Sedgwick on “Important” Career Season; Full RS1 Program Set

Photo: PT Autosport

RS1’s Alex Sedgwick labeled 2025 as an “important” season for his career as he seeks to build GT3 experience in RS1’s now-confirmed full-season GT World Challenge America powered by AWS effort alongside Jan Heylen.

Both Sedgwick and Heylen confirmed to Sportscar365 that RS1 will be on the grid for the full GTWC America season in their No. 18 Porsche 911 GT3 R. RS1 notably won the 2023 Pro title with Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer, but did not complete a full 2024 campaign.

The team’s 2025 program had been in question, with no official announcement made, although RS1 contested the two opening rounds with the new lineup.

The PT Autosport-backed sports car driver’s career has so far seen two seasons of Porsche Carrera Cup North America experience in JDX Racing-run machinery.

“From my side, the goal has always been to do the full season,” Sedgwick told Sportscar365. “But I’m not someone who brings a crazy amount of funding or anything like that.

“For me, this year is kind of to learn and absorb as much as I can. Almost a bit of a, ‘Hey guys, I’m here and I can do this.’ So it’s really important.

“This year, we want to compete for a title, but it’s building the line on the resume of GT3 and everything that goes along with pit stops and a multi-driver series.

“I don’t come with backing as to where I can just go and do whatever I want.

“So being able to show that I’m capable of doing this, and that I’m capable of competing with Jan, [Bill] Auberlen, Kenton [Koch] and whoever it is, is really, really important for what happens after this and where I go beyond this and hopefully continuing to go further on that Porsche ladder.”

With RS1 has now confirmed their full-season entry, Sedgwick noted that their testing time outside of race weekends will be virtually non-existent.

“In terms of testing and that side of things, we’re a little bit more limited than everybody else,” he said. “We’re effectively the only team that’s not doing external testing.

“There’s a lot to figure out on that side, but it’s important we just make the most of the time we have available and we’re efficient with changes and everyone working together. Racing is expensive. More testing and making things a better scenario always, unfortunately, costs a bit more money.”

RS1, however, is looking to make full use of the SRO-sanctioned Thursday test sessions prior to each round, as “the only real extended testing time” the team gets, according to Sedgwick.

“All track time is important, but when it’s more limited than everyone else, it becomes even more crucial,” he said. “It’s only three hours on track, so it’s not a crazy amount of time, especially then factoring for changes and things.

“But it at least means we go into practice having been able to try some stuff and unable to kind of get a read and figure out the direction we need to go through the weekend versus just showing up and figuring out as we go.”

Nevertheless, the team’s results at Sonoma Raceway and at the Circuit of The Americas have them in contention for the Pro class title fight, sitting third in the standings heading into this weekend’s action at Sebring International Raceway.

“It’s a small grid in the Pro class, but it’s four very good quality lineups,” said Sedgwick. “Every round is pretty difficult because of that, and it also means that there’s never going to be these huge, crazy point swings because everyone’s always stuck together.

“So it’s important to be consistent and obviously maximize everything we can every weekend. We just have to kind of keep doing what we’re doing and hope that we can get one over on the BMWs and the Mercedes. Here [in Sebring] should be somewhere that kind of suits us a little bit as well.”