Wiltshire charged to victory in the opening Masters Endurance Legends race at Austin

The 35-minute plus one lap race kick-started the racing action at COTA, with MEL once more joining the support package for Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix.

Wiltshire, in the #10 Acura ARX-05, led the field away from pole position beneath blue skies at the iconic 3.4km circuit, and initially opened a 2.4-second advantage over the pursuing #65 Lola B12/60 of David Brise.

But Brise fought back across successive laps, setting fastest tours to reel in the leader, and they crossed the line split by just a tenth of a second after seven laps.

As the pair encountered lapped traffic Brise sought an opportunity to overhaul his rival, before the duo lightly brushed wheels through the uphill right-hander of Turn 8.

Wiltshire was first to come in for his mandatory stop, coming in at the end of lap eight, but he was stymied by traffic in the pit lane, losing valuable seconds.

That handed the initiative to the #65, with Brise coming in at the end of the following lap to hand over driving duties to team-mate Alan Purbrick.

Purbrick filtered back on track in the lead, but a flying Wiltshire reeled in his opponent and cruised back into the lead along the back straight.

Purbrick was unable to offer a response and Wiltshire duly reeled off the remaining laps to chalk up Race 1 victory by a margin of 50.8 seconds after 18 laps of green-flag competition, with his only scare being having to avoid a spinning lapped car in front of him late on.

“Really pleased to be here, when Masters gave us the opportunity to get a car to COTA, who was going to turn that down,” said Wiltshire. “It’s very special to take pole and win the race.”

Brise was also delighted with his outcome.

“We’re delighted; can’t be in a better place on a better day, we had a great tussle at the beginning with Stuart, I was having a lot of fun with him, it got a bit tight at times, couple of kisses – but we’re still friends and it’s all good! And Alan drove beautifully, the best he’s driven, we’re so happy.”

George Kurtz ran a relatively lonely race to third position in his Mercedes Benz AMG GT3, taking GT honours, after early close competitor Chris Ronson Jr. suffered a technical problem in his Oreca FLM09.

Ronson Jr. was chasing Kurtz for third place when a suspected left-rear suspension failure into Turn 3 terminally hobbled the car, sending him into retirement.

“It was a clean race, we controlled the pace for GT3, third overall for a GT3 car is a great job by the team, we look forward to the next race,” said Kurtz.

That elevated Cal Meeker into fourth place in the Spice GTP, a position he retained through to the chequered flag, while Travis Engen was fifth.

Engen spun early on in proceedings at Turn 12, dropping down to 21st place, but carved his way through the pack to put his Audi R8 LMP1 into the top five.

Mark Stratford wound up sixth in the Elan DP02, ahead of Andre Fernandes’ Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, with Mark Brannon and Philip Stratford claiming eighth and ninth respectively aboard their Elan DP02s, separated by just 0.4s after a race-long battle.

James Hagan picked up a couple of positions in his Oreca 03 LMP2 to round out the overall top 10 in the final classification.

Race 2 of the Masters Endurance Legends Championship, again of length 35 minutes plus a lap, will commence Sunday’s race action at COTA, at 08:30 local time.