Madeline Stewart completes her campaign with weekend of progress at Circuit of the Americas

Madeline Stewart rounded out her 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America season with consistent top-15 finishes at COTA, showcasing significant progress in the second half of the season, including a career-best seventh place at Road America and a strong performance at Road Atlanta.

Photo credits: RAFA Racing Club

Madeline Stewart continued her excellent late season form in Porsche Carrera Cup North America as the JDX Racing driver finished inside the top-15.

Stewart bounced back from a challenging practice session to secure a 16th place qualifying effort in an expanded grid of drivers at Circuit of the Americas. Madeline finished a disrupted race one in 14th position, 13th in the Pro class before ending the season with a 16th place overall result, while finishing 13th in the Pro class.

The second half of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America season has seen Madeline take significant steps forward in performance. Scoring points in five of her last six races, Stewart also secured her second top-10 finish of the campaign last time out at Road Atlanta.

The JDX Racing driver was also looking to utilise her past experience racing at Circuit of the Americas to apply throughout the event. Earlier in the season, Stewart competed in the inaugural Porsche Endurance Challenge North America event where she shared a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport machine with French racer Caroline Candas, scoring a top-10 finish in class.

On-track action at Circuit of the Americas began on Friday with the drivers given just a single practice session ahead of qualifying. As a result, track time was important and Stewart was able to complete 11 laps in the thirty-minute session. It was a challenging practice session for the Kiwi racer who set the 27th fastest time overall, 16th quickest among the Pro class competitors.

Qualifying took place on Saturday morning with Stewart targeting improvements to bring her closer to her Pro class rivals. It was a positive start to the session for the JDX Racing driver as she quickly improved upon her time from practice. Although she fell outside the top-20 during the middle portion of the session, Stewart found significant improvements on her final lap of the session to qualify 16th overall, 15th in the Pro class.

Stewart was looking to continue her progress in race one of the weekend which took place on Saturday afternoon. The JDX Racing driver made a clean start and although she lost three overall positions, Madeline maintained 15th position in the Pro class. Her progress was then halted as the race was neutralised under the safety car as an incident involving Masters class driver Matt Halcome required his car to be recovered.

As the race restarted, Stewart immediately passed Pro-Am class driver James Sofronas and was looking to make further moves. On lap four, she also overtook Jeff Mosing along with Pro class rival Angel Benitez to move into 16th position overall, 14th in the Pro class. The Kiwi racer was displaying good speed early in the race, however John Gilliland had stopped out on track and a second safety car period of the race was called for.

Stewart’s encouraging speed continued as the race entered the second half. Now back under green flag conditions, Madeline overtook Alan Metni to move inside the overall top-15. German driver Thomas Kiefer was now ahead and after setting a personal best time, Madeline was closing in on the debutant.

With six minutes remaining, the safety car was required for a third time after Peter Atwater and Todd Parriott had made contact at turn 12. As a result, the race finished behind the safety car with Stewart classified in 15th position overall, 14th in class, later promoted one position to 13th in the Pro class following a penalty assessed to Sabré Cook.

Photo credits: RAFA Racing Club

Grid positions for race two of the weekend were based on the second fastest times from qualifying and this saw Stewart line up from 20th position overall, 15th in the Pro class. Madeline made a clean start and gained one position on the opening tour as battles within the midfield were both close and competitive. On lap two, the JDX Racing driver overtook the Pro-Am class machine of Moisey Uretsky, with a pass on Marco Cirone two laps later gaining her a further position.

Stewart then ran a series of personal best times and this allowed her to bridge the gap to class rival Angel Benitez who was running directly ahead. The Kiwi driver also had to be mindful of dirt and debris which was bring brought onto the racing line with drivers exceeding the track limits at a number of the corners. On lap nine, Efrin Castro spun ahead and some smart avoidance saw Stewart move ahead of the Pro-Am driver while also passing Benitez in the same series of corners.

Now with a sizeable gap ahead, Stewart focused on running fast and consistent lap times to close out her 2024 campaign in Porsche Carrera Cup North America. It was a strong end to the race for Madeline, however she was unable to make any further overtakes and therefore took the checkered flag in 15th position overall, 14th in the Pro class.

Following a post-race penalty for track limits, Stewart dropped to 16th place overall, however further penalties for her rivals saw her end the campaign with a 13th place result in the Pro class.

Stewart made considerable progress during the 2024 season as she stepped up to one of the most the competitive series in America. During the second half of the season, Madeline was regularly contending for top-10 finishes with the weekend at Road America a particular highlight. Here she secured her career best result of seventh, with a second top-10 finish at Road Atlanta underlining the step forward in performance she took alongside her JDX Racing team.