Shift Up Now Athlete Sabré Cook ended a chaotic week with a ninth-place finish in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America season finale at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) on October 18-20, 2024.
During the first race of the previous event at Road Atlanta, Cook’s car was collected by a competitor spinning on track. The damage to the right rear corner of her chassis made the car irreparable, and Cook was unable to compete in the second race.
On Monday morning, just three days before the paddock began loading in at COTA, she found herself in a race against time. Her goal in contacting every partner, sponsor and supporter was to find not only the funding to pay for the crash damage, but also a car to rent from another team, so that she could be on the grid to complete her season.
It wasn’t until Thursday morning that all the pieces came together. Once loaded into the paddock, Cook worked to get her sponsor logos on the car while the ERA Motorsport team scrambled to put their setup on the rented No. 37 Porsche 992 Cup car.
During the only practice session of the weekend, competing in a 36-car field with a chassis she’d never driven before, the Hagerty supported racer was immediately in the top 15 in practice in her Penfed /privé Porsche Cup Car.
Qualifying took place on Saturday morning. The team had made additional changes since practice to dial the car in further, and Cook ran inside the top ten for most of the session on her Yokohama tires. However, when a few competitors set their fastest lap times late during the qualifying session, she was pushed back to 13th place, where she would start for both races.
Later that afternoon, Cook had a strong start to race one, although she appeared to pop out of line a little too soon as the field came to green. Nonetheless, she advanced to 12th within the first lap and was looking to make a pass for 11th in the stadium section when a full-course caution emerged for an incident in the esses. After a lengthy cleanup, the race restarted with 25 minutes remaining.
After a clean restart, Cook was once again looking to advance to 11th when another incident deployed the safety car before she could make progress. This time, only 12 minutes remained at the restart. The field then had just a few laps of green-flag racing before a third incident occurred, and the race finished under yellow. Post-race, Cook was assessed a 10-second penalty for the start violation, dropping her down in the order.
On Sunday morning, Cook was once again lined up on the inside of row seven for the start of race two. The field went cleanly through the first lap and similar to the day before, Cook looked exceptionally strong in the stadium section as she put pressure on the cars ahead.
Running in a tight pack of four cars, she watched both mirrors and defended appropriately while focusing on moving forward. With a great run onto the front straightaway, she moved to the inside but the car ahead defended all the way to the pit wall. Undeterred, she switched to the outside and made the pass around the outside of turn one.
Now running in 12th, she spent the next lap defending her position and running side-by-side several times, but then began to gap the cars behind. The 11th-place car was several seconds ahead, and Cook’s only option was to focus on laying down her fastest-possible laps. Despite warnings from race control, cars throughout the field continued to violate the COTA track limits rule, but Cook kept her car clean.
With just a couple of laps remaining, she was forced to take evasive action at turn nine to avoid a car that had spun. This advanced her to 11th place, where she would take the checkered flag. However, when track-limits and incident-responsibility penalties were assessed post-race, Cook’s clean and smart driving advanced her to ninth place.
This top-ten finish would be her ninth of the season.
“I feel like I’ve made great strides in my second season of GT racing,” said Cook. “And after switching to ERA Motorsport mid-season with no loss of momentum, I was really looking forward to the last two events of the season, supporting Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and F1 at COTA. However, after I was collected last weekend and my car was too damaged to repair, I thought I might have to end my sophomore season on the sidelines.
“I am so thankful to all of my partners who have not only supported me since the start of this season, but who stepped up again to help me make this weekend possible in Austin. From trying to find a car, to getting it set up and ready to compete for my ninth top-ten finish this year, the past ten days have been a roller coaster of emotions. So I’m incredibly grateful to have gotten a finish our program - and my partners - deserve.
“I also want to thank ERA Motorsport one more time for their part in helping me overcome hurdles to competing this weekend, and their commitment to ensuring I was on the grid in a competitive race car.”
This offseason, Cook is working to return to the Porsche Carrera Cup North America series for 2025. The season kicks off at Sebring International Raceway during the Mobil1 Twelve Hours of Sebring weekend, March 12-15, 2025.
