Therese Lahlouh makes remarkable GT3 debut in GTWC America with class top 5 at Sonoma
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Therese Lahlouh enjoyed a remarkable GT3 debut in GT World Challenge America securing a hard-fought top-five finish in the ProAm class alongside Thomas Merrill at Sonoma Raceway, narrowly missing a podium after a pit lane penalty denied the Wright Motorsports duo an even stronger result.
Therese Lahlouh enjoyed a remarkable GT3 debut in GT World Challenge America securing a hard-fought top-five finish in the ProAm class alongside Thomas Merrill at Sonoma Raceway, narrowly missing a podium after a pit lane penalty denied the Wright Motorsports duo an even stronger result.
Therese Lahlouh took a major step forward in her sports car racing career, making her GT3 debut in the 2026 GT World Challenge America season opener. Sharing the #242 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R with coach and teammate Thomas Merrill, the American driver was the protagonist of an impressive performance marked by rapid progression over the weekend and held her own across the opening stints of the three-hour endurance contest.
Graduating from Porsche Sprint Challenge North America, where she spent the previous couple of seasons as a regular frontrunner, Lahlouh entered the highly competitive SRO paddock aiming to learn and develop against a field combining elite professional drivers and experienced Bronze competitors. Sonoma, a technical and flowing circuit where she had traditionally performed well, provided the perfect stage for her next career step.
To prepare for the jump to GT3 machinery and endurance racing, Lahlouh had already contested a 10-hour race at Sebring last November in the APEX One event, gaining valuable experience adapting from sprint racing to the long-format - an experience that already showcased encouraging signs and proved valuable during the GT World Challenge curtain-raiser.
The season began with Friday’s Bronze test session, allowing Lahlouh to build familiarity with the platform. In the first official practice session, Wright Motorsports began unlocking performance. Merrill posted a 1:34.922 lap to go ninth fastest in ProAm, while Lahlouh continued to build rhythm and confidence.
Saturday morning’s FP2 marked another step forward; starting the session, Lahlouh immediately broke into the 1:36 range with a 1:36.3 lap, demonstrating significant improvement before handing the car over to Merrill, who set a 1:34.263 to place tenth in class.
Momentum continued into FP3, where the Wright Motorsports Porsche briefly led early running. Merrill ultimately finished third overall with a 1:34.653, just one tenth behind the leading Porsche driven by Colin Braun, confirming the team’s strong potential heading into qualifying.
Sunday morning would in fact mark Lahlouh’s official GT World Challenge America qualifying debut.
In Q1, she steadily improved lap after lap. Her first representative time of 1:40.484 placed her 12th in ProAm before she dipped under the 1:40 barrier with a 1:39.048. Continuing to build confidence, she found nearly another full second with a 1:38.372, finishing 12th in ProAm and 17th overall, in a run defined by continuous gains.
Merrill handled Q2 duties and immediately showcased the car’s pace, opening with a 1:36.2 to move into the overall top five. He improved to 1:35.9 and set a purple first sector on a subsequent attempt before encountering traffic and aborting the lap. A final improvement to 1:35.735 refined further by just 0.002 seconds ultimately secured the #242 Porsche 17th overall and 12th in ProAm on combined times.
Following qualifying, some BoP adjustments added weight to the Porsche, but the team remained focused on moving up through the race with consistency.
The three-hour race - the first under the championship’s new single endurance-race format - began with Lahlouh taking the start from 12th in ProAm in the striking blue-and-yellow Wright Motorsports Porsche.
At the green flag, she executed a clean getaway, immediately overtaking Michael Clark to move into 11th in class and quickly closing on Todd Parriott’s Kellymoss Porsche. Showing mature racecraft, Lahlouh resisted forcing risky moves when Parriott defended aggressively into Turn 3.
By lap five, she was already matching qualifying pace with laps in the 1:38.4 range, maintaining steady pressure.
The season’s first full-course yellow arrived on lap six after contact between Slade Stewart and Derek DeBoer at the final hairpin. Lahlouh gained two positions before the neutralization, moving into ninth in class. Opting to remain on track when the first teams pitted, she restarted ninth as racing resumed 18 minutes into the event.
Therese's confidence steadily continued to grow; running competitive 1:37s laps, she improved personal benchmarks while holding off pressure from faster Pro-class traffic, including Rothberg who had previously pitted. When the #9 TR3 Racing Mercedes spun at the Carousel exit, Lahlouh reacted instantly to avoid the incident and advanced to eighth in class.
Thirty minutes into the race, she completed a strategic pit stop to reset stint time, remaining behind the wheel. Rejoining tenth in class, she maintained remarkably consistent pace in the low-1:38 and high-1:37 range. As pit cycles unfolded, she emerged ahead of Parriott and climbed steadily up the order.
A 1:37.427 lap on lap 24 marked another improvement, and as competitors served stops and penalties, Lahlouh cycled into fifth in ProAm. When Daskalos served a penalty shortly afterward, pressure behind eased, allowing her to focus on rhythm. One hour into the race, she in fact broke the 1:37 barrier for the first time in the race with a 1:36.981.
Therese briefly rose to fourth in class when DeBoer pitted, before eventually being overtaken by Mads Siljehaug’s pro-driven Lamborghini, at the point the fastest car on track, as Lahlouh smartly prioritized long-term strategy. With one hour and forty minutes remaining, she pitted and handed the car over to Thomas Merrill after an exceptional debut stint, having climbed from 12th to fifth in ProAm through solid pace, consistency, and flawless execution.
Rejoining fifth in class, Merrill immediately pushed forward, setting the car’s new fastest laps, first a 1:35.5, then a 1:34.992, before consistently running in the low-1:35 range.
However, the team received a setback with a 30-second penalty for a short pit time, an infraction that also affected several competitors throughout the field.
Undeterred, Merrill increased his pace, climbing back to fourth in ProAm while aiming to crucially build a gap ahead of the penalty at the next stop. A new personal best of 1:34.598 highlighted the car’s competitiveness.
At the two-hour mark, Merrill held fourth with strong pace and consistency, but the penalty loomed. With 50 minutes remaining, he served the stop along with fuel and tires, rejoining sixth in class, only 1.4 seconds behind Hampus Eriksson’s Random Vandals BMW.
Navigating traffic, Merrill cleared the lapped Mercedes of Hanafin after capitalizing on a mistake at the Carousel exit, setting up a tense three-car battle with Eriksson ahead and Colin Braun directly behind.
Faster then the Swede, Merrill was however stuck behind the BMW M4 GT3 for almost 40 minutes, with Eriksson closing every gap and the continuous pressure from Braun's Porsche.
After several laps of sustained pressure, Merrill finally seized his opportunity when Eriksson ran slightly wide into Turn 3. Diving late into Turn 4, he completed a decisive overtake and immediately began pulling clear.
Back in clean air, Merrill returned to consistent 1:34-pace laps, opening a gap to Braun and securing position despite Riley Dickinson remaining at this point out of reach ahead.
After three intense hours of racing, the Wright Motorsports duo crossed the line ninth overall and fifth in the ProAm class, securing an outstanding result considering the mid-race penalty that potentially cost them a podium chance.
Lahlouh’s debut nevertheless stood out for its maturity and execution: a mistake-free opening stint, steadily improving pace, decisive moves, and strong strategic awareness; combined with Merrill’s disciplined recovery drive, the result clearly marked an outstanding start to the season.
“We were so close to a podium finish, but unfortunately a penalty kept us from the result we deserved,” Lahlouh said after the race. “My co-driver Thomas had an awesome stint, and I’m super proud of a top five thanks to the world-class leadership and engineering at Wright Motorsport. We couldn’t be in better hands, and we’re looking forward to taking the fight to COTA.”
The GT World Challenge America season continues on April 24–26 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, where Lahlouh will aim to build on an already highly promising GT3 debut.