PCCNA: Sabré Cook rebounds to P11 finish at Miami
- LIAM REDFORD
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
Sabré Cook showed strong pace at the Miami International Autodrome, bouncing back from a race one retirement to finish 11th in race two with a final-lap pass, narrowly missing out on her first top-10 of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America season.
Sabré Cook scored a best result of 11th as Porsche Carrera Cup North America returned to the Miami International Autodrome. The JDX Racing driver qualified 13th in the Pro class and was fighting for a top-10 result in race one, before incident damage led to an early retirement. Cook bounced back well in race two finish in 11th after a final lap pass on teammate Paul Bocuse.
Cook arrived at the Miami International Autodrome looking to bounce back from a challenging opening event at Sebring International Raceway. After banking solid points in the first race of the weekend, the JDX Racing driver was caught up in an unfortunate incident during race two. Nonetheless, Cook showed promising pace and was now targeting her first top-10 finish of the season.
In 2024, Cook excelled at Miami as she secured a pair of top-10 results including an eighth-place finish in race one. With the temporary circuit evolving during the course of the weekend, an adaptable style is required to succeed and make progress. Sabré’s career best finish also came at Miami where she finished sixth in 2023 and therefore she was looking to carry forward these positive experiences into the upcoming event.
The first of two 30-minute free practice sessions took place on Friday afternoon with Cook making consistent lap time improvements. At the end of the session, Cook’s quickest lap of a 1:59.746 placed her in 12th overall, 11th in the Pro class and she was less than a second away from the overall top-5.
In the second session of the day, Cook improved her quickest time by one second as cooler temperatures and track evolution aided the drivers. As a result, she once again finished in 12th position overall, 11th among the Pro class drivers with an almost identical margin to the top-5 compared to the first session.
With track conditions cooler for qualifying on Saturday following earlier rain, Cook was looking to set her fastest time of the event so far. The times in the Pro class remained extremely close and at the end of qualifying, the JDX Racing driver had set the 14th fastest time overall, 13th in the Pro class. Displaying her consistency, Cook’s second fastest time was 12th quickest and she was looking to use this stability in the first race later that day.
Race one at Miami took place early on Saturday evening with Cook started from 13th on the overall grid following championship leader Riley Dickinson’s exclusion from qualifying. Cook made a good start as she avoided a number of spinning cars around her and ended lap one in 11th position overall, tenth within the Pro class.
Pro-Am leader James Sofronas was now directly ahead and the JDX Racing driver did a nice job to quickly overtake the GMG Racing machine on lap two. The safety car was then brought out onto the circuit to retrieve the car of Marco Cirone which had received damage after an opening lap incident.
When the racing resumed, Cook was looking to make progress, however she made contact with Ashley Freiberg which spun around the Kellymoss driver. Cook initially continued while falling to 18th position overall, 11th in the Pro class. However, the damage she had sustained in the incident proved substantial and Cook therefore pulled into the pits to retire from the race.
Looking to bounce back from a challenging first race of the weekend, Cook lined up from 12th position to start race two on Sunday morning. It was a clean start for the JDX Racing driver who held her position after the opening lap. The race then settled into a rhythm with overtaking proving difficult for drivers just outside of the top-10.
Nonetheless, Cook was building a gap to the leading Pro-Am drivers behind and therefore she could focus forward on mounting a challenge on Paul Bocuse ahead. Cook consistently ran within a second of Bocuse and by lap nine, she had cut the margin to a quarter of a second. Bocuse was running directly behind Michael McCann and McCann was defending extremely well despite intense pressure from Cook’s JDX Racing teammate.
On lap 12, Cook set a personal best lap and now she was regularly running top-5 lap times. Improving again on lap 14, Sabré continued to run in the wheel tracks of Bocuse as she looked to mount one final challenge. A fantastic pass on the final lap saw Cook move into 11th position on the final lap to complete a smart drive in Miami.
Although she just missed out on a top-10 result, Cook showed good speed in race two and banked valuable championship points. The racing was close and competitive throughout the weekend and Cook showed her determination to push right until the final corner. The JDX Racing driver will now be looking ahead to a trip to Canada when Porsche Carrera Cup North America returns at Montreal on the weekend of June 14th/15th.