PWC: O’Connell’s perfect execution brings win

Johnny O'Connell reminded the Pirelli World Challenge GT field why he's a four-time defending champion on Sunday at Circuit of The Americas, but he was certainly helped by some misfortune and mistakes suffered by his competition.

"The key for us was to get a decent start," he explained. "Yesterday I managed to go from third to ninth. This time I went from third to third, so I was pretty stoked about that. When I saw the misfortune that Patrick Long had, I knew this was an important day. Patrick is a top-tier driver, great team. So when you see something like that happen, you need to make the most of it."

Long, the winner on Saturday in his Effort Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, was turned at the start by James Davison in the Always Evolving Nissan GTR GT3, and hit the wall. Davison, who was then running second, had to serve a stop-and-go plus 10 seconds for avoidable contact. That left only Bryan Heitkotter, who led most of Round 1 before being passed by Long, in the Replay XD/Nissan GT Academy Nissan GTR as the only thing between O'Connell and the lead.

"I had an idea in my mind how the pass would go, and I was doing subtle little things to set it up. It took me a long time to get everything positioned right, but then it played out well in Turn 12, carrying just a little bit more momentum across the corner because he only missed it by about three feet, but that was the mistake I was looking for. I kind of faked like I was going left, but then I went right. From that point on it was just connect the dots and don't make any mistakes," O'Connell explained. He was followed to the line by new teammate Michael Cooper, who finished third on Saturday, and Jon Fogarty in the Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing McLaren 650S.

O'Connell admitting that he knew he had to make the most of Long's misfortune hinted at whom he believes will be among the strongest challengers to keep him from claiming a fifth title, but he also says things are so close that it's going to be a real battle.

"Both Nissans were wicked fast," he said. "And you look after the race and see how fast the McLaren was, how fast the Bentley was. I think the BOP right now is pretty darn spot-on. It's going to be interesting as the season goes forward – there's going to be racetracks that favor us, that favor the Porsche, that favor the McLaren and so forth. It's going to come down to who executes and who doesn't make mistakes."