K-PAX Racing’s Andrea Caldarelli and Michele Beretta dominated the proceedings Saturday to claim victory in Race No. 1 for Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS at VIRginia International Raceway. For Caldarelli, it is his fifth straight victory to start the year, while it is Beretta’s third straight. Despite the success, this was not a perfect day.
“[Winning] is not easy,” Caldarelli told SRO America’s Amanda Busick after the race. “The car was pretty good, to be honest, but we are struggling with speed from Wednesday.”
Beretta won the pole for Race No. 1 and was easily able to outdistance US RaceTronics’ Steven Aghakhani was on the run to turn 1. Teammate Misha Goikhberg was able to slip past into second overall while maintaining the Pro-Am lead. Aghakhani ended up back in fourth as Turner Motorsport’s Michael Dinan was able to get past as well
This race ultimately had a lot of trouble truly getting underway. Zelus Motorsport’s Jeff Burton ended up stopping on-course seven minutes into the race with an electrical issue. He was able to continue, but lost a bunch of time. A lap later, TR3 Racing’s Ziad Ghandour spun and hit the tires in the Oak Tree Turn to bring out the race’s first full course caution.
In Pro-Am, BimmerWorld Racing’s Chandler Hull led from the pole over Racers Edge Motorsports’ Ashton Harrison. Harrison appeared to have the faster of the two cars, but didn’t really get a chance to do anything about it prior to the first caution. On the restart, Hull lost control under braking for turn 3 on his own and spun. Harrison was forced wide to avoid, but Hull ended up backing across the track and hitting Harrison in the driver’s door. This gave the class lead to Triarsi Competizione’s Justin Wetherill.
Roughly 30 seconds after the Hull-Harrison incident, there was more significant trouble in the Climbing Esses. ST Racing’s Samantha Tan slowed due to a chain reaction stack up and got hit hard from behind by Harrison, as seen here from this in-car camera in Tan’s car.
(1/2) Not quiiiite how we wanted Race 1 to go… 😬 first and foremost, @samanthaatan and everyone else involved are all perfectly fine and on the bright side, our car is repairable! We’ll let the videos speak for themselves, but that’s racing and these things happen. pic.twitter.com/rADWDeH8DN
— samanthatanracing (@stracing_team) June 19, 2022
This contact spun Tan’s BMW out in front of a good…
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