McLaren Newport Beach covers K-Pax Racing McLaren GT3 Team in Pirelli World Challenge Championship at Long Beach Grand Prix.

View our Pirelli World Challenge Series 12C GT3 Gallery here.

The Long Beach Grand Prix is an event that brings out all of California's true automotive enthusiasts. The event is centered mainly on the Indycar series-based Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Along with the main Grand Prix event, other forms of automotive racing took place including: Tequila Patrón's Sports Car Showcase featuring the TUDOR Championship, Pirelli's World Challenge Championship, Motegi Racing's Super Drift Challenge Championship, Pro/Celebrity Race, and SPEED Energy's Stadium Super Trucks Race.  In the center of it all was the Lifestyle Expo which hosted a large variety of vendors, booths, and displays including, but not limited to: Dodge/SRT, Ford, Recaro, Chevrolet, etc.

With special privileges granted for access by the Pirelli North America team, our photographer was able to get in the thick of the racing action.  K-Prax worked synonymously with the on-site McLaren GT staff to compete with a pair of McLaren 12C GT3 cars.  In the pits, cameras and cell phones were constantly snapping away as onlookers viewed the team's mechanics prepare the twin McLaren 12C GT3's for battle out on the circuit.  With Carbon Fiber here, louvered vents there, a minimalistic but functional approach can be witnessed as these 12C GT3 cars were clearly designed for a single purpose, and that purpose is to be the fastest around the circuit.

Using data from the practice session via on-board monitoring systems, the teams set up the cars for the optimum race settings.  Technicians from both K-Pax Racing's team and McLaren GT team viewed stats, logs, and made appropriate adjustments as they saw fit.

With Saturday long gone, Sunday meant only one thing to the K-Prax McLaren GT team…. Race Day.  Final tinkering completed, it was time for the twin 12C GT3 cars to hit the pavement.

The grid was set, cars in position, drivers ready.  The grid cleared as they announced "Drivers… start your engines.".  Only a few moments after that, an entire army of GT3 race cars accelerated as fast and hard as possible.  Suddenly, the anticipation faded with nervousness taking its place.

The pace of the race was incredibly fast and the twin 12C GT3 cars held their own putting up a grueling fight against the others.  Ultimately, K-Pax Racing car #9 driven by Alex Figge finished in Position 7 with the fastest lap of the entire race meanwhile car #6 driven by Robert Thorne did not finish due to mechanical issues.

McLaren Newport Beach would like to take the time to wish the K-Pax racing team the best wishes for future races.  A solid team with great drivers, we're sure they'll continue to show that McLaren is a race-bred team.  We would also like to thank the team at Pirelli North America for allowing us to document this race with incredible access.