Dominant performance by Kay van Berlo in opening race of Porsche Carrera Cup North America season

Kay van Berlo fired a warning shot to his rivals as he dominated the opening race of the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America season at Sebring International Raceway.

Starting from Pole position, the Kelly-Moss Road and Race driver led the field into Turn 1 as JDX Racing’s Parker Thompson got the jump on Riley Dickinson. Thompson would put pressure on van Berlo throughout the opening laps of the race, at one point pulling alongside. This would prove to be the only challenge to the lead of the race as van Berlo remained calm and pushed on for victory, eventually ending the race nearly six-seconds clear of Thompson.

For Thompson the early charge for the lead soon turned in to a race of defence as Kelly-Moss driver Riley Dickson tailed the JDX Racing Porsche, waiting for his chance to pounce, despite collecting damage on the opening lap of the race to the splitter on the front of his car. Normally damage like this would see the driver fall down the order with the loss of downforce but Dickinson soldiered on, looming large in the mirrors of Thompson’s car.

The top three cars remained near each other for the opening half of the race, pulling out a gap to fourth place, with van Berlo released at the front as his teammate battled on, he put in consistent lap times, including the fastest lap of the race (2:03.520) to go on to victory. Thompson and Dickinson would take second and third places, with a gap of over ten-seconds to the next car, Trenton Estep of MDK Motorsports.

Fifth-place finisher Leh Keen in the 311RS Motorsport car had a relatively quiet race, finishing a second and a half behind Estep and five seconds over Michael McCarthy in sixth place.

McCarthy came out on top of the fierce battle for sixth place, which saw a train of five cars, and at one point of the race three-wide as Michael McCann, Dimitri Dimakos, Varun Choksey, and Grant Talkie fought hard.

In the Pro-Am class there was another dominant winner, and once again a Kelly-Moss car. Efrin Castro led the class from the start of the race and was never under any pressure for the Pro-Am lead. The fight for second place however was a different matter, as Alan Metni and Justin Oakes tussled for position, in the end Kelly-Moss driver Metni took second place ahead of Oakes.

The Am class saw victory for a new team as MDK Motorsports owner/driver Mark Kvamme dominated the race, eventually finishing over ten seconds ahead of Bob Mueller ad Jeff Majkrzak.

Despite the huge field of cars, 41 of the 43 starters finished the race, a huge testament to both Porsche and the field of competitors for make it through the gruelling race across the bumps of Sebring. TJ Fischer was the first driver to retire from the race, a huge lock up on lap 6 led to a flat-spot on his tyre which ultimately saw the tyre delaminate and explode, causing damage to the front right of the Porsche.

The second retirement of the race was Hutton McKenna, who got caught up with Tom Balames into Turn 1 in the closing stages of the race; Balames managed to continue while McKenna was left on the side of the track with a broken car.

2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America – Race 1 – Sebring International Raceway Results

Pos.	#	Class	Driver	Time	Gap
1	3	Pro	Kay van Berlo	41:24.0	–
2	9	Pro	Parker Thompson	41:30.0	5.989
3	53	Pro	Riley Dickinson	41:30.9	6.846
4	6	Pro	Trenton Estep	41:41.2	17.137
5	12	Pro	Leh Keen	41:42.8	18.735
6	7	Pro	Michael McCarthy	41:47.9	23.9
7	8	Pro	Michael McCann	41:55.9	31.857
8	11	Pro	Dimitri Dimakos	41:56.5	32.456
9	13	Pro	Varun Choksey	41:57.0	32.981
10	81	Pro	Grant Talkie	41:57.5	33.449
11	77	Pro	Travis Wiley	42:03.7	39.7
12	65	Pro-Am	Efrin Castro	42:08.7	44.679
13	2	Pro	Sean Varwig	42:09.1	45.073
14	99	Pro-Am	Alan Metni	42:27.5	+1:03.422
15	47	Pro-Am	Justin Oakes	42:27.7	+1:03.695
16	56	Pro-Am	Jeff Mosing	42:27.8	+1:03.801
17	55	Pro-Am	Matt Halcome	42:32.3	+1:08.294
18	24	Pro	Adam Adelson	42:33.3	+1:09.259
19	16	Pro-Am	Pedro Torres	42:40.0	+1:15.930
20	44	Pro-Am	Moisey Uretsky	42:43.2	+1:19.154
21	43	Am	Mark Kvamme	42:45.4	+1:21.348
22	17	Pro-Am	Curt Swearingin	42:49.2	+1:25.164
23	95	Pro	Conor Flynn	42:51.4	+1:27.405
24	28	Am	Bob Mueller	42:56.1	+1:32.117
25	69	Pro-Am	Thomas Collingwood	42:56.6	+1:32.588
26	18	Pro-Am	Richard Edge	42:57.5	+1:33.439
27	29	Am	Jeffrey Majkrzak	43:00.1	+1:36.063
28	4	Am	Robert Hanley	43:09.6	+1:45.576
29	84	Pro-Am	Marco Cirone	43:10.0	+1:45.972
30	26	Pro-Am	Peter Atwater	43:14.6	+1:50.541
31	22	Pro-Am	Carlos De Quesada	43:19.8	+1:55.767
32	42	Am	Bill Smith	43:25.8	+2:01.768
33	30	Pro-Am	Dominique Lequeux	43:32.4	+2:08.324
34	57	Am	John Goetz	43:36.0	+2:11.933
35	21	Am	Grady Willingham	41:24.5	1 Lap
36	10	Am	Vernon McClure	41:25.0	1 Lap
37	92	Am	Joseph Lombardo	41:26.4	1 Lap
38	89	Pro-Am	Mike Zoi	41:40.8	1 Lap
39	80	Am	Joe Still	42:45.1	1 Lap
40	97	Pro-Am	Craig Conway	43:09.5	1 Lap
41	19	Am	Tom Balames	43:20.6	1 Lap
42	88	Pro	Hutton McKenna	37:53.4	2 Laps
43	58	Pro	TJ Fischer	13:38.3	14 Laps

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