Angel Benitez Jr. continued his mastery of Sebring International Raceway in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama, winning the opening event of the 2014 season Thursday, March 13.
Benitez, from Valencia, Venezuela, drove his No. 05 Formula Motorsport/Avid Motorsport 911 GT3 Cup Platinum Cup car to a 3.103-second victory over fellow young star Colin Thompson. Canadian standout Marco Cirone finished third and was the leading Platinum Masters (age 45 and over) driver in the field.
It was the third consecutive overall victory at Sebring for Benitez, who swept both rounds in March 2013 at the historic Florida circuit for NGT Motorsport before moving to his family-owned team this season.
“It’s incredible to be here,” Benitez said. “Winning the first race of the season, and I love Sebring’s track. Everything this year is new. The cars are new, the tires are new, even the series with the merger is new.
“I’m racing with my dad’s team, and I’m so happy to be here with my dad. We don’t have that much help. We do the old-school mechanic thing with all of the setups, so it’s been tough for us. I respect all of the drivers. There are such good, competitive drivers in this series, so it feels so good to get first place. I would like to thank Porsche and Yokohama for an amazing job.”
Pole sitter Benitez led every lap of the 45-minute race on the 17-turn, 3.74-mile circuit, staying out front despite two restarts after full-course cautions.
Thompson, from Doylestown, Pa., climbed from seventh to the second step on the podium in the No. 14 car in his first race with series powerhouse Kelly-Moss Motorsports after driving last season for family-owned Thompson Racing. He survived a three-way scrap late in the race with front-row starter Sloan Urry and Kasey Kuhlman and passed Christina Nielsen for second in the fast Turn 1 with four laps to go.
Masters competitor “Wild” Bill Peluchiwski, from Chicago, won the Gold Cup overall class for 2010-2013 cars in the No. 74 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup fielded by Kelly-Moss Motorsports after Jeff Mosing and John Baker collided and spun while dueling for the Gold Cup lead on the last lap.
“The race started pretty well for me, and I was able to capitalize on some moments when there was bad behavior in front of me,” Peluchiwski said. “Kelly-Moss put together a great car for me.”
Gold Class pole winner Patrick-Otto Madsen fell out of contention with mechanical problems after contact with Javier Quiros in Turn 7 on Lap 6.
Jay Patel earned the Yokohama Hard Charger Award after climbing from 24th starting position to 13th at the finish in his No. 00 Dempsey Racing entry.
Benitez will start from pole for the second 45-minute race, which starts at 8:55 a.m. (ET) Friday, March 14. For live updates on all the action during the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida event weekend, follow @IMSALive on Twitter.
POST-RACE QUOTES:
ANGEL BENITEZ JR. (Winner, No. 05 Formula Motorsport/Avid Motorsport): ”It’s incredible to be here. Winning the first race of the season, and I love Sebring’s track. Everything this year is new. The cars are new, the tires are new, even the series with the merger is new. I’m racing with my dad’s team, and I’m so happy to be here with my dad. We don’t have that much help. We do the old-school mechanic thing with all of the setups, so it’s been tough for us. We don’t have the budget to do the full season. We’re trying to find a sponsor to stay in the series, but I feel blessed for winning. I respect all of the drivers. There are such good competitive drivers in this series, so it feels so good to get first place. I would like to thank Porsche and Yokohama for an amazing job.”
COLIN THOMPSON (Second, No. 14 Kelly-Moss Motorsports): ”It’s nice to be on a team with data acquisition this year, being able to compare with other drivers and learn from it. It just came all together. We started off with a lot of understeer, which in hindsight was perfect because instead of going to a ton of oversteer at the end. We were perfect at the end. We went from basically sitting in seventh for the first half of the race to moving up to second in the last half. It was unbelievable. Nearly every other tire in the world at this point would be smoked, and Yokohama has given me my fastest time at the end of the race.”
MARCO CIRONE (Third overall, first Platinum Cup Masters, No. 88 Mark Motors Racing): ”It was an incredibly competitive race. It seemed like from positions two through seven everyone was within 100ths of a second and there was constant changes in position, and we just managed to find a way to the podium. I want to thank Mark Motors and my team, who worked all night on the car. I want to thank everyone at Porsche Motorsports and IMSA. It’s a great event to come down to Sebring, and I hope to do it again next year.”
DAVID DUCOTE (Seventh overall, second Platinum Cup Masters, No. 6 Kelly-Moss Motorsports):“The race was great. I was just trying to be consistent, clean and mistake-free. I was just trying to stay as consistent and clean as possible. We never had a yellow, so I was able to conserve the tires a bit. They felt great.”
BILL PELUCHIWSKI (Winner, Gold Cup and Gold Cup Masters, No. 74 Kelly-Moss Motorsports):“The race started pretty well for me, and I was able to capitalize on some moments when there was bad behavior in front of me. Kelly-Moss put together a great car for me.”
FRED POORDAD (Second, Gold Cup and Gold Cup Masters, No. 02 Competition Motorsports):“Very good race overall. Very competitive field, and the first race of the season is always a little dicey,so part of it is just surviving all the melee that goes on and keeping your eyes forward, and good things happen. I wasn’t really satisfied with the car’s performance early on, but the car came in as the race went on. I think we got a lot of valued data out of this race, which will help us the rest of the season.”
KRISTIN TREAGER (Third, Gold Cup, No. 52 Wright Motorsports): ”I started off the day kind of rough. I had a really terrible qualifying. I spun out in Turn 10 and flat-spotted two of my tires, so I had to replace the whole set, which made me get a penalty. I had to start the race from the back of the pack, very dead last. I literally battled and fought my way up to third place, well, technically fourth, and then we had a DQ. So getting third was just the cherry on top to a really hard-fought battle.”
JAY PATEL (No. 00 Dempsey Racing, Yokohama Hard Charger Award): ”The race was fantastic for my first race here in a brand-new Cup car. I only tested it once. I just kept my head down, kept my nose clean and just picked through the traffic. It was a great experience learning the track and car. For my first time here, it was just awesome.”
Source: Grand Solutions/Photo: Scott LePage, LAT Photo USA
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