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SEBRING PODIUM EXTENDS GT WORLD CHALLENGE PRO LEAD FOR FILGUEIRAS & MCALEER


Sebring, FL- The final regular format weekend of Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS took stage at the 3.741-mile, 17-turn challenge of Sebring International Raceway. Florida based team RS1 and its drivers Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer came into the the weekend with a 19 point lead over second place in the 13-round championship. The objective for the weekend? Gain as many points as possible over the competition before going into the final round, a double points paying single 8-Hour race at Indianapolis.


Although even when you may have the perfect plan in mind, adversity can always enter the picture at any time. That's exactly what happened when just past the halfway mark in Official Practice 1 native Floridian Fligueiras would experience a transmission failure in the Porsche 911 GT3R. The #28 CBW Racing's session ended early and brought out the second red flag as the car stopped on track during the session before flames could be seen coming from the back of the car. The driver was unharmed. Still, this presented an unforeseen challenge for the entire team, and came with a solution in the form of a new transmission installation- a herculean effort by the team. Unfortunately that would also mean no time on track during Official Practice 2, and straight into Qualifying.


Even with less time on track to test and advance the car's setup, both Filgueiras (2:00.5) and McAleer (2:00.1) put in an effort to qualify 3rd and 11th overall to start both saturday and sunday's 90 minute feature races.


Race 1 of the weekend would go uneventful until the final 6 minutes of the race, where before that Filgueiras would start, maintain and hand his Porsche over to teammate McAleer during a flawless pitstop. During the final laps of the race the hard charging No. 93 Acura would make an aggressive move in the brake zone of turn 10 resulting in contact between the two drivers. It wasn't over from there as McAleer would make contact with the Acura in turn 16 while attempting to repass, sending the No. 93 off the track and resulting in a post race penalty that moved the RS1 duo to 4th place in class.


Race 2 would also serve round 12 of 13 races in the 2023 season of Fanatec GT World Challenge America. As they have all season long, the rolls were reversed on Sunday with Stevan McAleer starting. After fighting for 40 minutes and knowing the difficulty of  starting farther back, the team employed an alternative strategy to the rest of the field to find advantage. Stevan McAleer in the No. 28 RS1 Porsche 911 GT3 R was the first to pit after running his stint in fourth. Eric Filgueiras made up a position for a third-place finish in part to the shuffling of pit lane and by overtaking Seth Lucas in the No. 53 MDK Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. Lucas and teammate Trenton Estep used smart strategy to maintain position until Filgueiras pushed past, settling the MDK Motorsports team with fourth place.


With that result RS1 and CBW Racing extended their points lead going into the final race weekend. The 2023 race season comes to a close at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway On October 8th. Race broadcast is livestreamed on Youtube: GT World.

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