After the long-awaited off-season from the European Sports Car Championship (ESCC), the team returned Southern Spanish circuit of Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a track where the LMGT3 team brought home the inaugural win of the season almost 10 months ago.  This year, the Impact Simsport team arrived on the race weekend ready to compete in 3 of the 4 classes, and with a new car and driver lineups for the 2025 season, all that was left to do was hit the track and get the new season started.  

Race Results Summary:

#6 - LMP2 PRO - Corbin L. / Samual M. - P1

#7 - LMP2 PRO/AM - Pierce S. / Dorian L. - DNF

#16 - LMGT3 - Marius M. / Liam K. / Richie C. - P6

#6 - LMP2 PRO - Corbin L. / Samual M. - P1

After a warm qualifying session in the Spanish sun-baked track, Corbin Lenaway was able to park the #6 Dallara P217 of Impact Simsport’s LMP2 PRO team on the 3rd row of the grid in a respectable P5 with a 1:33.122 (+0.367) off of P1.  With great track position in the bag with a safer position towards the front of the pack, the team could focus on executing their race strategy and utilizing their competitive race pace to advance their way up the field during the 4-hour race. 

After surviving the chaos in turn 1, the #6 could advance to P3 after the first lap, but after a contentious battle with the Iron Lynx LMP2 Team, Corbin would cede the position and continue the race in P4.  After completing his first stint, Corbin Lenaway would come into the pits to hand the #6 over to his teammate Samual Miller, who would go on to drive 3 flawless stints, all while only incurring 3 incident points and battling for the lead of the race.  With only an hour remaining, the overall leaders of the race were forced to serve a drive-through penalty, which put the #6 back into contention for the top spot on the podium.  Thanks to a strategy advantage over the race leaders, Sam was able to push the Dallara around the track and chip away at the delta to the leaders, eventually resulting in Sam taking the race lead before handing the car back to Corbin to bring it across the finish line. 

After a masterfully driven race between Samual and Corbin, they rounded the final corner for the last time to take the checkered flag 4 hours later, finishing almost 14 seconds ahead of the P2 and nearly a minute ahead of P3.  With a dominant first win of the season in the bag, Corbin, Sam, and their race engineer, Joseph Yang, are already looking forward to the next round at the Nürburgring in mid-May. 

#7 - LMP2 PRO/AM - Pierce S. / Dorian L. - DNF

Following the qualifying session of the LMP2 PRO class, Pierce Sonderup would hit the track for the LMP2 PRO/AM session to put a lap time down for the #7 Dallara P217 of Impact Simport.  At the end of the session, Pierce would replicate the starting position of the #6 LMP2 PRO car, also snagging a P5 start for the beginning of the race.  

After a bumpy first half of the race which saw the #7 be spun by other cars in class, they would eventually suffer a damaging blow that forced the team to retire and cut their inagural race short, and while it did not end how Pierce or Dorian would have hoped, they look forward to redeeming themselves in the next round, proving that they have the pace to be competitive in their class. 

#16 - LMGT3 - Marius M. / Liam K. / Richie C. - P6

After weeks of testing and learning to push the Acura GT3 around the Spanish circuit, the team was optimistic for a strong result after topping the timing tables in both FP1 and FP2 leading up to race day.  Unfortunately, the team was unable to set a qualifying time and had to start the race from the pit lane as well as serve a drive-through penalty for a qualifying infraction.  After starting the race in P19, Liam Kilton and Marius Mars were able to push the Acura to the front of the pack, battling for P2 after 2:30:00.  After fulfilling their drivetime requirements, Richie Caughan jumped into the car last to complete his driving requirements and bring the car across the finish line.  After doing fantastic job preserving the remaining incident points, Richie was able to continue to set competitive lap times that kept the team in the fight, and while a handful of penalties would eventually drop the #16 LMGT3 to P6, the team was still able to finish in the points keeping them in championship contention.  Despite the disappointing finish, all 3 drivers look forward to growing on the lessons learned from the first race, and with a little ironing out of the strategy for the next race, the team is optomistic that bringing home the championship trophy is still an obtainable goal that will be earned one race at a time.