Championships Still Up for Grabs Entering The Brickyard

Photo: Jessica Johnk/Porsche

Championship titles are still up for grabs in all three Porsche Carrera Cup North America classes entering the final six races of the season, with the first stop at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend.

A total of 30 cars are entered for Rounds 11 and 12 of the season, with additional events at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and Circuit of The Americas, supporting Formula 1, to close out the season in the highly competitive single-make series.

Series rookie Loek Hartog has remained at the top of the standings, with the Kellymoss driver, who has five victories to his credit, entering The Brickyard with a 57-point advantage over second-placed Alex Sedgwick, for PT Autosport and JDX Racing.

Ryan Yardley moved into third place in the Pro standings last time out at Road America in his Topp Racing Performance Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, while Zachary Vanier is fourth in the title race, five points further behind Yardley.

Baby Bull Racing’s Michael Cooper completes the top-five.

The tightest title race is in Pro-Am, which sees Marco Cirone ahead by just a single point from Moisey Uretsky. Efrin Castro runs third, only 19 points behind Cirone.

Matt Halcome, meanwhile, is out front of the Am class championship battle, 41 points ahead of Kellymoss driver Chris Bellomo.

A maximum of 168 points remain up for grabs in the remaining races this season.

Pre-Event News & Notes

***Yves Baltas will be with his third different team in as many events this weekend, with the Canadian having joined forces with ACI Motorsports for the remainder of the season. It comes after starting the season off with MDK Motorsports prior to the team’s withdrawal from the series, which saw GMG Racing step in for a single weekend at Road America.

***Stanislav Minskiy will be making his Carrera Cup North America debut at Indianapolis. The Pro-Am class driver from Russia joins the MOMENTOP FMS x RGB Racing team in the No. 27. Venezuelan Javier Ripoli returns in the No. 91 to the Pro-Am class, also with MOMENTOP FMS x RGB Racing, for the first time since the first two rounds at Sebring.

***Indianapolis is not only the “Racing Capitol of the World,” but also the home of Porsche Carrera Cup North America regulars. A native of the United Kingdom, veteran open wheel racer turned Pro class winner Dan Clarke has called “Circle City” home for years. While his Champ Car career never allowed him the opportunity to race in the Indianapolis 500, he has one Indy Lights series start at “The Brickyard” in 2010; he finished fourth.

***While Clarke’s teammate Sabre Cook is a native of Grand Junction, Colo., she lives in Indianapolis in pursuit of her racing career. The two drivers race for Era Motorsports which is also based in Indy. The veteran sports car racing team joined the series at the Road America stop in August, taking over entries from MDK.

***Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a legacy track on the Porsche Carrera Cup schedule. The track joins Sebring International Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Road America and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta as tracks that hosted the one-make race series in its 2021 debut season. Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, Sebring and Road America have hosted a Carrera Cup weekend each season.

***Porsche Carrera Cup North America was the feature series for the two Porsche Sports Car Together Fest events held at IMS (2021, 2022). The series ran three races at The Brickyard in 2021, its inaugural season, to balance out events canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That brings the total number of Carrera Cup North America rounds held here to seven entering the weekend.

***IMS has proven to be a championship indicator for the Carrera Cup North America over the years. Each year’s champion won at least one race at Indianapolis in the season they captured the Al Holbert Cup for an overall championship. 2021 Champion Seb Priaulx (United Kingdom) won twice here that season. Parker Thompson, 2022 champion, won the first race of the weekend the year of his title. In 2023, Riley Dickinson captured both 40-minute rounds on the way to his championship season.

***Dickinson and Kay van Berlo, both Porsche Selected Driver Program North America pilots, will join with current Carrera Cup driver Jake Pedersen to race in Sunday’s six-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Battle on the Bricks. The trio, all current Kellymoss drivers who also piloted Kellymoss entries in Porsche Carrera Cup North America, will share the GTD class No. 90 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R.

***Track action begins on Thursday with a pair of practice sessions. A 30-minute qualifying session is scheduled for Friday morning, with the first of the two rounds taking the green flag Friday at 3 p.m. EDT. The second race  will run at 11:10 a.m. EDT on Saturday.

***Live coverage of the two races will be available on PorscheCarreraCup.us, Peacock and IMSA.tv. All are archived on the Porsche Motorsport North America YouTube channel.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John