Shift Up Now Athlete Sabré Cook earned ninth-place and eighth-place finishes, respectively, in rounds 11 and 12 of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America presented by PenFed Credit Union at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) on September 19-21, 2024.
Cook is a Hagerty-sponsored Athlete and supported by Mobil1. The Grand Junction, CO native has finished in the top ten at every race weekend since Miami in early May. Since moving to Indianapolis, she has adopted IMS as her “home track,” and went into the weekend looking for redemption after the 2023 season ended early when she was collected by another car.
Piloting the No. 37 privé / PenFed Credit Union 992 Porsche Cup Car for ERA Motorsport in just her second event with the team, she competed amongst a 30-car field for both of the 40- minute races.
The race weekend began with two practice sessions on Thursday. Cook felt confident on her Yokohama tires, finishing seventh in the first session and eighth in the second, just 0.3 seconds off the first-place competitor.
Qualifying took place on Friday morning. Unfortunately, Cook caught traffic at inopportune times and was unable to optimize. She qualified in twelfth place.
Later that afternoon, she lined up on the outside of row six for the first race of the weekend on the iconic, 2.5-mile oval. She made a clean start and held her position after the first few turns.
As the two cars immediately ahead of her battled, she got a strong run coming off the speedway banking into the brake zone in turn 12. She made a move on the inside, but when the outside car tried to turn in at the apex, not realizing Cook was there, he made contact with her car. Fortunately, she was able to continue, running in tenth place.
After a long, caution-free run, Cook’s damaged car had caused her to drop back to eleventh, but focused forward on a positive result. With just one lap to go, two cars in the group ahead were forced to retire. This promoted her to ninth place to finish race one.
On Saturday morning, Cook was lined up once again on in the twelfth-place spot for the start of race two. After another clean start, she advanced into the top ten during the opening laps. Working hard to stay with the leaders, Cook drove consistently and defended her position, waiting patiently for the pursuing cars to run their tires off.
Just as a gap began to open around her, an incident between two cars battling just outside the top-five caused them to drop back significantly, and allowed Cook to slot into eighth place. With ten minutes left in the race, Cook got re-passed by one of the car involved in the earlier incident, however when a post-race penalty was assessed to the other driver she regained her spot to finish in eighth.
“Thanks to all the guys from ERA Motorsport, my incredible partners, and all the fans for coming out to support us here at the Racing Capital,” said Cook. “Looking forward to continuing to improve our pace and clinch more great results in the last rounds of the season next month!”
There are two events remaining in the Porsche Carrera Cup 2024 championship. Next up, the series heads to Road Atlanta - alongside Petit LeMans - for rounds 13 and 14 on October 9-11, 2024. After that, the season finale takes place with rounds 15 and 16 - alongside Formula 1 - at Circuit of the Americas on October 18-20, 2024.
