Shift Up Now Athlete Sabré Cook completed her fourth consecutive weekend with a top-ten finish driving for the first time with ERA Motorsport in the team’s first Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by Only Golfers race weekend at Road America on August 2-4, 2024.
Cook, a Hagerty-sponsored Athlete and Shift Up Now Foundation grantee, is supported by Mobil1. She piloted the No. 37 privé / PenFed Credit Union 992 Porsche Cup Car amongst a 34-car field for the race on the 4.048-mile, 15-turn Wisconsin road course.
The first practice took place on Thursday afternoon, followed by the second on Friday morning. In addition to learning to work with her new team, Cook got to work preparing for qualifying and the two 40-minute races that weekend.
On Friday afternoon, she set several strong laps immediately on her new Yokohama tires, and looked as though she was on track for her best qualifying yet. With just a few minutes remaining in the session, Cook held steady in seventh place on the time sheets. However, as the checkered flag flew on the session, several of her competitors found more speed in their final flying laps, bumping her to 12th place.
Starting on the outside of row six for race one on Saturday morning, Cook had an impressive start. She gained multiple positions on the first lap, advancing to seventh place before starting lap two. As the race settled in, she pulled away from the eighth-place car, and set her sights on the fight for sixth ahead.
Just past the halfway point of the race, a full-course caution flew for a stopped car. Once the yellow period was over, twelve and a half minutes remained.
At the restart, cars streamed toward the turn one. The car behind Cook made a late-braking pass attempt into the turn and missed his braking point, forcing his car and Cook’s into the run- off. Despite her car being unscathed, she lost a significant number of positions and rejoined the race mid-pack.
It took only one lap for her to advance to thirteenth, and two more to get her to eleventh. With just five minutes left in the race, she was back into the top ten. And with three minutes to go, she set her fastest lap of the race and executed a solid pass to claim the ninth-place spot.
Race two began mid-day on Sunday, with Cook starting twelfth once again. A cloudless sky and higher track temperatures made the track more slick than it had been the day before.
While the pole sitter went for a late start as he led the field to green, Cook had another proper start, advancing three spots to ninth by the end of the first lap. But before the field could complete that lap, the first full-course caution emerged.
Thirty-three minutes remained at the restart. Cook focused on the pass for eighth and looked on the inside at turn one, but was forced to tuck back in and hold position. The field went two- by-two on the next lap. Cook ended up getting shuffled back to tenth and spent the next half lap defending her position.
Just a couple laps later, she caught up to the five-car battle for fifth through ninth place. As she attempted to make the pass for ninth, the car ahead made a mistake, which Cook capitalized on as they headed into turn five.
She set her sights on the eighth-place car, but before she was able to join the fight, a mechanical issue forced the team to retire from the race early.
“I’m so proud and impressed by the ERA Motorsport team’s effort in our very first Porsche Carrera Cup North America weekend,” said Cook. “To hit the ground running mid-season in such a competitive series is a big ask, and the whole crew really pulled together to make this happen.
“It was encouraging for us to have strong pace, and I’m really optimistic about future results with this team. Thank you so much to my sponsors, friends, family and fans for their incredible support. I’m feeling hungrier than ever as we look toward the next race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in September.”
Next up, Cook and the Porsche Carrera Cup North America field will head to the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway for round six of the championship on September 20-22, 2024.
