Sabré Cook claimed two top-ten finishes at Miami in the second round of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America season, as the Shift Up Now athlete continues her 100% rate of top ten finishes at the circuit.
Sabré Cook claimed two top-ten finishes at Miami International Autodrome in the second round of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America season, held as part of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. The Shift Up Now athlete thus continues her 100% streak of top ten finishes at the circuit, after recording her best results of the season in 2023, in her rookie season in the highly competitive championship.
Cook - who had a very promising first season at the wheel of the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup 992 car on her debut in GT racing - had her 2023 campaign cut short by an injury caused by accident at Indianapolis, but was back in full form at Sebring for the 2024 season opener: despite a tricky qualifying, Cook bounced back and kicked off her sophomore season with great recoveries in the two races, making up 8 and 4 positions and finishing solidly in the overall top-15.
The second round then saw the series joining the F1 support-package for the Miami Grand Prix, on a circuit that has quickly become one of Sabré's favourites and she aimed to bring home another top ten at her second participation.
Cook got behind the wheel of the #37 MDK Motorsports Porsche for the first practice session in the afternoon of Friday and ran in the top-15 in an incredibly close 37-car field.
She made an almost 1-second improvement into the second practice, which was contested in the afternoon at dusk, finishing P14.
Only four laps were completed in qualifying before the first red flag, as the challenges of street circuits made for a very interrupted weekend.
Sabré had one single lap to improve when the session eventually resumed, and she indeed managed to clock a 1:58.488 that moved her up from P15 to P12: the Colorado-native would therefore start from the outside of the sixth row of the grid for the first 40-minute race on Saturday evening.
The whole pack successfully managed to get through the first corner cleanly, with Cook holding eleventh place overall and in the Pro class.
Pole-sitter Alex Sedgwick retained the lead from Llibre, Hartog and Yardley after the first lap but all of the 37 cars on the field made it through unscathed. The leader, though, was handed a 10 second penalty for changing line before the start, which put the JDX Racing driver in the difficult position of having to open a big gap.
Sabré Cook continued to set quicker times and she eventually managed to break into the top ten on lap 5; she then started a spectacular battle with Yves Baltas as the two traded positions. Sabré completed a brilliant pass into turn 1, but Baltas came back a few corners later - as the duel for tenth continued.
Cook ran her first laps in the 1m58 and, while still chasing Baltas, caught Michael McCann. An accident among the leading group, though, saw Jimmy Llibre hitting the wall after contact with Gustav Burton and ultimately triggered the safety car on lap 13. Up to tenth, Cook was eyeing more progression in the final laps, but the lengthy recovery meant that the race ended under safety car.
Loek Hartog took victory, ahead of Zachary Zanier and Micheal Cooper - once both Sedgwick and Burton were handed penalties. Sabré Cook took her first top ten of the season - at the venue that gave her her best finish last year - with a superb eighth place in race 1.
On Sunday, The #37 Ease Logistics 992 Porsche lined up in P12 once again for the second and final race of the weekend. This time, the race was off to a big accident that took multiple cars out of contention at turn 1. Ahead, Alex Sedgwick was cautious into turn 1 and was surprised by Zachary Vanier, who took the lead before the safety car was deployed.
During the long clean-up, Cook retained 12th place and was challenging the car ahead before the neutralization. At the restart, she was soon putting pressure on Michael McCann - but a second accident saw Dan Clarke hitting the wall a few corners after the green flag, requiring a second safety car. Sabré Cook had meanwhile snatched P11.
The race resumed for the final 5 minutes and the Shift Up Now athlete would be aiming to score her second top ten of the weekend with only two laps to go.
Sabré did grab P10 on restart and tried to catch MDK Motorsports' teammate Yves Baltas and Jimmy Llibre - while at the same time defending from Angel Benitez.
Cook was faster than the cars immediately ahead but ultimately crossed the finish line in P10, collecting another very positive result and valuable points for the championship.
“I’m really pleased and energized by the progress the team and I have made since the first race of the season,” said Cook, who now moves up to P13 in the drivers' standings. “I had my best qualifying yet and it felt great to solidly get those two top-ten finishes."
"I can’t wait for our next race at Montreal to keep the momentum going. I can’t thank my partners and MDK Motorsports enough. Let’s keep pushing!”
The third Porsche Carrera Cup North America round will in fact be held at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada, on June 7-9, again in conjunction with F1.