Koch, De Phillippi Score Last-to-First Win at COTA

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Connor De Phillippi and Kenton Koch scored a last-to-first victory in Saturday’s opening GT World Challenge America powered by AWS round of the weekend at Circuit of The Americas.

De Phillippi took advantage of a 1.745-second post-race time penalty for the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo not meeting its minimum pit stop time to take a win after starting 18th on the grid.

Koch started dead last after losing his qualifying times due to a ride height infringement and carved his way up to ninth by the opening lap.

The race’s only full-course caution came out at the start for a multi-car incident involving the No. 27 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jason Daskalos, Ozz Negri’s No. 163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 as well as the Scott Dollahite and Kyle Washington-driven entries.

Dollahite retired his team’s Ford Mustang GT3 with nose damage, while Negri and Jay Schreibman went on to claim Am class honors.

The Random Vandals Racing team orchestrated team orders to get Koch ahead of teammate Bill Auberlen prior to the pit stop sequence, where he moved his way up to fourth.

De Phillippi, then at the wheel of the No. 99 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, got around the No. 18 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Jan Heylen on the other side of the stops.

The BMW factory driver crossed the line roughly 1.5 seconds behind Grenier, which was within the window needed to take the victory by just 0.141 seconds.

Heylen and Alex Sedgwick finished third overall and in the Pro class.

DXDT Racing scored its first victory of the season with the No. 11 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Matt Bell and Blake McDonald taking top Pro-Am honors in fourth overall.

Bell passed the overall pole-sitting No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG, which had a ten-second post-race time penalty for a pit exit blend line violation, with 26 minutes to go.

The No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg came home second in class, with Tom Sargent moving the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche to the final step of the podium after co-driver Washington’s opening corner incident.

In addition to the cars collected in that accident, the No. 8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW of Elias Sabo battled electrical issues from the early stages, ultimately retiring the car in the second half of the race.

The No. 51 Random Vandals BMW of Varun Choksey was also not classified after suffering power-related issues late in the running.

The second and final race of the weekend takes the green flag Sunday at 2:15 p.m. CST, with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube and Twitch channels and on MAVTV.