AUSTIN, Texas (25 Feb. 2019) — When you have the right ingredients, you don’t mess with a winning recipe. And that is certainly the case with the team partnership between Squadra Corse and TR3 Racing.
Having launched in 2018, the program generated poles, wins, and a Blancpain GT World Challenge America championship. The teams have announced that they will continue their partnership in 2019 Blancpain GT America competition, which opens March 1-3 at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas.
Squadra Corse will return with Caesar Bacarella and Martin Fuentes for the full season in the No. 07 Hublot Ferrari 488 GT3.
For the season-opening Blancpain GT America round at Austin, TR3 Racing will have Wei Lu and Jeff Segal sharing the No. 31 TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3.
The Blancpain GT America series features premier GT3 racing, with 2019 seeing the seven-event championship competing on top-tier circuits with two 90-minute races per weekend and a two-driver format and full service pit stops.
The Bacarella-Fuentes combination is a potent one, as the pair won nine of 10 races on the way to capturing the 2018 World Challenge Sprint X Am championship by 66 points. Fuentes also claimed the World Challenge GTA title, winning four of the seven rounds that he contested. The Ferrari of Ft. Lauderdale-associated team will once again race with partnership support from Hublot, Alpha Prime, Maxim Magazine, and Italian Independent.
“It was an incredible season last year and I’m thrilled to be returning to race for Squadra Corse,” said Bacarella. “Martin (Fuentes) is a great co-driver and the team is very strong. Racing the Ferrari 488 is incredible, and I am looking forward to defending our championship from last year and competing in this new format with the longer races.”
The Segal-Lu pairing finished second in the final 2018 Sprint X Pro-Am standings, just four points shy of the title. The pair swept the season-ending Grand Prix of Utah, closing their rookie year with three victories, five runner-up finishes and nine podiums in 10 races.
The duo are confirmed for the COTA season opener with TR3 Racing as they look to win in Texas once again.
“I’m really looking forward to being back at TR3 Racing in the Ferrari and racing alongside Wei (Lu) at COTA,” said Segal. “We’ve got really good memories from there last year— it was kind of our coming-out party. We were rookies and Wei did a great job to put it on pole. We had two really strong races including the win in the second race. Now we’ve both got a whole season together under our belts and after winning both races to end the season last year we are going from strength to strength to be opening the season at COTA.”
The event opens with promoter’s testing on the 3.4-mile circuit on Thursday. Friday includes one-hour practice periods at 11:40 a.m. and 4:20 p.m. (all times CT). Qualifying begins at 10:20 a.m. on Saturday, followed by Race 1 at 3:40 p.m. The weekend wraps up with Race 2 at 2 p.m. on Sunday.