The Screeching Moose train keeps on rolling. In the fifth race of the season, the Maple Ridge, British Columbia team picked up its fifth win in a row, extending their all-time VSCA record for most consecutive wins.
After struggling in qualifying, Lukas Santos faced an uphill battle, taking on the two-hour and 40 minute race from near the back-end of the GT AM class in P11.
And before even reaching turn two on the first lap of the race, Santos faced near disaster, getting aero loose in the slipstream of Tamer Elbaga’s #33 Mayer Simspeed Performance Mercedes. Only through good reflexes and display of great car control, Santos avoided a major incident.
By the time the #5 Mercedes crossed the line for the first time, Santos moved into seventh position. By lap 42 the 19-year old moved into fifth position.
On lap 66 the race-leading #80 Digital Chicane Ferrari of Matthew Oravecz pitted and so it was the #5 Screeching Moose Motorsports Mercedes taking the lead for the first time in the race.
This lasted just a few laps until the championship leaders in turn made their pit stop and changed drivers, with Sean Hatfield now taking over the steering wheel from his team-mate and rejoining the track just behind the #80 Ferrari of Quinn Mitchell, setting up a showdown between the two teams once more after a dramatic finish at Sebring last month.
Unbelievable scenes and a dramatic turn of events occurred on lap 79 at the corkscrew - the most famous corner of the track, when Mitchell, still leading the race in his #80 Digital Chicane Ferrari 296 GT3, was taken out by the #33 Mayer Simspeed Performance Mercedes of Kyle Potter, who appeared to have missed the braking point while battling a LMP2 class car.
The crash severely damaged the GT AM class leader’s race car, forcing Mithchell to bring it down pit lane for extensive repairs. And even though the #80 Ferrari was able to go on and finish the race, any hopes for the team’s first series win were shattered.
With the road now clear ahead of him and taking over the lead without a fight, Sean Hatfield in the #5 Mercedes went on to take the checkered flag and bring home win number five for car No. 5 in the fifth race of the season, including The Roar Before The 24 in January.
Lukas Santos said in victory lane:
“Honestly, I’m glad the car came back the way it was when the race finished, all in one piece. Like all of our wins this season so far, we’ve been pretty happy on how much we have learned from last year and translated them into success. As we go through each round, however, we have to make sure we are confident in what we decide is our line up and our strategy. These sprint races feel a lot more hectic than the proper endurance rounds, but I believe that with winning our second Sprint Cup round, we’ve got our system pretty nailed down to and refined to a T.”
But despite all excitement, even the race winners had some words about the shockingly high number of incidents and crashes in the race.
“We’ve got lots of things to say and note down as a team, about how the driving standards were during this weekend. We’ve dealt with it before ever since our first campaign last year, but this has gone too far. I always say that we have to survive each race before we even start thinking about where we are going to finish, and this weekend showed exactly why. That’s our take on the discussion. We made our statements clear.”
Quietly flying under the radar in all of the drama, but no less excited about their finish, the #83 Off in the Esses Racing Ferrari of Stuart Leslie and Michael Garrone took second place on the GT AM podium. For the team who has competed in the VSCA SportsCar Championship since its inaugural race at Daytona in 2022, this marked the best series result ever and the team’s best finish since a fourth place finish at Long Beach in February.
Through a heroic effort by Matthew Oravecz and Quinn Mitchell, the #80 Digital Chicane Ferrari still claimed third position to give Ferrari two representatives on the GT AM podium. Still, the race left a bitter taste in the mouth of the team from Daytona Beach, Florida, seeing a win slip out of their hands for a second straight race.
The #16 Dangler Performance Mercedes of Theo Taylor and Mark Romaninsky finished fourth and had two laps led to their credit in this wild race. For Dangler this was the best result of the season so far.
Earning a hard-fought top-five, overcoming several incidents, the #29 Firestorm Motorsport Mercedes of Daniel Avery and John Jones took fifth place in Saturday’s race.
The only entry in the race to field three drivers, the #541 Ferrari of Yellow Submarine Squad - Sim-Lab finished sixth, as Björn Klaassens, Roy Vermeer and Daniel Zietek teamed up for this one, but ultimately came up three laps short of the win.
Likewise, finishing three laps down was the #017 Vulture Motorsports Ferrari of Erol Ureksoy and Josh Rhodig, taking P7, in a bit of a set-back following a fourth place finish at Sebring last month.
Full Send Racing’s #94 Mercedes of David Sluiter and Carl Felver finished eighth but scored the fifth-most championship points in the race, by way of the lowest incident total among all GT AM contestants in this desert duel.
Mayer Simspeed Performance continues to have a brutal go in their first season in GT AM as their #33 Mercedes of Tamer Elbaga and Kyle Potter and their #34 Mercedes with Aaron Beaver and Thomas Baker finished P9 and P13, respectively, after both cars found trouble in the race.
The newest GT AM class entry on the grid at Laguna Seca, the #555 DS Racing eSports Team Ferrari with Ruy Teixeira from Switzerland and Portugal’s Roberto Artur completed the top ten finishers.
Wolfgang Wildenauer and Ronald Gross meanwhile finished eleventh, six laps down after things went awry for the team on lap one already in an incident in the corkscrew. For the team from Munich, Germany this continues a challenging 2024 season marked by five finishes of four or more laps down in five races so far.
Seven laps down at the finish was the #119 Trading Paints Racing Ferrari of Julia Cervone and Tyler Tucker, who took P12.
Can anybody stop Screeching Moose Motorsports?
In the GT AM championship standings, Screeching Moose Motorsports and the #5 Mercedes continue to lead the way with a comfortable 170-point margin over the rest of the field, thanks to a perfect record of five wins in five races so far.
In second place, the #80 Digital Chicane Ferrari waits for a chance to take a big bite out of that lead, but has to hope for better luck in the next race, if that is to happen.
Through their best-ever VSCA SportsCar Championship result, the #83 Off in the Esses Racing Ferrari is new in third place of the standings, but faces a huge gap of 363 points as the GT AM championship looks all but a two-horse race already at the halfway point of the season.
Sprint Cup standings shake up after Laguna Seca
With Majors Garage Fusion Simsport announcing their withdrawal from the series ahead of Laguna Seca, the #296 Ferrari loses 14 spots in the Sprint Cup standings. Likewise, failing to score championship points at Laguna Seca, the #93 Digital Chicane Ferrari drops twelve spots.
The #5 Screeching Moose Motorsports Mercedes meanwhile continues to lead the way by 62 points over the #80 Digital Chicane Ferrari and the #83 Off in the Esses Racing Ferrari following in third.
Circuit of the Americas (COTA) up next, in series debut in Texas
The series jumps right ahead to the next Sprint Cup race, in its inaugural visit to Texas and the Circuit of the Americas on May 11th.
For the GT AM class, the big question looms: Can anybody give Screeching Moose Motorsports competition or will the championship leaders win their sixth straight?
Does the #5 Mercedes have to be on the lookout? Lukas Santos had this to say on how the season has been going so far.
“At the start of the season, we just wanted to continue our mission of being up at the front. Like every team, we of course want to win, but that wasn’t our original mindset when it came to the start of the season. Starting with the Daytona 24 Hours, we wanted to survive, then we came out with a win. Same goes for Long Beach, Sebring, and even Laguna.”
So how do the championship leaders and now five-time VSCA SportsCar Championship race winners do it? What is their secret ingredient?
“The way we get our wins is by that combination of learning from past races, gathering all the data we can, having confidence in our strategy and line up, and driving to the end with the car as clean as possible. Hopefully, the streak keeps going, but we’ll be prioritizing the cleanliness of the car and consistent finishes. It is still a long season ahead, even just about halfway through the season."
Tune in on Saturday, May 11th at 15:50 GMT on GreenFlag TV’s live broadcast of the Lone Star Grand Prix at COTA, to find out whether Screeching Moose Motorsports will make it six wins in a row in GT AM or whether a new team will surface to the top of the podium.
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