James Deane claimed his first win of the 2026 Formula Drift PRO season at Round 4, held at Stafford Motor Speedway in Connecticut, one of three new venues added to this year’s calendar. The result lifted Deane to the top of the championship standings and came as part of the first all-Irish podium in series history.
Heavy rain before qualifying left the track waterlogged, and Dylan Hughes set the pace with 84.13 points in the Royal Purple / GT Radial 2JZ-powered BMW, ahead of Branden Sorensen and Conor Shanahan. Deane spun on his second qualifying run and started 12th, but rebounded once the track dried for competition, defeating Jhonnattan Castro, Andy Hateley, Ryan Tuerck and teammate Ben Hobson on his way to the final. There he met Jack Shanahan, who suffered steering issues on the second run in the Pulsar Turbos BMW and went off course, handing Deane the win.
Jack Shanahan finished second and his brother Conor third, both of whom share an Irish village with Deane. Hobson took fourth, Hughes fifth and Sorensen sixth, while Aurimas Bakchis placed eighth after losing to Conor Shanahan in the Great 8, and Fredric Aasbo retired with a broken axle in the Top 16. Deane now leads the PRO standings with 149 points, 22 ahead of Bakchis, with Sorensen third on 107. Ford continues to lead the Auto Cup and GT Radial the Tire Cup.
In the Link ECU PROSPEC Championship, two-time champion Dmitriy Brutskiy won Round 2 at his home track of Stafford Springs, beating 15-year-old rookie Braden Lons in the final after contact sent Brutskiy’s BMW into a spin. Lons took second, and 14-year-old Camren Sorensen finished third in his Sorensen Motorsports BMW, equaling Hiroya Minowa’s record as the youngest driver to reach a Formula Drift podium. Ayden Copham was the top qualifier from the seeding bracket.
Brutskiy leads the PROSPEC standings with 80 points, ahead of Jason Webb on 63 and Lons on 62. The series continues at Indianapolis Raceway Park from July 30 to August 1, followed by rounds at Seattle and at Las Vegas Motor Speedway from September 24 to 26, where the PROSPEC champion will be crowned. The 2026 season concludes with the PRO final on the streets of Long Beach from October 23 to 24.
