- Matt Bell Sets Fastest Pro-Am, Overall GT4 Time
- van der Steur, JMF Motorsport Show Speed in Silver
- BMW Goes 1-2-3 With Three Teams in Am Class
- Provisional Practice 1 Results
A field of 29 cars split among three classes took to Sebring International Raceway for Pirelli GT4 America’s 45-minute Practice 1 session. As temperatures and heat continued to increase, the quickest times were set early on. A brief red flag plagued the session, which resumed 5 minutes later.
Matt Bell, with P1 Groupe, set the fastest time early to pace both Pro-Am and overall. The top Silver entry was van der Steur Racing’s Max Hewitt, clinching second overall, and the fastest AM entry was James Clay in the BimmerWorld machine.
Pro-Am Class
Matt Bell, who shares the No. 43 P1 Groupe McLaren Artura GT4 with Alex Vogel, set an early fast time of 2:11.165 around Sebring International Raceway’s 3.74-mile road course. That time was not headed off for the rest of the session, with Bell’s best time atop the charts by 0.522 of a second.
Two Porsches came next, with Curt Swearingin and Porsche Selected Driver Riley Dickinson second in the No. 7 ACI Motorsports Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport. The No. 23 NOLASPORT Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport entry of Michael Auriemma and Matheus Leist came next, with a pair of BMWs completing the top five in class, respectively the No. 53 Auto Technic Racing BMW M4 GT4 (G82) EVO of Tyler Stone and Matt Million ahead of the No. 94 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT4 (G82) EVO of Sam Craven and Josh Green.
Silver Class
The Silver class provided some intensely close competition with the top Aston Martin and BMW in the session separated by just 0.008 of a second. Max Hewitt, sharing duties on the No. 39 van der Steur Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 EVO with Luca Mars, clocked in fastest the fastest lap in Silver and second overall in the Pirelli GT4 America field at 2:11.634. That time barely beat the No. 3 JMF Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 EVO of Jesse Webb and Jonathan Neudorf. JMF’s rivals Random Vandals Racing clocked in third in Pirelli GT4 America with Kenton Koch and Kevin Boehm sharing that team’s No. 97 BMW M4 GT4 (G82) EVO, only 0.137 in arrears.
Am Class
The leading Am class entry set its fastest time to start the session and wasn’t headed off the rest of the way, as BMW entries swept the top three positions. Charlie Postins and James Clay share the No. 36 BimmerWorld BMW M4 GT4 (G82) EVO and set an early-session flyer of 2:12.255. That time was nearly six tenths of a second clear of second place, the No. 17 Rigid Speed Company BMW M4 GT4 (G82) of Lucas Catania and Joseph Catania, with the No. 188 Fast Track Racing BMW M4 GT4 (G82) EVO of Denny Stripling and Judson Holt in third.
Let’s Get Racing
The Pirelli GT4 America field will return to the track for Practice 2 on Friday afternoon, May 16th at 3:45 PM ET.
If you can’t make it to Sebring International Raceway, be sure to tune-in to SRO’s free live streams all weekend long on YouTube (GTWorld) and Twitch (SROMotorsports) and follow all the action through our social media channels and the event hashtag #GTSebring.