Porsche Carrera Cup North America celebrated its return to Road Atlanta today with the opening pair of practice sessions for this weekend’s 13th and 14th round of the 2024 championship.
The fast-flowing GA circuit was not part of the championship last year, but that did not stop Topp Racing’s New Zealander Ryan Yardley from impressing today on the first weekend he competed here.
Championship leader Loek Hartog (Kellymoss) set the pace in the morning session as one of four drivers to dip into the 1-minute, 21-second mark. Yardley was sandwiched in third position with JDX Racing teammates Alex Sedgwick (P2) and Zachary Vanier (P4), who also broke that benchmark.
In the afternoon session, most teams failed to improve their time, but Yardley went faster and was the only driver to break that 1-minute, 21-second mark again. He also finished the session more than ½ a second quicker than Dan Clarke (Era Motorsports), Jimmy Llibre (ACI Motorsports and Elias da la Torre.
“It was a nice practice two for us here at Road Atlanta with Topp Racing,” Yardley said.
“The car is pretty good. It’s my first ever race here at Road Atlanta, so I’m excited for the weekend.
“It’s nice to finish on top this afternoon in the second practice session, but tomorrow with qualifying and the first race – those are the sessions that really count.
“Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
Pro-Am championship leader Alan Metni (Kellymoss) continued his impressive recent run of form to top the timesheet this morning.
In the afternoon session, however, the 2022 Pro-Am champion was pushed back fourth on the timesheet. Marco Cirone (ACI Motorsport) topped the session ahead of teammate Pedro Torres and Efrin Castro (Kellymoss)
The only driver to take a sweep of both sessions today was Chris Bellomo for Kellymoss.
For Masters championship leader Matt Halcome, the race at Road Atlanta is a home event – he made his racing debut here at the same circuit. The GA resident was strong in both sessions, finishing third in the opening practice and second behind Bellomo in the second.
“It’s great to be home. It puts a little bit of pressure on me ’cause I’m going to have friends and family here watching me, but it’s great,” Halcome said.
“This is obviously a track I’m very familiar with and one where I have done a lot of laps.
“Hopefully, we can come away with a couple of wins. This year has been an awesome season with ACI. I’ve had a great time, and there is an awesome group behind me.”
Entering the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America penultimate event this weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Dan Clarke’s path through the first 14 rounds wasn’t straightforward.
The team Clarke drove the first half of the season departed in July, leaving the British ex-Champ Car racer without a ride despite sitting seventh in the Pro class point standings. However, Clarke’s misfortune was quick to turn around before the ninth and 10th rounds at Road America the next month.
“I’ve known (Era Motorsport Team Owner) Kyle Tilley for a while,” Clarke explained.
“He lives here in Indianapolis, he’s English like me, and naturally, he’s part of the ‘racing expat fraternity’ in Indianapolis. A lot of people reached out, and a lot of different teams reached out.
“It was a unique experience in that my existing teammates and I had a really good working relationship, and we wanted to try to keep that together. I was looking for a program that worked for all of us and allowed us to have a minimum amount of disruption to what was already the halfway point of our season.
“Kyle was one team and obviously, the credentials of Era were impressive, not just for me, but for my teammates and my sponsors too. I think the timing was perfect for Era as well.”
The partnership was an instant hit, as Clarke landed on the podium on Sunday at Road America after a sixth-place finish the day prior. The team followed up with another podium and a top-five finish at Indianapolis last month. Clarke’s Era teammate Sabre Cook has also performed strongly, scoring three top tens in the four races that the Indianapolis-based team has contested.
“I enjoy the team I’m with, I enjoy the personalities,” said Clarke.
“I like that team environment and that challenge, whether it’s communication or organization or personalities. I like being in the middle of that. I liked getting good results for Era in the first race to do my bit and to keep the guys motivated, and also to remember that any operation in the beginning, while it’s new, has its difficulties, but it was a reason to keep going.”
Clarke – who also builds driving simulators for customers as a business between events – is now fifth in the Pro championship with four races remaining this season. And as he races amongst the front contenders, his goals for this weekend at Road Atlanta and the season finale at Circuit of The Americas are to qualify well to position himself strongly in the race.
“I just don’t seem to be able to say no to the challenge of the Carrera Cup series,” said Clarke, who has been racing for more than 30 years.
“It fits really nicely in my wheelhouse of being a fun car to drive, it’s really reliable, and you can really hustle it. I’m the first to admit I don’t ever want to step back from that challenge. We had a few handicaps this year with testing and stuff like that, but it doesn’t stop me from going out there and giving it my all. That’s why podiums feel like a victory.”
After Clarke’s open wheel days ended, the Brit spent 13 years on the sideline before returning to Porsche Carrera Cup North America last season.
“I’m at that age of racing where I don’t expect things to happen every year, and I treat every season as a gift,” Clarke said.
“I try to enjoy it as much as I can and make the most of it, and I feel it reflects a time in my life that everybody probably goes through. These opportunities are few and far between and won’t be around forever, so I try to make the most of them now.”
On-track activity for Porsche Carrera Cup North America begins on Wednesday, October 9, with two practice sessions before qualifying on Thursday morning. The green flag for Race 1 waves later that day at 5:05 p.m. ET, with Race 2 on Friday at 10:55 a.m.
Races air live at PorscheCarreraCup.us, on the IMSA YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@imsaofficial, on the Peacock streaming app and at IMSA.tv. All are archived on the Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/PorscheMotorsportNorthAmerica.
The Porsche Carrera Cup North America enters the final two race weekends of the 2024 season without one of its class championships settled.
The premier Porsche one-make series in the United States and Canada has been an intense battle throughout the year and the ultra-quick 2.54-mile, 12-turn Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta is always one of the hardest fought venues on the calendar.
Twelve of 16 total rounds are complete in the all-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car series. Rounds 13 and 14 will support the 27th annual Petit Le Mans weekend, October 9 – 12, at the Braselton, Georgia-area track.
Practices one and two will be run on Wednesday, October 9. The 30-minute qualifying session for all classes will set the grid on Thursday morning with the first of two 40-minute rounds getting underway that afternoon. The second race of the weekend will take the green flag on Friday morning.
ROAD ATLANTA FAST FACTS
- Field. 28 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race cars are entered for the weekend.
- Pro class. 15 Pro-Am class. 7 Masters class. 6
- Teams. 9 race teams are represented across all three classes.
Track Record: 1:20.089, Laurin Heinrich, No. 12 311RS Motorsport, set in 2022
2023 Race Winners
Series did not race at this venue in 2023
– Pro. Race 1 & 2. NA
– Pro-Am. Race 1 & 2. NA
– Masters (previously called Am). Race 1 & 2. NA
Point Leaders.
Pro. Loek Hartog, No. 24 Kellymoss
Pro-Am. Alan Metni, No. 99 Kellymoss
Masters. Matt Halcome, No. 55 ACI Motorsports
Entrants. Kellymoss
Schedule. All times Eastern
Wednesday, October 9.
11:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. – Practice 1
3:30 p.m. – 4:10 p.m. – Practice 2
Thursday, October 10.
8:35 a.m. – 9:05 a.m. – Qualifying (all classes)
5:05 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. – Race 1 (40-minutes)
Friday, October 11.
10:55 a.m. – 11:35 a.m. – Race 2 (40-minutes)
Hometown heroes:
While most drivers and teams in the series have a connection to Road Atlanta, two drivers are Georgians. Masters class championship leader Matt Halcome lives in Dallas, Georgia.
The pilot of the No. 55 “Mystery Machine” Porsche won his first Porsche Carrera Cup North America title (PA991 class) here at the 2021 season-finale. Richard Edge lives in Atlanta.
The driver of the No. 18 Porsche sits in third place of the Masters class entering rounds 13 and 14. Both drivers race for ACI Motorsports which is headquartered three hours away in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Legacy track:
Road Atlanta is a “Legacy Track” on the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup schedule. The track joins Sebring International Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Road America and Indianapolis Motor Speedway as tracks that hosted the premier one-make race series in its 2021 debut season. With the intense travel schedule last year, Road Atlanta was not included in the 2023 season. However, the series returns for 2024 given the popularity of the track and the importance of the Petit Le Mans race weekend.
History maker:
Road Atlanta was the home of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America finale its first two seasons, 2021 and 2022. Both years, the champions were crowned in dramatic fashion. Seb Priaulx won two of the three Porsche Carrera Cup North America races run on the 2.54-mile track earning himself the first Al Holbert Cup awarded to the overall champion of the series in 2021.
Parker Thompson captured the first of two races held at the Braselton, Georgia facility in 2022 to win the overall title. Since 2023, the championship finale has been held at the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. The 2024 champions will be crowned there again this year, October 18 – 20, in support of the United States Grand Prix Formula 1 ® weekend.
Past overall race winners at Road Atlanta.
2021. Race 1. Seb Priaulx, Race 2. Kay van Berlo, Race 3. Seb Priaulx
2022. Race 1. Parker Thompson, Race 2. Laurin Heinrich
To the point:
Loek Hartog (Netherlands) remains comfortably at the front of the Pro class field but has not locked up the championship entering round 13. Hartog has raced the No. 24 Racing For Children’s Kellymoss Porsche to seven overall wins including the most recent four races. He added three additional podiums to tally for a total of 262 points.
The Kellymoss driver is 76 points ahead of PT Autosport JDX Racing driver Alex Sedgwick (United Kingdom) and 95 markers ahead of Ryan Yardley (New Zealand) in third place. Sedgwick has one win this season in the No. 98 while Yardley also holds a single victory driving the No. 78 Topp Racing Performance Porsche.
The Pro-Am category has always been the most hotly contested, and 2024 is no exception. Two Indy race wins jumped Alan Metni (Austin, Texas) from third place to the points lead in the No. 99 Kellymoss Porsche. The 2022 class champion holds a three-point gap over Moisey Uretsky (Miami, Florida) in the No. 44 Baby Bull Racing machine. Marco Cirone (Canada) – who entered Indianapolis in the lead – fell to third but remains only five points behind Metni. In fact, 2021 and 2023 champion Efrin Castro (Dominican Republic) sits only 20 points behind his Kellymoss teammate in the No. 65, still in the fight for his third Pro-Am class championship.
Matt Halcome (Dallas, Georgia) has seen the Masters class field close behind him coming to the final two race weekends. However, the driver of the No. 55 ACI Motorsports Porsche remains 41 points ahead of Chris Bellomo (Portola Valley, California) in the No. 68 Porsche prepared by Kellymoss. Kellymoss retains the Entrants standings with 251 points, 35 markers ahead of JDX Racing.
There are still 112 points remaining in the season. A driver can capture up to 56 points in a weekend. A victory pays 25 points, second place counts for 20 and third place is awarded with 17 points. A pole position is worth two points while a fastest race lap will add an additional point to the total of a driver in each class. Each of the two races pays a total of 28 points.
Broadcast:
Races air live at PorscheCarreraCup.us, on the IMSA YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@imsaofficial, on the Peacock streaming app and at IMSA.tv. All are archived on the Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/PorscheMotorsportNorthAmerica.
On the web. www.PorscheCarreraCup.us.
After dominating the weekend at Road America, Kellymoss’ Porsche Carrera Cup North America championship leader Loek Hartog repeated the result with a pair of wins at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Today’s victory was the Dutchman’s seventh from 11 races contested so far in the 2024 season. Hartog led into turn one on the opening lap and was never headed throughout the 40-minute journey.
After the championship completed its first caution-free race of the season yesterday, the Porsche Carrera Cup North America field again went flag to flag today without major incident or race stoppage in today’s event presented by OnlyGolfers.
After finishing third yesterday, JDX Racing’s Alex Sedgwick went one better today to finish second behind Hartog. Former Champ Car driver and Indianapolis-based Brit Dan Clarke (ERA Motorsport) completed the podium in third place.
Jimmy Llibre (ACI Motorsports), Ryan Yardley (Topp Racing), and Elias de la Torre (JDX Racing) completed the top six.
“Coming into Indy, I didn’t expect to get two more wins. I’m extremely happy with a pair of victories with the fastest lap plus two pole positions,” Hartog said.
“Alex (Sedgwick) made it very difficult for me in the beginning to pull away, but I knew I had a strong car for the end of the race, so I managed to have a very consistent race like yesterday and got the win.
“I couldn’t see anyone in my mirror, so that’s a good sign. I can’t wait for Road Atlanta; that’s going to be the next one, and it’s also the one I’m looking most forward to.”
Today, the Pro-Am battle at Indianapolis started with an inter-team fight between yesterday’s winner, Alan Metni, and his teammate, Jordan Wallace.
Wallace held the top spot early in the race, but Metni was able to find his way past to complete the weekend sweep. Marco Cirone (ACI Motorsports) joined Metni and Wallace on the podium.
“The battle with Jordan was a lot of fun—a lot of clean, fun racing,” Metni said.
“We’ve had good pace all year, but we haven’t been able to put it together. We finally did this weekend, and it was an awesome result – let’s see if we can do it again next time.”
“In regards to the championship, I’m not sure where we are now with the way you drop the lowest races. It makes it complicated. All I know is if I win everything from here, I’ll end the season happy. So that’s my goal.”
After a post-race penalty took away a potential win yesterday for Richard Edge, the ACI Motorsports racer made amends today to earn his first victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Edge was penalized yesterday for track limit infractions, but he was unable to heed the warnings due to a radio issue.
“Yesterday, we had some tough luck. My radio went out, so I didn’t hear the track limit warnings, which cost me 10 seconds,” Edge said.
“So that was a tough day, but I focused today, got a good start, and then worked on hitting my marks and keeping the guys behind me.
“Overall, I’m happy. It was awesome. It was a better day for the team than yesterday. I’m really proud of everybody and happy with the win.”
Edge’s teammate and Masters championship leader Matt Halcome finished second, with yesterday’s class winner Scott Blind (Ruckus Racing) across the line in third place.
After 12 races, the Porsche Carrera Cup North America heads into its final stretch with four remaining races—two at Road Atlanta and the final pair at the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on October 18-20.
Kellymoss racer Loek Hartog charged to his sixth win of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America at Indianapolis Motor Speedway today in the first caution-free race of the season.
Fellow front-row starter Jimmy Llibre (ACI Motorsports) pushed Hartog hard in the run to turn one, but after the Dutchman emerged with the race lead – he was never headed throughout the remainder of the 40-minute journey.
Llibre looked set for a runner-up podium finish before, unfortunately, having to retire in the final moments of the race.
Ryan Yardley (Topp Racing) took second place at the finish ahead of JDX Racing’s Alex Sedgwick. Canadian Zach Vanier (JDX Racing) took fourth ahead of Dan Clarke (ERA Motorsport) and Colin Kaminsky (Topp Racing).
“I’m so happy with this result. I gave it my everything. I think it’s one of the best races I’ve ever done,” Hartog said.
“I’m very proud of what we achieved with the team. We built such a good car for this race and finished with maximum points and the fastest lap.
“Special thanks to my mom for giving me a little bit of extra motivation this morning – this one is for her, and I’m so happy.”
In the Pro-Am class, Alan Metni (Kellymoss) converted his pole position to his third race victory of the season and his first at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Metni led home team-mate Efrin Castro, who failed to win for only the second time in eight attempts at Indy. His only preview non-victory came in race three in 2021 when contact forced him out of the race.
Moisey Uretsky, whose championship challenge was boosted by his sixth podium for 2024, completed the podium in third place.
Scott Blind was another first-time Indy winner in what turned out to be a surprise result for the Rukus Racing driver. ACI Motorsports’ Richard Edge was first across the line but was penalized for exceeding track limits.
Kellymoss team-mates Chris Bellomo and John Goetz completed the podium.
“That was a fabulous, hard-fought race,” Blind said.
“A lot of tight racing there. We had a perfect car that came in late in the race. I had a great fight with Chris (Bellomo), and it’s always a fabulous time. The crew did an amazing job.
“I don’t know if I could have gone two more laps; it was getting hot, but what a great place to win. It’s so much fun to win in Carrera Cup, and I’m having a fabulous time aboard this 992.”
Round twelve of Porsche Carrera Cup North America will go green on Saturday at 11:10 am.
Porsche Carrera Cup North America points leader Kellymoss again jumped to the top of the times in qualifying today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The Wisconsin-based squad took the pole position across all three classes in Pro, Pro-Am, and Masters around the 2.605 mile circuit at the famous venue known as “The Brickyard” and the “The Racing Capital of the World.”
Pro class points leader Loek Hartog led the charge for Kellymoss, recording a time of 1:25.159 in qualifying ahead of Jimmy Llibre (ACI Motorsports) and Ryan Yardley (Topp Racing).
Alex Sedgwick (JDX Racing), Dan Clarke (ERA Motorsport), and Michael Cooper (Baby Bull Racing) complete the first three rows, with six different teams filling the top six spots on the grid aboard their Porsche 911 GT3 Cup machines.
“Double P1 again – this is a very nice result for us,” Hartog said.
“We’re happy with that, especially at a track where the differences are so tight. To take it almost by two-tenths of a second is nice.
“We’re looking good for the race runs as well. So we’re going to have a good first race today hopefully.
“And then tomorrow we’re starting from pole again. Let’s see if we can get a double win like Road America again.”
Alan Metni took the honors in the Pro-Am division for Kellymoss. Moisey Uretsky (Baby Bull Racing) and Metni’s teammates Jordan Wallace and Efrin Castro complete the top two rows.
“The car felt great. It felt like it was on rails. Kellymoss did a great job setting it up,” Metni said.
“We’ve had good pace over the past three days. It’s been quite a bit of fun.
“This place has some technical stuff through the esses, which makes it quite challenging, and then it’s also got some ballsy stuff like entering the front straight.
“The facilities here are awesome, The fans are great. As we’re walking around the town, people are coming up and talking to us all the time. That always adds to the fun.”
Chris Bellomo’s Kellymoss completed the Kellymoss sweep in Masters. He was only .02 of a second faster than championship leader Matt Halcome (ACI Motorsports), with Scott Blind (Ruckus Racing) in third place.
“We had a really good test here. So we used that to come forward and perform well in the first couple of practices,” Bellomo said.
“I’m looking forward to a good race. I mean, all the Masters drivers are bunched up, and it’s going to be very competitive.
“Here at Indy you need a combination of aggression and precision and trying to find that balance. Because if you overstep it, the track can really make you pay. So trying to find that balance is really important here.”
Round 11 of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America – presented here at Indy by OnlyGolfers – goes green at 3:00 pm today. It can be seen live on NBC Peacock, Porsche Motorsport North America, and IMSA YouTube channels as well as the series website.
Qualifying results:
