RAFA Racing Team’s Tyler Gonzalez and Westin Workman were the class of the field Friday afternoon (March 27). The duo led for the vast majority of the race from pole to win Pirelli GT4 America Race No. 1 at Sonoma Raceway.
“The Endava Supra was on rails today,” Gonzalez told SRO America’s Amanda Busick after the race. “The late race yellow really worked in our favor. Right at that point, the race was starting to come back to us and I think we had the pace. The break allowed us to [save our stuff] and run away on the restart.”
For Workman, it is an overall win on debut. Combined with his IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge schedule, it’s already his fifth win of the year.
The margin of victory was 2.497 seconds over AutoTechnic Racing’s Kevin Boehm and Francis Selldorff. NOLAsport’s Matheus Leist and Matt Travis were third in his Porsche, then Stephen Cameron Racing’s Greg Liefooghe and Jonathan Perichon. Rennsport One’s Luca Mars and Spencer Pumpelly were fifth.
In Silver, Gonzalez and Workman beat Boehm and Selldorff. Mars and Pumpelly were third, followed by Random Vandals Racing’s Bruno Colombo and Josh Green were fourth, while ACI Motorsports’ Yves Baltas and Jimmy Llibre were fifth.
Workman started from pole in the RAFA No. 68 Supra, but it didn’t take long for trouble to break out. Contact between Dome Motorsport’s Allen Patten and Random Vandals Racing’s Sam Craven while racing for the Pro-Am lead in turn 3 resulted in Patten’s Mercedes having suspension damage. Alex Garcia was also involved.
The caution flew as a result to take care of Garcia and Patten’s cars. Neither driver would continue. In addition, BimmerWorld Racing’s James Walker Jr. lost his passenger door exiting turn 5, which was then run over by Random Vandals Racing’s Judson Holt.
Craven was judged to be responsible for the crash and was given a drive-through penalty. Teammate Kenton Koch had a 30-second penalty added on at the end of the race for being too slow on the pit lane.
Nearly 20 minutes had elapsed by the time that the green came back out. Teams only ran three or four laps before the mid-race pit window opened.
The RAFA Racing Team did not have the fastest pit stop. That allowed Selldorff to actually jump over Gonzalez during the sequence. However, Gonzalez was able to get the spot back less than a full lap after Selldorff exited the pits.
The Advance Motorsports McLaren of Austin Jurs stalled in the Esses to bring out a full course caution with 20 minutes to go. That closed everyone up for one more sprint to the finish.
On the restart, Gonzalez was able to get a good jump over Selldorff, who came under threat from Leist and Liefooghe. That was all Gonzalez needed to pull away and take the win.
In Pro-Am, the race was a mess early on. Patten qualified on the class pole in fifth overall, then got knocked off the road and into retirement by Craven.
The penalty to Craven resulted in Travis taking the class lead with Perichon close behind. He was able to maintain that advantage until he pitted to hand over to Leist.
Once Leist got in the car, he had Pumpelly in between himself and Liefooghe, allowing him to pull out a lead of about three seconds. Liefooghe did appear to have a speed advantage and was slowly eating into the advantage before the yellow.
Leist and Travis’ margin of victory was 1.142 seconds over Liefooghe and Perichon. BimmerWorld Racing’s Tyler McQuarrie and Michael Petramalo were third, then AutoTechnic Racing’s Roland Krainz and Stevan McAleer. ACI Motorsports’ Damir Hot and Ryan Yardley were fifth.
The Am class was also affected by the opening lap crash as Garcia was the class pole sitter. Holt ended up with the lead despite running over Walker’s door.
Both Holt and Denny Stripling were able to open up a big gap on the rest of the class. By the time the caution came out for Jurs’ issues, Stripling was seven positions ahead of the next car in class.
Once the green came back out, Stripling simply held on to take the class victory for himself and Holt in 11th overall.
On the road, Holt and Stripling’s margin of victory was 4.669 seconds over Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Zach Lumsden and Kris Wilson. However, Wilson was assessed a post-race drive-through penalty for an incident with Rigid Speed’s Lucas Catania. That meant that 50 seconds were added to the Flying Lizard BMW’s time, dropping them from second to seventh in class.
As a result, TechSport Racing’s Ford Mustang GT4 for Frankie Muniz and Tyler Stone inherited second in class, 15.883 seconds behind the winners. Dome Motorsport’s Laura Hayes and Eddie Killeen were third, then OGH Motrosports’ Sean Gibbons and Sam Owen. ACI Motorsports’ Muzaffar Gafurov and Ross Poole were fifth.
Pirelli GT4 America: Sonoma Race No. 1 Results
A new wrinkle for 2026 is that there is only one 15-minute qualifying session for the weekend. That session set the grid for this race. For Race No. 2, the best laps from the second driver would set the grid.
Koch not only set the fastest lap by a second driver in the race, but the fastest lap overall at 88.739 mph. As a result, he will start on pole in Race No. 2 in his BMW.
Race No. 2 for Pirelli GT4 America is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET Saturday. There will be live coverage on the GT World YouTube channel.
