Jamin drives to first PWC GTS win in series debut

Nico Jamin's incredible individual season continued Saturday when he drove his No. 13 ANSA Motorsports KTM X-Bow GT4 to a Round 3 win in the Pirelli World Challenge GTS championship at Virginia International Raceway.

Jamin, who started second in the 17-car GTS presented by Case-It field, edged polesitter Jeff Courntey by 3.4 seconds and third-place Lawson Aschenbach by almost 10 seconds. The top five was rounded out by MBRP Performance Exhaust/Mantella Autosport' Martin Barkey and Spain's Rodrigo Baptista in the No. 3 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR.

Saturday's race was Jamin's first-ever race in a KTM GT4, his first laps around VIR and his debut race in PWC. His win comes on the heels of his first Indy Lights win and a third-place finish last weekend at Barber Motorsports Park for Andretti Autosport.

In March, the 21-year-old Frenchman drove for ANSA Motorsports at Sebring, winning the first two inaugural IMSA Prototype Challenge LMP3 races organized in North America.

“I knew I had to make a very aggressive move on the first lap to grab the lead,” said Jamin. “I went into Turns 1 and 2 very deep under braking to get the lead from Jeff. My KTM car doesn’t have the straight speed of the Maserati and I needed to get a clean run in the lead. The car is fun to drive and I really enjoyed the race today. I hope to drive it in the future.”

Jamin will start from the pole on Sunday after setting the fast lap.

"I knew I had to get it done early because I would struggle a lot to get a run on the straightline and get him on the brake. I got him I think where he didn't expect it in the very twisty part of the track, and that's great. They told me on the radio I didn't have the best lap for tomorrow, so I pushed really hard for one lap to get it."

Courtney, the PWC veteran, stunned the GTS division in qualifying when he stole the pole position late in the 15-minute session in his No. 99 Recstuff.com/Kenda Maserati GT4 with a track record of 1m55.144s (102.23mph). The Milwaukee driver finished a solid second Saturday and will start next to Jamin on the front row in Sunday’s GTS feature.

“We have worked on the setup of our car a little and it is extremely strong in the esses here at VIR,” said Courtney. “I had a feeling that Nico was going to deep into the first corner very deeply and that’s exactly what he did. We know what the KTM is capable off too. That won the GTS championship last year. Now, we’ll try to have another strong race Sunday here.”

Third in the 50-minute GTS sprint event was four-time PWC series champion Lawson Aschenbach in the No. 10 Blackdog Speed Shop Chevrolet Camaro GT4R after a poor qualifying effort in the morning due to broken differential. In fact, Aschenbach’s teammate, Tony Gaples, sacrificed his Saturday race to donate the rear-end from his Camaro to Aschenbach’s machine.

“We had a problem in qualifying and I want to thank Tony for swapping the differential in his car so I could compete today,” said Aschenbach, a two-time GTS champion. “I had a great battle with Martin Barkey and Rodrigo Baptista today. It felt good to finish on the podium and collect important points today after the difficult morning. I think we learned some things too for Sunday’s race.”

Barkey, the Canadian veteran, drove his No. 80 MBRP Performance Exhaust/Mantella Autosport KTM Xbow GT4 to fourth Saturday with Baptista rounding out the top-five and running third for much of the race in the No. 3 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport MR.

GTS competitors next take to the track on Sunday at 11:10 a.m. EDT. for Round 4 of of the championship series. Live timing and scoring, as well as live streaming of the race, is available from links found on World-Challenge.com.