The new Van Der Steur GT4 America line up hit the headlines at Sebring with their out of the box performances
Monday, May 19, 2025
Whilst the European side of the GT World Challenge Europe and GT4 European Series were doing what they do at the circuit of Zandvoort on the Dutch coast at the weekend, the GT World Challenge America and GT4 America Series were also out running a similar format but this time over the bumps and extreme heat of Sebring.
Here, both series were running their third rounds of the season after earlier rounds at both Sonoma and most recently at the Circuit of the Americas in their bespoke GT3 or GT4 only guise.
Racing their usual two ninety minutes races over the course of the weekend, both AMR crews had hoped that earlier inroads into their Pro-Am class at CoTA would see one or both the crews move up the timing screens of Sebring come the races. Unfortunately, that was not the case for either car as the #24 car again pushed its stablemate to finish P7 in class after race one (as opposed to the #2 car finishing a lap down to the rest) whilst the Racers Edge crew got them back by finishing just ahead of them in Race 2 for a P6 in class finish.
These results still see these recent GT3 convertees struggling for consistency in performance at the tail end of the Pro-Am, in and amongst their peers who followed the same pathway as them from GT4 based racing a year or so ago.
There were, however, happier overtones at the end of the GT4 America Series programme as one team and crew in particular hit most of the series headlines for all the right reasons.
Stepping up from the solo driven GT America Series to the GT4 America Series for the first time saw the #39 Van Der Steur Racing AMR Vantage GT4 of Max Hewitt join forces with the talented Luca Mars to produce something of a ‘dynamite’ crew that secure the silver class pole position (P2 in the race) ahead of the start of race as well as overall pole position ahead of race two.
Jumping with both feet into the already steaming cauldron that is GT4 America, it wouldn’t have been critical if the crew had later faltered during the race but the #39 crew held their nerve to secure a P3 overall/ P2 in class result at the end of race one. They nearly did the double in race two but had to settle for an overall P7/P5 in class for their efforts.
Despite there being six other AMR Vantage GT4 crews within the grid of thirty cars, the #39 car was the only one to secure a podium finish at the end although the #07 Skip Barber Racing AMR of brothers Michael and Alex Garcia came home a consistent P4 within their Am class whilst the JMF Motorsport’s two crews endured something of a challenging weekend as one car or the other failed to finish one or other of the races this time around.
Despite this, the #4 JMF crew of Braydon Arthur and Mike David Ortmann still secure a P2 slot within the silver drivers championship table (albeit a distant one to the early leaders) with the Garcia brothers fourth in Am and likewise with Adrian Comstock and Thomas Merrill within Pro-Am.
These series now move onto their next rounds of the season from Virginia International Raceway in mid-July.
Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media
