Team Panoz Racing’s Ian James secured the Panoz Avezzano GTS’s first podium, placing third in PWC GTS/GT4 Championship Round 4 held Sunday with a thrilling last-turn pass on the challenging 17-turn, 3.27-mile Virginia International Raceway circuit.
As the green flag dropped for Sunday’s Round 4 standing start, James immediately jumped from P9 to P4 on the first lap. Throughout the 50-minute race James and the Avezzano GTS showed tremendous pace and performance and stayed in the top five all race. In the final 10-minutes, James continued to close the gap on the No. 10 Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro GT4 to put the Avezzano in position to make a move on the final lap.
The VIR race weekend was a tremendous success for Team Panoz Racing with the team showing great progress and significant performance gains since the PWC GTS/GT4 Championship kickoff at the 2017 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in March. The team worked hard since St. Petersburg and all week in Virginia to raise the performance bar, which showed when James qualified P8 in Saturday’s PWC GTS/GT4 qualifying session with a time of 1:56.032, only 0.888 seconds off the pole-sitting time of 1:55.144.
In Saturday’s Round 3 race James quickly moved from P8 to P6 on the first lap, a positon he held throughout the 50-minute race. His best lap time of 1:57.264 occurred on lap 7, which placed him P9 for Sunday’s race. James’ best lap time in Sunday’s race was 1:55.578.
