ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Pirelli World Challenge (PWC) race weekend that started with surprisingly strong pace and impressive qualifying times for the Always Evolving NISMO GT Academy GT-R team ended with one car damaged and the other penalized after on-track contact.
James Davison in the #33 GT-R qualified a strong fourth overall for Saturday’s PWC Round Three. After slipping to seventh at the start of a race that featured only 10 of 25 laps under green flag conditions, Davison brought the teal and black GT-R home a hard fought sixth, 5.78 seconds behind the winning all wheel drive Acura.
Davison started Sunday’s race fifth on the basis of his best lap Saturday. On lap 19, he had the GT-R running seventh when the fifth place car of Mike Skeen went wide, allowing Ryan Dalziel to pass for position and put Davison alongside Skeen battling for sixth. The two made contact, spinning Skeen and earning Davison a drive-through penalty. Davison finished the race in a unreflective 18th place.
"St. Pete was a bitter sweet weekend for the AE Replay XD GT Academy team." said Davison. "We made great performance gains from COTA however did not bank our full potential in the race results. Qualifying 4th was a great morale boost for the team. Top 5 race results unfortunately slipped due to a poor start procedure in Race 1 and contact with a competitor in Race 2. The racing in World Challenge is very aggressive and not always easy to know how forceful to be. I learnt a lot regarding GT sprint racing this weekend and am eagerly looking forward to Long Beach to execute."
Despite the disappointment in race results, the competitiveness of the big cars on a tight street circuit best suited for light, mid-engine cars was encouraging for the team. Testing sessions in North Carolina between stops yielded results for setup and driver familiarization, and the team looks forward to more improvements for future rounds.
"This weekend was filled with challenges, emotions and adversity," said Always Evolving team owner, Erik Davis. "First, and most importantly, our thoughts are with the families tragically affected by the event at Nürburgring. This kind of incident in motorsports quickly puts thing into perspective. With respect to our weekend at St. Pete, we had a crash on Saturday in Bryan's car and an unfortunate penalty on Sunday with James resulting in a less than desirable outcome for the team and drivers. With that said, everyone on the team is focused to take on the challenges head-on and provide better results for our partner Nissan, and the AE/GT Academy program."
Next round of the Pirelli World Challenge is April 17-19 on the street circuit at Long Beach, California for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Live online streaming available at www.world-challengetv.com. Broadcast on CBS Sports Network will air Sunday, April 26, 3:30 p.m. Eastern/12:30 pm. Pacific.