PWC: Lewis claims first GT victory at St. Petersburg

Just a few years ago, Michael Lewis was logging laps in open wheel cars in Europe, hoping – like so many young drivers – for that shot at Formula 1. It never came, and Lewis came back to the U.S., his future uncertain.

He was invited to a Porsche young driver symposium at Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama, and though he had spent very little time racing cars with roofs, he caught on quickly to the Porsche 911, and impressed everyone there.

Today, it paid off, as Lewis won his first overall and GT Pirelli World Challenge race on the St. Petersburg street course, taking his No. 41 EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R to the checkered flag a whopping 10.113 seconds over runner-up Alvaro Parente in the No. 9 McLaren 650S.

Third and fourth were the Cadillac ATS-V.R. drivers Johnny O'Connell and Michael Cooper, respectively.
It did not hurt, Lewis said, that one of the veteran drivers he met at that Porsche event was Patrick Long, who is now his teammate at EFFORT.

"I really want to thank Patrick for his support, and his coaching," Lewis said. "His voice was in my head for the who race." Nine of the last 14 winners of this race started from the pole, and Lewis was the top qualifier.

Long finished seventh after being unable to qualify – he crashed his Porsche hard at the last race at Circuit of The Americas in Texas, and the team was working on it right up to the race.

In GTA, Martin Fuetes took the class win in his Ferrari 458 Italia. In GT Cup, Sloan Urry continued his winning ways in the spec Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car. For both drivers, it was their third straight victory.
Twenty-three cars started the clean, caution-free 40-lap race, and 16 finished all 40 laps. Lewis had the quickest lap of the race at 1 minute, 13.762 seconds, but the top speed was logged by Andrew Davis in his Porsche 911 GT3 R, at 132.514 mph. Davis finished eighth.