Rianna O’Meara-Hunt and driving partner Hannah Grisham have begun their GT4 America campaign with an unlucky DNF in Race 1 before storming to seventh in class in Race 2 at Sonoma.
The duo, driving for The Heart of Racing outfit in an Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, showed great pace all weekend, often in the mix with the top AM class competitors.
This was evident in the first qualifying run, the team putting the car 13th out of 43 on the grid and as the second top AM pairing. This came off the back of some solid practice sessions where Grisham had also set the second-fastest AM time.
Grisham took the wheel for the opening stint of Race 1, each race one hour long with a mandatory driver switch in the middle. Unfortunately, their opening race didn’t last a lap, with the American taken out before she had a chance to make an impact.
There was damage to the car, which left the team working late into the night on repairs. O’Meara-Hunt was able to make the start of Race 2, with the team having qualified 37th overall and 12th out of the AM entrants.
What followed was an incredible drive from the Kiwi, who charged forward to hand over to Grisham as eighth best in class. Grisham was able to gain one further place in her two green flag laps before a caution brought out the yellows, which saw the race never resume.
Despite the mixed results, the team came away from the round, optimistic about the progress. Pace is evident in both the Kiwi and American and was shown throughout the weekend. Luck wasn’t on their side in Race 1, with Grisham saying, “Saturday’s race was definitely a difficult one for us.
“We had a pretty decent starting position and just ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I got hit by somebody else, and there wasn’t much I could do and unfortunately it took me out of the race.
“But the team recovered really well and I think for our first weekend, we did pretty good overall and we can only go up from here. The whole Heart of Racing squad did a great job and worked really hard to get the car ready for us from Saturday’s incident. I really can’t thank everyone enough.”
O’Meara-Hunt walked away from the round in good spirits, recognising the progress made was positive.
“We had a bit of bad luck in race one, but for my first race on Sunday I think it went well,” she said. “I was being a bit hesitant at the start with it just being new drivers and a new track and maybe a bit too cautious, but overall it was a really good race. The team has been awesome to work with and we’ve got the car in a really good place and quality.”
One of their teammates, fellow Heart of Racing driver Grey Newell, also praised the two new drivers, saying, “our two new drivers, Rianna and Hannah, performed more than admirably. I’m very impressed with them and excited to be racing with them going forward. Lots of good to come.”
O’Meara-Hunt is competing in the series off the back of an intense shootout regime for the team, which saw her selected out of 100 female applicants for the role.
The GT4 America series returns for Round 2 at NOLA Motorsports Park on April 28-30.
