Daniel Morad and Ziad Ghandour pair in Pro-Am as team moves to Mercedes for GT3 effort
SONOMA, CA (24 March 2023) – TR3 Racing is expanding its competition program for 2023, and will field Daniel Morad and Ziad Ghandour in the Pro-Am championship in Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS.
The duo will share the driving duties on board the No. 9 Mercedes-AMG GT3. The 13-race series opens this weekend with a pair of 90-minute races at Sonoma Raceway.
Ghandour has continued to grow his experience, having moved up the ladder to the GT3 ranks with TR3 Racing after proving himself a winner in single-make racing with the team. Formed by Arthur, Oliver, and Gregory Romanelli brothers, TR3 Racing has continued to diversify its racing programs as the team looks to open a new chapter with the new GT3 platform.
“It’s been a flawless transition to Mercedes,” said team principal Gregory Romanelli. “Thanks to all the personnel behind AMG, and especially Julian Schoch (Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing Project Manager), who has made everything so simple for us. We have been running the car for a few months now and we’ve gotten up to speed fairly quickly. The SRO field will mainly be Mercedes, so we can’t wait to put ourselves up against teams that have been running the car for quite some time now.”
The driver line up of Ghandour and Morad will look to get a fast start to the season with the double-header set in California’s wine country this weekend. Ghandour, a native of Lebanon now living in California, is in his fourth season with TR3 Racing.
“We are excited to have Daniel in the car with Ziad,” said Romanelli. “We have had some great battles against each other in the past, and I can say I’m happy to have Daniel on our side now.”
Morad, a 32-year-old Canadian, is a three-time SRO winner and has won three championships in addition to numerous karting titles.
“I’m really happy to join TR3 alongside Ziad,” Morad said. “It’s great to see another top-level team switching over to the Mercedes-AMG platform. With so much prior success in the series, I’m very much looking forward to get to work with the team and tackling this new challenge.”
Action at Sonoma opens with testing on both Wednesday and Thursday, practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday morning. Saturday’s race schedule (all times PT) includes Race 1 for GT America at 1 p.m.; GT World Challenge America at 3:05 p.m.; and GT4 America at 4:50 p.m. Sunday’s racing includes GT America at 8:55 a.m.; GT4 America at 1:30 p.m.; and GT World Challenge America at 2:15 p.m.
About TR3 Performance:
TR3 Performance was founded by Arthur, Oliver, and Gregory Romanelli in August 2012. Frustrated with the rising costs and plummeting quality from local shops, the brothers saw an opportunity to establish a shop of their own that would live up to their high standard of excellence, where they could hold themselves to the caliber of workmanship they had sought out in the marketplace as enthusiasts. In 2015, TR3 Racing was established as the team stepped into racing at the professional level. What started out as a modest 2,300-sq.ft. enterprise has now exploded into the premier performance shop in South Florida.
