The series developing new sportscar stars in Formula 1's playground

The Porsche Carrera Cup North America didn’t even exist four years ago, but in next to no time it has become one of the biggest single-make championship grids in world motorsport. “We’re averaging between 35 and 40 cars the last two or three years,” says Ryan Anselmo, business development manager for the championship. “So we've seen a significant amount of young drivers and more experienced drivers who have competed for a long time. And it's the highest level one-make that we offer for Porsche in North America.”

Its cost-effective formula - using the standard specification Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car driven in similar championships around the world - and the strict policing of the rules make for tight, close and fair racing which will put on a show in Miami, the Canadian Grand Prix and in support of the F1 race at COTA, too. As Riley Dickinson tells us, these Carrera Cup drivers are not expecting to get to F1 one day - “there's no way I'm going to be taking Hamilton's seats at Mercedes for 2025,” the 2023 Carrera Cup North America champion jokes - but it’s still a brilliant opportunity to put your sponsors and team in front of a huge race day crowd, with well over 100,000 people in attendance on some grand prix events.

“It's incredibly special,” adds Dickinson, who has graduated to be a ‘Selected Driver’ by Porsche Motorsport North America, racing in IMSA, America’s top-level of sportscar racing. “Whenever we went to the Miami Grand Prix last year, and also for the race at COTA, both of those races, hands down my favourite of the year, just because we're in front of so many more people and there's so many more eyes on the championship. “It definitely made the racing a little more intense, because everyone knew that. Everyone wanted to go and prove themselves and have a great race on that world stage. "At COTA, we came out of Turn 20 to come on to the front straightaway and we were able to see up to Turn 1 up the hill. And there had to have been tens of thousands of people. It was absolutely incredible.” Of course, having a national championship on an F1 weekend has its drawbacks. Because the series is crammed into the paddock, the teams have to service under a giant awning together, rather than having their own space. You might think ‘how do teams keep their set-ups secret’ and maintain that level of secrecy that is so important to racing competition? “Everyone's really respectful of everyone else's space,” adds Jeremy Dale - team owner of champion squad JDX Racing. It’s reflective of a respectful paddock, where Dale admits it’s “kill or be killed” in terms of the seriousness of the competition, but it’s based on an underlying respect and fairness that adds to the great vibe in the paddock.

Because of the benefits it brings to drivers and sponsors, everyone has grown to love the F1-support weekends. “From a practical standpoint, from an operational standpoint, I won't mince my words, they're a pain in the butt,” laughs Dale, adding last year in Miami their trucks were parked around five miles from the paddock. “But, they are high profile, and they do raise the profile of the championship and the drivers and sponsors are attracted to that. So it's a good compromise, it's well worth all the grief we go through to accommodate these types of events.” Finding a blend of a calendar that pleases everyone is one of the biggest challenges for the organiser and it seems to have hit on a format that really works. As well as the trio of F1-support weekends, the championship mostly races supporting IMSA, which gets these drivers in the paddock they want to be in. As Dickinson points out, the Daytona 500 has 40 cars and the Indy 500 has 33, but the opening around of the IMSA championship at Daytona has anywhere from 180-200 drivers. There’s more opportunities for many in IMSA than there would be elsewhere, and many drivers are able to become professionals in IMSA. “Being there, having those high-profile events is great,” adds Dale. “But also being there with IMSA is important too, because in most cases, that's where these drivers are headed. That's where they want to go. They're not headed to Formula 1.”

There's also the Porsche Penske Motorsport team running in IMSA's top class, which gives these drivers something to aspire to - especially as almost all the drivers in the Porsche factory team have raced a Carrera Cup somewhere at some point. Not only do the events give the aspirational drivers a leg up, the car does, too. “All across the world when you look at Carrera Cups, not just North America, Germany, France, Brazil, you have such great racing in all these different championships,” says Dickinson. “And it really comes down to the package that Porsche Motorsport has put together with this Cup Car. “It’s a fantastic car to drive. There are a lot of little tricks that you have to learn, how you get the car to rotate, how you manipulate the weight transfer to your advantage. “But what I will say and what I've heard from multiple people, whenever I got into Cup racing, if you can drive this car fast, you can pretty much drive anything quick, just because of how difficult it really is to drive on the limit.” On the one hand, young up-and-coming drivers have a car that, if you can master it, sets them up well for a future career, and they get to race in front of all the people they need to impress to make it to be a paid sportscar driver at the elite level.

For the drivers looking to enjoy motorsport and not necessarily make that next step in competition, there’s the joy of racing on an F1 weekend, prizes that suit them and a chance to race against young up-and-coming stars of the future. It really is the ideal blend of car, calendar and competition. It can't get any bigger than it is now in terms of car count because most circuits wouldn't be able to fit them in - which is a nice problem to have - so the next step for the championship is making sure it is as cost-effective as possible and adding more and more quality drivers to keep raising the level. "This year is the first time we've had multiple Supercup drivers come over, and we're getting a lot more interest from the European market than we have in the past," adds Anselmo. "So continuing to build on that momentum and that talent level that's interested in running the series and ultimately maintaining that highly competitive championship." This championship has grown so fast for a reason, and it will certainly be worth a watch on IMSA and Formula 1 weekends when it is in action.