New Zealander Earl Bamber claimed his third United SportsCar podium of the season as he followed home Porsche team-mates Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy at Virginia Raceway.
The Le Mans 24 winner, driving alongside Jorg Bergmeister, climbed to second position shortly after final round of pit stops with a pass on the Pierre Kaffer/Giancarlo Fisichella Risi Competizione Ferrari 458.
Kaffer applied pressure on Bamber in the closing laps but the Kiwi held firm to finish a distant second behind Tandy and Pilet, who dominated the race from start-to-finish.
“Our first stint was hard and afterwards we had to make up the lost positions,” said Bamber.
“Our crew’s perfect pit stops helped. I immediately tried to put as much pressure on as possible.
“While I was running in third, I knew I wouldn’t get too many chances to make the double victory perfect for Porsche. So when that opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it.”
Bamber will head to Germany’s Nurburgring circuit this week to drive a GTE-Am Porsche in the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
GP2 Series
Stoffel Vandoorne continued on his triumphal march by claiming the feature race and extending his huge points lead at Spa-Francorchamps.
The McLaren test driver beat Arthur Pic and Artem Markelov after a red flag incident involving Daniel de Jong who was later diagnosed to have a fractured vertebrae.
It was another almost faultless effort from poleman Vandoorne who after a slow start saw Sergey Sirotkin blast into the lead before snatching back command at La Source.
The sprint race saw Alexander Rossi break the ice in 2015 in a quinella for Racing Engineering with Jordan King finishing second.
Kiwi Mitch Evans had a welcome change of luck, landing on the podium after a season of frustration at Russian Time.
Vandoorne was fourth and now leads Rossi by a whopping 105 points.
GP3 Series
Luca Ghiotto extended his GP3 Series lead with victory in a Safety Car punctuated second race at Spa.
The Italian was made to work hard for the win as he passed Alfonso Celis Jr, title rival Esteban Ocon and finally Alex Palou on his way to the chequered flag.
A race littered with incident saw the Safety Car deployed twice with the first caused when polesitter Alex Bosak suffered a tyre blowout at Blanchimont corner.
A collision between Antonio Fuoco and Marvin Kirchhofer at Les Combes saw the race neutralised for a second time.
Despite the interruptions, Ghiotto took the flag by 0.8s from Ocon with Celis coming home in third.
Ocon triumphed on the road in Race 1 but the ART driver was later demoted to second following a a five second penalty for breaching Safety Car rules.
Brit Emil Bernstorff was declared the winner with the sister ART car of Kirchhofer in third.
Ghiotto leads Ocon by 28 points in the championship standings.
World Rallycross Championship
Team Peugeot-Hansen team-mates Timmy Hansen and Davy Jeanney secured a one-two at the NAF World RX of Norway, round eight of the FIA World Rallycross Championship.
Hansen’s emphatic win is the fourth podium in a row for the Swedish-based squad and has pushed Peugeot-Hansen to the top of the Teams’ Championship.
Independent driver Robin Larsson in his Larsson Jernberg Racing Audi A1 Supercar finished third.
“Finally I have another win. I’ve been wanting this for a long time,” Hansen said.
“The car has been flying all weekend and I am really, really enjoying driving the 208 at the moment.
“We adopted some safe tactics throughout the heats and had a good tyre strategy going into the semis.
“We are just getting better each weekend and now I can’t wait for Loheac – it is one of my favourite circuits and is of course home for both Peugeot and my team-mate Davy.”
Reigning champion Petter Solberg, Ford Olsbergs MSE’s Andreas Bakkerud and Reinis Nitiss plus EKS team-mates Anton Marklund and Mattias Ekstrom made it through to the semi-finals, but all five failed to make the final.
Round 9 of the championship, the Bretagne World RX of France is scheduled from September 5-6.
Porsche Supercup
Porsche Junior Sven Müller (D/Team Lechner Racing Middle East) has won the sixth race of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup at Spa-Francorchamps.
Starting in a huge field of 32, Muller followed up on his performance last month in Hungary.
Austrians Phillipp Eng (Market Leader Team by Project 1) and Christopher Zochling (Fach Auto Tech) completed the podium.
“This race series is incredibly competitive. From six races we’ve seen five different winners,” Muller said.
“I’m really pleased to be the first driver to notch up two wins this season.”
Eng leads the 11-race Supercup standings on 98 points with Christian Engelhart (D/MRS GT-Racing) second on 82 while Alex Riberas (E/The Heart of Racing by Lechner) is third on 74.
British Touring Car Championship
Victories for Rob Collard, Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal at Knockhill has blown the British Touring Car Championship title race wide open.
West Surrey Racing’s Collard was victorious in Race 1 as he led home the Motorbase Ford Focus of Mat Jackson and polesitter Andy Priaulx at the undulating Scottish circuit.
Honda driver Shedden gave his championship hopes a significant boost with victory in Race 2 in front of a jubilant home crowd.
Collard, in his WSR BMW, was 3.4s adrift of the Scotsman, with Jackson third in a resurgent Motorbase Ford.
Neal starred in the reverse grid race as he snatched the win from Adam Morgan on the penultimate lap, while Aidan Moffat inherited third following a post race penalty for Priaulx.
It proved to be a difficult weekend for Team BMR title contenders Jason Plato and reigning champion Colin Turkington, with a sixth place finish for the former, the best result from the weekend.
As a result, Plato now leads he championship by just 11 points from Shedden with three rounds of the season remaining.
Pirelli World Challenge
Australian James Davison picked up a pair of second place finishes in the Pirelli World Challenge meeting at Miller Motorsports Park.
The Nissan GT-R driver followed Cadillac Racing’s Jonny O’Connell home in the Race 1, with just 2.8s separating the pair at the chequered flag.
Bryan Heitkotter brought his Nissan GT-R home in third.
Race 2 followed a similar pattern to the first with O’Connell converting his pole position into the lead with Davison slotting into second.
Davison was unable to challenge the O’Connell Cadillac resulting in another second place finish, with the Guy Smith Bentley Continental GT3 third.
A seventh consecutive podium finish sees the Aussie occupy fifth position in the standings.
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