Capestro-Dubets Leads First Practice in Austin

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

John Capestro-Dubets led the way in the opening practice session of the McLaren Trophy America practice session at the Circuit of The Americas on Thursday, ahead of the triple-header weekend for the single-make championship.

The GMG Racing driver topped the times with a 2:08.329 lap in his Pro class No. 4 McLaren Artura Trophy Evo to best the then time-topping Andrew Davis before handing his car over to co-driver Andre Solano for the second half of the session.

A late improvement, however saw RP Motorsports by Forte Racing’s Kevin Madsen jump up the order to finish second-quickest, 0.573 seconds off of Capestro-Dubets’ pace.

Davis’ best effort was still good enough to put his RWE Motorsports machine third-fastest overall as the quickest Pro-Am driver in the 60-minute session.

The Pro-Am No. 43 Motorsports in Action Artura of Alexandra Hainer and Jesse Lazare set the fourth-best overall time, with series newcomer AERO-B Motorsports rounding out the top five with their No. 52 entry for Jason Guzman and Chris Leichtweis.

GMG’s James Sofronas paced the Am class field with he sixth overall fastest time, placing him comfortably ahead of the No. 21 TechSport entry of Colin Harrison.

Tommy Pintos brought out a brief red flag in the beginning of the session when his Pro class No. 919 Artura Trophy Evo stopped on track in the first sector.

Pintos appeared to bring his Skip Barber Racing McLaren back to the pits under his own power, but would not return to the session.

RWE Motorsports’ James Li failed to turn laps, with his No. 74 Artura Trophy Evo listed as “stopped” on the timing sheets from the very beginning of the session.

Practice 2 is slated for 9:30 a.m. CST on Friday, ahead of the rescheduled Race 2 originally intended for Sonoma Raceway at 2:15 p.m.