson both qualified well in the No. 08 DXDT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. Smithson clocked in third fastest in Pro-Am for Saturday's race while Sellers qualified second in class for the Sunday finale.
Sellers' qualifying run was the best of the weekend for Mercedes-AMG GT3 Pro-Am teams and was the springboard for a season-best fourth-place class finish with Smithson in Sunday's race.
Next up for Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing competitors in Fanatec GT World Challenge and Pirelli GT4 America competition is Rounds 5 and 6 of each series at VIRginia International Raceway, June 17– 19.
George Kurtz – No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: "Riley Motorsports and CrowdStrike Racing gave us a great car. It's a challenging circuit, and it was challenging with the rain. I had some rain in my stint for a little bit Sunday, so we just had to put our heads down and go through the field. There was a lot of action out there.
Overall, NOLA has been pretty cool. It's been good to us, and any GT World Challenge weekend where you get out with a double podium, and one being a win, that's success for us and for the team, and that's what we're going to build on. It was a bit of a struggle early in the week, so coming out with a win was just amazing for us. Colin definitely is a closer, and I haven't seen many folks have better restarts than him. So, I have to give a lot of credit to him for Saturday's win. What was important for me was to keep it clean in my stint and keep us in the game. There was a bunch of action in front of us and I had to make some evasive moves to avoid a collision. We were lucky to keep it clean and bang out laps."
Colin Braun, Driver – No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: "I'm super proud of the guys. We had great pit stops all weekend. George had a really good opening stint Saturday, avoided a lot of adversity and kept us in the game. On Saturday's final restart, I was really excited for it. I really like starts and restarts. I just put my head down and thought, 'Hey, let's see what happens.' I had a bit of a buffer of lapped cars behind me to the next car in our class, so I had an opportunity to throw a dart and see what happens.
Another car pulled out of line and passed before you could, and that started a domino effect of everyone doing some weird stuff. At first, I thought it wasn't going to work, and then the seas opened up, so I was able to get my way by. I think at one point we were three-wide for the Pro- Am lead. I was on the inside, got a good run off the corner and shifted it to the next one and tried to clear everybody. I love those situations where the ball is in your hands and it's time to go. I knew from the race pace that we had a really fast Mercedes-AMG GT3. I think we're stronger on the long run and stronger on tire degradation. That's where the Mercedes-AMG GT3 has always shined, and it's always good on the tires. I knew that there was an opportunity at the end of the race to make something happen. I just ran the tight line, got a good drive off the corner and that was that. It was a lot of fun."
Steven Aghakhani, Driver – No. 6 US RaceTronics Mercedes-AMG GT3: "Absolutely, the entire weekend was off the charts. I don't think we were ever out of the top two in practice or qualifying, even with our race pace and in all kinds of weather, but it just goes to show you that anything can happen to anyone. There was a little bit of a pit stop issue in Sunday's race, and we had to swap out our front right tire with one that was ice cold, so we were competing on three hot tires and one cold front tire. It was a little bit uncomfortable, but I did what I could in the car and absolutely drove the heck out of it. As always, I would not have been able to do that, or even had the chance to be here yet alone come back and claim second place, without everyone behind us. US RaceTronics, all of our sponsors, and everyone out there just doing their absolute best to support us. I want to give them my huge appreciation and biggest thanks."
Loris Spinelli, Driver – No. 6 US RaceTronics Mercedes-AMG GT3: "I want to say thanks to the entire team for what they did from Sonoma to here. We were one of the fastest cars on the track all weekend and got a pole position in a record time. Today, in the pits, we had trouble with a wheel, but the team worked really hard to make the switch to try and get us a good result. I'm really happy because I'm driving pretty strong. I'm proud of our teammates because even with the problem we had today we believed until the end that we could challenge for a good finish, and we did. I wanted to finish with good points for the championship."
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