The SRO Fanatec FT World Challenge America 2021 season burst into action at Sonoma Raceway on Saturday , Fred Poordad, the 2020 Am class champion, made is return to the series in the Wright Motorsports No. 20 Porsche 911 GT3 R, progressing up to the Pro/Am class and sharing the driving seat with Jan Heylen, Wright Motorsports are the only customer Porsche racing team competing in the series this year.

It was the number 3 KPAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Italy’s Andrea Caldarelli and South Africa’s Jordan Pepper took a dominant season-opening in the Pro Class. Leading from pole the Lamborghini duo never put a foot wrong, winning by 14 seconds over teammates Corey Lewis and Giovanni Venturini in the number 6 Lamborghini.

Fred Poordad started for Wright Motorsports and put in a good stint making progress in the opening thirty minutes of the race and moving up a couple of places before making the mandatory pit stop and handing the car over to Jan Heylen. After the pit window closed for the required driver changes it was the number 77 compass Racing Acura NSX GT3 that lead in Pro-Am with Wright Motorsports slotting into seconded place.

Compass Racing would unfortunately see an unhappy end come to its first-place position however as an unsecured left-rear wheel would come off the Acura NSX GT3 just six turns into Matt McMurry’s stint, giving the class lead to Jan Heylen’s number 20 Wright Motorsports Porsche.

The stranded Acura would cause the first full course caution of the day, bunching the field up behind the Lamborghini Urus safety car with 38 minutes left on the clock. At the same time the overall third-place number 33 Mercedes would face an electrical issue, forcing the car to the pits, dropping down the order and out of contention for a podium finish.

The race would get back to green with 28 muntes remaining with the number 3 KPAX machine still leading, but with their lead to the number 6 Lamborghini and number 96 BMW, now with Robby Foley driving, slashed. Heylen's number 20 Porsche kept the Pro-Am lead, but would see Dalziel's Mercedes-AMG pass Dickerson's Acura for second position and begin to charge after the Pro-Am class leader.

Heylen held onto the Pro-Am lead despite pressure from the Mercedes AMG behind, mean while up front in the Pro class Foley's BMW magic seemed to run out as with 16 minutes remaining would make contact with a lapped car while navigating traffic and see the number 96 machine fall through the order to ninth overall, but still remain third in Pro class positioning. This meant that Heylen would inherit the third overall position with Dalziel and Dickerson rounding out the top five where they would ultimately finish.

The hectic pace would settle for the final 10 minutes of the race with Colin Braun's number 4 Mercedes-AMG sixth overall, fourth in Pro-Am with Michael Cooper's number 19 Mercedes-AMG seventh overall, fifth in Pro-Am.

Round 2 of the Fanatec GT World Challenge America presented by AWS season goes green Sunday, March 7th at 1:15 PM local time, live on CBS Sports Channel starting at 4:00pm EST and live streamed on the GT World YouTube Channel, available at gt-world-challenge-america.com/watch-live along with live timing and scoring provided by TSL.