Kay van Berlo tops opening Sebring practice for Porsche Carrera Cup North America

Kelly-Moss Road and Race‘s Kay van Berlo topped the opening practice session of the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America as the Florida sun gave way for rain overnight at Sebring International Raceway.

JDX Racing‘s Parker Thompson set the benchmark, recording the first timed lap van Berlo set the pace early in the session, fighting over the top of the time sheets with 311RS Motorsport‘s Leh Keen and MDK Motorsports Trenton Estep.

The Dutch driver finished the session with a time of 2:03.251, the damp track seeing drivers one second off of the pace they were setting in pre-season two-day test at Sebring.

“It was a good first Free Practice, it was only 30 minutes as it was red flagged early, we were the first session out on track after the rain last night, and it was a little bit damp in the beginning,” explained van Berlo to The Checkered Flag.

“I got a feel for the car and for the track for the first couple of laps, and then slowly started pushing to see where we were balance wise and what the general feeling was.

“It went pretty well, straight away I had a good feeling in the car, good balance in general, we had some fine tuning to do, but in general we are definitely heading in the right direction.

“The track got gradually drier throughout the session, so the lap times went down as well, and in the end we finished first with 0.283 faster that second place, which is good! It’s always good to start a practice like this, but it is free practice, it’s called that for a reason.

“It’s a good start, we are going to continue building momentum for the rest of the weekend, and continue like this in FP2, it’s raining now, so I don’t know, it could be wet, it could be dry, but overall, a good first free practice in Sebring.” he added.

The session was brought to an early close after Hutton McKenna‘s crashed at Turn 10, causing the red flags to fly while the car was removed and McKenna was taken to the medical centre to be evaluated, thankfully cleared and released shortly after. Due to it being a practice session the timer continued and there was no time left to resume the session.

Leading the way in the Pro-Am class was another Kelly-Moss Road and Race driver, Efrin Castro, who finished tenth overall, with a time of 2:04.994. Alan Metni in the #99 iFly/Kelly-Moss car finished second with JDX Racing’s Peter Atwater in third.

In the Am class it was MDK Motorsports co-owner/driver Mark Kvamme who set the fastest time of 2:05.836, finishing the session in sixteenth place overall. Goldcrest Motorsports driver Jeff Majkrzak was second, while Wright Motorsports’ John Goetz in third.

The second practice session will take part at 12:20pm local time.

Porsche Carrera Cup North America – Sebring International Raceway – Free Practice 1 Results

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