The third round of the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America brought notable results for both female drivers in the race at Sonoma – with Caroline Candas finishing second in the Cayman class, narrowly missing out on victory after a race-long battle, and Therese Lahlouh securing a top-10 after a strong first stint.
Caroline Candas enjoyed her best race in Porsche Endurance Challenge North America to date by standing on the podium in the Cayman class at Sonoma. Candas drove solo during the one-hour race and after narrowly missing out on pole position, she applied pressure to teammate Ian Porter throughout the race.
Taking the checkered flag less than half a second behind Porter on the road, it was an excellent result for the young French driver. In the GT3 Cup class, Therese Lahlouh and teammate Nik Romano ran as high as fourth overall, before late-race contact saw the JDX Racing pair finish in tenth position.
The penultimate round of Porsche Endurance Challenge North America took place at Sonoma Raceway and was the final one-hour contest ahead of the six-hour flagship event at Circuit of the Americas in November.
JDX Racing duo Therese Lahlouh and Nik Romano have enjoyed a breakthrough season so far, having led laps in both previous races in the GT3 Cup class, while being consistent frontrunners. Since the previous event at Road America, the pair travelled to Europe to gain valuable experience racing in the inaugural Michelin 992 Endurance Cup event which took place at Spa-Francorchamps. Lahlouh and Romano were now searching for a victory after stepping onto the podium in the most recent event.
In the Cayman class, French driver Caroline Candas returned after a sizeable incident on lap one of the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America contest at Road America. A start line incident ahead of her left Candas nowhere to go and fortunately she was able to walk away unharmed. Candas drove this round solo and would therefore benefit from additional track time, particularly in the one-hour race.
Candas was joined in the Cayman class by Anna Cecchi who was set to drive alongside Greg Cecchi for their Porsche Sprint Challenge North America debut. Entered by Charlie Hayes Racing, the pair also drove in the Porsche Sprint Challenge North America West event at Sonoma before teaming up for the one-hour endurance race.
The three crews were looking to fight towards the front of their respective classes, with on-track action getting underway on Wednesday for Lahlouh and Romano along with Cecchi, while Candas turned her first laps on Thursday. The trio of drivers were all showing encouraging performance and looked set to challenge for top positions as qualifying got underway on Sunday morning.
GT3 Cup
Qualifying for Porsche Endurance Challenge North America saw the grid set by the aggregate times of both drivers in the case of a two-driver crew, or the two fastest times set by a single driver lineup. Both Lahlouh and Romano did a nice job in qualifying and were able to set the eighth fastest time overall, less than a second away from the top-5.
Lahlouh drove in the first stint for JDX Racing with Romano finishing the race as the team utilised the same driver order which resulted in a runner-up finish at Road America. Lining up from eighth on the grid, Therese made an excellent start and gained two positions on lap one to move into sixth.
However, her fast start was under investigation and Lahlouh was subsequently issued with a ten second penalty for a start line violation. As a result, the JDX Racing duo would be required to wait an extra ten seconds during their mandatory pit stop.
Despite this setback, Lahlouh settled in well and was running extremely competitive lap times which regularly matched those set in her two Porsche Sprint Challenge North America contests. Although she was coming under attack from Competition Motorsports driver Luke French, Lahlouh was defending her position well without losing too much time.
On lap seven, a spin for Josh Conley saw Lahlouh move into the top-5 while she continued to resist the challenge posed by French. Three laps later, an exceptional final sector saw Therese come within half a tenth of a second of setting the overall best sector time of the race so far.
As her stint reached a conclusion, Lahlouh caught a number of the slower Cayman cars and this posed an extra challenge with the speed differential between the two classes at Sonoma minimal. Lahlouh was able to move into fourth position within the GT3 Cup class at the pit window opened and although French had now found a way past, the JDX Racing team were still in a strong position due to their driver lineup consisting of two bronze graded drivers.
On lap 15, Lahlouh brought her car to the attention of her crew and was able to hand over to Nik Romano while also serving the ten second time penalty. Once the pit sequence was completed, Romano ran in a strong fourth position with his initial pace extremely strong.
Silver graded driver Trenton Estep was now behind and the MDK Motorsports driver was slowly catching the JDX Racing machine. After holding off Estep for a number of laps, contact was made between the drivers and this dropped Romano down to 12th position in the GT3 Cup class.
Romano was looking to recover from this setback and finish inside the top-10 and his cause was aided by a black flag shown to the BR Racing car of Tom Dyer. This promoted Romano to 11th position and into the closing stages of the race, he was able to use his speed to close up to a group of drivers fighting for eighth position.
On the final lap of the one-hour contest, Romano made a nice move on Ruckus Racing driver Scott Blind to move his JDX Racing machine into 10th position at the checkered flag.
Cayman
Prior to qualifying getting underway, an unfortunate incident in an earlier Porsche Sprint Challenge North America West race forced Anna and Greg Cecchi to withdraw from the Porsche Endurance Challenge North America contest. Nonetheless, Candas was looking to start the day on the front foot and push for a strong starting position. As a solo driver, her fastest two lap times would set her grid position and with an excellent late-session improvement, Candas was able to qualify in second position. She was less than a tenth of a second behind teammate Ian Porter on aggregate times and her quickest lap was only three tenths away from that of pace-setter Patrick Long.
Candas lined up from second position on the Cayman class grid and was looking ahead to her longest race of her career to date aboard the Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport. In contrast to teammate Porter, who also drove solo at Road America, Candas would need to learn to manage the tyres and an increased fuel load for the first time this season under racing conditions. The RAFA Racing Team by JDX pair made a clean start at the front of the field with Porter holding the lead and Candas settling into second position.
Porter edged out his lead in the early stages with the margin growing to a little over three seconds. However, Candas had opened out a sizeable advantage behind and this allowed her to focus forward and build up her lap times consistently. By lap seven, Candas was now faster than Porter and as the drivers managed the faster GT3 Cup traffic, she was able to use her prior experience of traffic management to reduce the lead margin.
As the pit window opened, the gap between Porter and Candas remained at just a couple of seconds and with both drivers pitting at the first available opportunity, it would be a straight fight for the victory. A fast stop from both RAFA Racing Team by JDX crews saw the drivers leave in close proximity, however Candas’ pit stop time was four tenths of a second under the minimum delta. As a result, she was handed a post-race time penalty of just over four seconds with the time difference multiplied by a factor of ten.
Despite this setback, Candas remained in contention for the on-track race victory and after setting a personal best time on lap 15, including the quickest final sector of any driver, the margin to Porter was cut once more. As the race entered the final quarter, Candas was now less than a second behind her teammate and managing the lapped traffic better in order to lose less time by fighting with the cars from a different class.
On lap 27, a further issue for Porter in lapped traffic saw Caroline close to within a couple of car lengths and within striking distance of mounting a late-race challenge. Candas continued to apply the pressure to her teammate and took the checkered flag less than half a second behind Porter, with his final margin of victory a little under five seconds.
Nonetheless, it was an excellent drive from Candas in her first solo one-hour event where she displayed excellent traffic management skills, combined with a fast and consistent pace.
Candas should be encouraged by her performance at Sonoma in which she enjoyed a thrilling race-long battle with Porter.
Missing out on pole position by such a small margin also underlined her improvement over one lap, together with her consistent race pace which often matched that of the Pro drivers. Lahlouh also showed excellent speed in her opening stint in the GT3 Cup class and she was unfortunate that contact in Romano’s stint took away a certain top-5 finish for the JDX Racing crew.
One round remains in the inaugural Porsche Endurance Challenge North America season with the flagship six-hour event set to take place at Circuit of the Americas on the weekend of November 23rd/24th.
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