Ferrari 458 Italia Pictures

DETROIT Alessandro Balzan detained off late-race charges from the Audi R8 LMS of Spencer Pumpelly and the Porsche 911 GT America of Mario Farnbacher to win Saturdays Chevrolet Sports Car Classic open by Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers at Detroit Belle Atoll in the No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 Italia he co-drives with Jeff Westphal.

Balzan took the lead when Tomy Drissi pitted with 33 minutes remaining, holding off the rest of the GT Daytona (GTD) group of pupils for the final 20 laps of the one-hour, 40-minute event. It was the second career North American sports car racing victory for Balzan and the earliest in the TUDOR United SportsCar Battle and the earliest career victory for Westphal.

It was a nightmare impossible there, because there were five or six cars that could have won today, held Balzan. It was difficult for me to stay focused in the car. I think I held around bad words to my engineer, I held to him, please, put down the lid up because I needed 110 percent of for myself today.

45 Brief Lizard Motorsports Audi R8 LMS: Nelson Canache, Spencer Pumpelly

Photo by: Achievement Sports Photography For the second consecutive race, Pumpelly and the No. 45 Brief Lizard Motorsports band suffered heartbreak in the final laps. Bearing in mind running impossible of fuel period leading on the final lap at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Pumpelly looked to rebound at Detroit Belle Atoll and attempted to pass Balzan for the lead with a lesser amount of than five minutes remaining. Pumpelly ran wide and immediately lost the position to the No. 23 Heart of Racing Band SeattleAlex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT America of Mario Farnbacher and the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS of Christopher Haase.

With Pumpelly impossible of the picture, Farnbacher and Haase set their sights on Balzan, except fell just succinct. Farnbacher took the checkered flag 0.297 seconds in arrears Balzan to finish second for he and co-driver Ian James, period Haase and co-driver Bryce Miller finished third.

The race was slowed by full-course caution twice for 11 laps. The earliest, from Laps 22-26, was the upshot of water on course in Turn 6. The second full-course caution lasted for 23 minutes for repairs to the wear out wall in Turn 12 following an incident involving the No. 81 Tullys Coffee Porsche of Damien Faulkner.