Sebring always results in wild and intense racing and Saturday’s GT World Challenge America race proved to be no exception, as the No. 29 Turner Motorsports BMW M4 GT3 EVO, driven by Justin Rothberg and Robby Foley took home top honors overall and in Pro following drama in class.

From the drop of the green flag, the pairing of Mikael Grenier and Michai Stephens aboard the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO controlled the race overall and among the Pro entries. Pit strategy quickly became a major storyline, with teams utilizing different approaches throughout the opening stages of the race. Additional pit cycles later in the event, including the mandatory driver changes, did little to shake up the order at the front, as the JMF Motorsports entry continued to command the overall lead.

Unfortunately for Grenier, an oil leak with under an hour remaining abruptly ended the dominant run for the Mercedes pairing and brought the field back together with Foley inheriting the race lead. On the ensuing restart with less than 30 minutes to go, Foley executed perfectly, pulling away from the field and maintaining control to deliver Turner Motorsport its first victory of the 2026 season.

Rounding out the Pro class podium included Dollahite Racing’s No. 6 Ford Mustang GT3 EVO, piloted by Cameron Lawerence & Alex Sedgwick. After a scary incident at Turn 10 during Friday morning’s test session, the team was able to repair the car and battle for pole & an overall/class win during the day. After an early drive-through penalty was assessed to Matias Perez Companc, Frederik Schandorff was able to put the No. 12 AF Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO on a podium position in 3rd.

Further back in the field, the restart also created drama in Pro-Am. Daniel Morad appeared poised to secure the class win in the No. 9 TR3 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO before Morad made a costly move on fellow Mercedes driver Lorcan Hanafin in the No. 27 JMF entry. The incident resulted in a 10-second penalty for the No. 9 crew, dropping them to sixth in class by race’s end.

Capitalizing on the late-race penalty were Kyle Washington and Tom Sargent in the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R (992) EVO, who inherited the Pro-Am victory after spending much of the race battling near the front of class contention. Another Porsche 911 GT3-R (992) EVO scored on the podium, the No. 28 of RS1, driven by Jan Heylen & JP Martinez, while Lorcan Hanafin was able to salvage a disappointing finish for the team in Pro with a 3rd place finish in Pro-Am for him and Jason Daskalos.

In Am, it was Jay Schreibman & Oswaldo Negri who scored class-winning honors in their No. 163 AF Corse USA Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO, albeit the only car competing in the class.

“It was actually intense because the track temperature was dropping a lot and the tires cooled down,” said Foley following the win. “It took a while to get the tires to come back in for me. Cameron (Lawerence) was putting some pressure initially a little bit, and then once my front tires came back into the window, I could kind of control the pace from the front. Just a hats off to the team and Justin (Rothberg). We had a great car today. Really, really good in the heat. We really focused on long run pace all week and I think that showed today.”

“Yeah, it’s huge,” said Sedgwick on earning a podium for Dollahite Racing. “I mean, it’s one of those freak things, like an unfortunate component failure, but it nearly destroyed the entire car. For the guys to work all night long, they didn’t go home last night to get this thing ready. We’re going in with I think the longest run either of us did before the race was like 4 laps. So, very little information. Very little to go off and to end up with P2 is huge. What could have been a kind of “championship over” weekend has ended up, with a bit of luck, pretty good for us.”

GT World Challenge America now gets a month break until the series returns, when the championship heads above the Florida-Georgia line to Road Atlanta, June 12th through the 14th.

 

Image Courtesy to GT World Challenge America/SRO