The Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 returned to Pirelli World Challenge action with GT Academy winner Ricardo Sanchez joining forces with Frankie Montecalvo.

The duo are contesting all five SprintX rounds of the championship in 2017 and kicked off their assault with a fifth place finish in the PRO/AM class on Sunday. The result was a strong fightback after electric issues curtailed their efforts in the opening race on Saturday.

“The week started out quite well, with the pole position in class,” Sanchez said.

“We had an electrical issue on Saturday’s race and that put us P22 on the grid for Sunday. I started the race and made good progress, from P22 to P15, P4 in class. The series gave me the best start award of the race, which is amazing. I had so much fun.

“This class is really old school with a lot of overtaking. You can use any line around here and there are a lot of high speed corners.

“Even though it was an up and down weekend, and I’m disappointed we missed out on a podium, Always Evolving did an amazing job with the car and I was very happy with the Nissan GT-R.

“We’ll definitely keep pushing in Canada for the next round at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and I’m confident we can challenge for a podium.”

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More snaps from the Pirelli World Challenge weekend at Virginia International Raceway