Sonoma Friday Notebook

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

***SRO America hosted the GT Business Forum (pictured above) on Friday at Sonoma Raceway, featuring Random Vandals Racing team owner/driver Paul Sparta, the CEO and chairman of the board of Vbrick, Jack Irving, general manager at Toyota Racing Development, Alfonso de la Nunez, entrepreneur, growth advisor investor, author and co-founder of Userzoom, as well as Jason Kos, a senior advisor at Culture Index.

***The GT Business Forum was hosted by Don Ruse, an assistant professor at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas Austin.

***Pirelli GT4 America sees a 29-car entry this weekend following the withdrawals of the Carrus Callas Raceteam BMW M4 GT4, which did not have any drivers listed on the pre-event entry list. It comes in addition to the previously documented withdrawal of the Flying Lizard Motorsports Nissan Z NISMO GT4 from both GT4 America and GT America powered by AWS.

***The GTA America grid now has 14 cars as a result, after both of the RCX Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsports were no-shows.

***Flying Lizard program manager Darren Law told Sportscar365 said he expects their GT4 program, featuring Damir Hot, to return later this season with a different brand, with evaluations currently under way. Law said it’s not yet confirmed that Rodrigo Baptista would be Hot’s co-driver, however, due to his Stock Car Brasil commitments, among other potential factors.

***Law said: “We’re considering several manufacturers and are going to do a couple of tests over the next month with Damir. He’s going to try a Porsche, BMW… different cars and see what suits him best. We’ll then pursue it and try and get a program going. It will probably be a mid-season, a bit of testing mid-season start-up and full season for ’26.”

***Elias Sabo’s No. 8 Flying Lizard BMW M4 GT3 EVO will be ready for GT America qualifying tomorrow morning after he slipped on a wet patch of track in Turn 5 during the day’s only practice session, slightly damaging the front and floor of the car.

***Law confirmed that Sabo is confirmed to contest the entire GT America season, including next month’s rounds on the streets of Long Beach. The team took delivery of a brand-new M4 GT3 EVO this year, which is being used for Sabo and Andy Lee’s car in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS.

***While Pirelli’s new PZero DHG compound tire is set to debut in GTWC Europe competition at Paul Ricard in two weeks’ time, the latest-generation tire is not expected to be rolled out for GTWC America until later this season. The DHG slick features innovations that go beyond pure performance compared to the current-gen DHF construction that was introduced in 2022, with the natural rubber component certified by the Forest Stewardship Council in line with the Pirelli range.

***The No. 53 AutoTechnic Racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO in GT4 America has been given a waiver from the stewards to not run the tire pressure monitoring system this weekend due to a supply chain issue, which was verified by the stewards.

***Additionally, the No. 5 Dark Horse Racing McLaren Artura Trophy Evo, competing in the new single-make series, has been given a $10,000 fine for using tire warmers in Practice 1. The fine has been suspended for the remainder of the season as long as the team does not breach the rule again.

***Andrew Chinnici turned laps alongside John-Caestro Dubets in the No. 4 Flying Lizard Artura Trophy Evo, despite K.C. King being initially listed as JCD’s co-driver on the event entry list. Furthermore, the car was placed in the Pro-Am class this weekend after its original class status was listed as “to be confirmed.”

***McLaren Motorsport technical director and operations manager Malcolm Gerrish told Sportscar365 that McLaren customers tended to favor purchasing Artura Trophy Evo cars separately from Artura GT4 chassis rather than using the optional Evo conversion kit for existing GT4 cars and using the British brand’s original “two-for-one” model with the cars.

***Gerrish said: ”When we originally designed the Artura GT4, we felt there was a USP (unique selling proposition) in making two cars out of one. A GT4 car and turned it into a trophy car. In reality, when we started racing the first season, I think there was only one team that took advantage of that, and actually, the feedback we got was that it’s so much more than just a GT4 car.”

***Per confirmation on the series’ noticeboard, success race penalties will be applied to the top three finishers in each McLaren Trophy class in the form of pre-determined time increments added to competitors’ minimum pit stop times. These time penalties compound with successive class victories.

***McLaren has a large presence this weekend for the debut of the McLaren Trophy America series, with its director of motorsport Ian James (not to be confused with Heart of Racing team principal Ian James) on-site along with sporting director Rob Bell and technical and Gerrish in his technical capacity.

***All three were named to their new positions last November as the British manufacturer expands its motorsport department on a global scale.

***BSI Racing team owner/driver Shea Holbrook said driver Westin Workman “needs to win the championship” in Toyota GR Cup North America this season. Workman moved to BSI after a successful rookie campaign with Copeland Motorsports in 2024. “This is a big year for him,” said Holbrook. “We need him, and he needs to win the championship and needs to be winning races, especially just to move him up in his career. It’s important.”

***Darren Turner is embarking on his first full season in the U.S. since the 2006 American Le Mans Series season when he shared an Prodrive-run Aston Martin DBR9 with Tomas Enge. “It’s nice to have a full program, and it’s especially great to be back racing in America, which has been something like 19 years ago!” he told Sportscar365.

***Owing to the increased manufacturer presence in the series, both Corvette Racing customer racing and Ford Performance/Multimatic have parts and support trucks on-site this weekend, supporting the DXDT Racing and Chouest Povoledo Racing (Corvette) and Dollahite Racing (Mustang) entries, respectively.

***Hyundai has launched the N Trophy Cup, which will feature in four events of the new-look TC America powered by Skip Barber beginning next month at Circuit of The Americas. Three additional TC America events are also a part of the Cup: Sebring International Raceway, Barber Motorsports Park, and the season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

***In addition to prize money for top-placing entries, the Cup season champion will receive an invitation to race in the final round of this year’s Hyundai N Festival one-make race series in South Korea and will also have a post-season evaluation in one of Bryan Herta Autosport’s Hyundai Elantra N TCR cars.

***N Brand and Hyundai marketing manager Ross Rosenberg said: “The Hyundai N Trophy Cup will be an exciting series-within-a-series competition. Hyundai competitors within the TC America series will not only compete to win the overall TC America championship, but they will also compete against fellow Hyundai drivers for additional awards.”

***A total of four Hyundai Elanta N1 TC cars are entered in TC America this weekend, all by Ricca Autosport. Eight cars in total represent the newly unified TC class for Rounds 1 and 2. Jeff Ricca won the opening race of the season on Friday afternoon.

***Entries for the inaugural North American CrowdStrike Veterans Race of Remembrance powered by AWS opened on March 1. The enduro, organized by Operation Motorsport and open to numerous car platforms ranging from GT4 to TCR and SRO’s TCX, TC and TCA platforms, is scheduled to take place over Veterans Day weekend, Nov. 7-9, at Virginia International Raceway.

***Qualifying for all SRO America series at Sonoma are scheduled for Saturday morning, with the inaugural round of McLaren Trophy America set for a 12:05 p.m. PST start time available on SRO and McLaren Automotive’s YouTube channels, featuring commentary from Ryan Myrehn and Rob Bell, with Amanda Busick on pit lane.

***Race 1 for GT America follows at 1:10 p.m. local time, with Calvin Fish joining Myrehn in the booth for the season and Busick again also on pit lane. Races will also be streamed live on SRO Motorsports’ Twitch channel.

Jonathan Grace contributed to this report