Van Berlo Quickest in First Practice at Indy

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Pirelli GT4 America Pro-Am class points leader Kay van Berlo took his ACI Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport to the top of the time charts in the first practice session of the weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Van Berlo laid down a best lap of 1:30.330 in the No. 7 Porsche late in the 45-minute session to edge out the Silver class-leading No. 68 Smooge Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO of Tyler Gonzalez by 0.391 seconds.

The Dutchman and co-driver Curt Swearingin have a chance to lock up the class title in Saturday’s opening race of the weekend.

Dario Capitano put his Dream Racing-backed, TPC Racing McLaren Artura GT4 third quickest in the session, followed by the No. 89 RENNtech Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Matheus Leist in fourth.

The Silver class championship-leading No. 28 RS1 Porsche of John Capestro-Dubets and Eric Filgueiras completed the overall top-five.

The No. 20 Carrus Callas Raceteam BMW M4 GT4 of Chris Walsch was quickest of the Am class competitors, in 16th overall.

The session saw a single red flag, for the No. 23 TechSport Nissan Z NISMO GT4 of Johan Schwartz, which suffered an accident in the infield portion of the circuit.

The session was restarted with 12 minutes left on the clock, which saw several notable improvements, including from van Berlo.

Practice 2 gets underway at 5:40 p.m. EDT.

RESULTS: Practice 1

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