The fourth round of the IVRA GT Sprint series took the team to Belle Isle in Detroit, with an extra car joining the #256 and #356 in the form of the #208 BMW driven by Jon Williams and Chris Chadderton. Jon and Chris joined the team together recently, and their GT Sprint entry was rebranded to Prestanda NOMAD colours and looked great.
A great many laps were turned in practise for this event, a combination of excitement from everyone involved to get practising together as a group, but also because this street circuit can easily bite hard and ruin races – getting into a groove was paramount to any potential success. Well over a thousand laps down in practise lead to all 5 drivers feeling like they had a decent chance of a good result.
The 3 cars went out for a hectic qualifying session, with the #256 and #208 cars managing P7 and P12 in class respectively and feeling like they both could have done better – the pace of the rest of division 2 was incredibly high from the start. The #356 car fared better, with Ryan putting it onto P2.
The start at Belle Isle was always going to be tough, and survival was aim number one. With a lot of luck and some good judgement, the #256 and #356 made it through relatively unscathed – gaining 6 positions in the case of the #256. The #208 didn't share that luck though, and found itself stuck in a stationary traffic jam early in the lap.
From there all cars tried to find a groove and stick to it and all managed to do so, with the exception of a couple of bits of contact here and there. The #256 was spun by an overeager BMW in the tight and twisty latter part of the lap. The #356 was caught out a couple of times by cars both in and out of their class, and the #208 was dealt a drive through penalty that could easily have gone the other way on another day.
Despite those issues, all three cars made it to the end. The #256 finished in P4 in class (P11 overall), the #208 recovered well to P9 in class (P21 overall) and the #356 managed an incredibly strong P2 again in Division 3 (P24 overall).
Those results mean that Prestanda NOMAD cars lead the championships in both Division 2 and Division 3 after four of the eight rounds of the season. There are some super fast cars in Division 2 that are closing the gap, and plenty to fight with in Division 3 too, but the team will go to the next round looking for more strong results. Find all the information as it comes on the events pages.