In the first-ever Blue Marble Radical Cup North America event on the Streets of Toronto, teams and competitors hit the 1.786-mile, 11-turn, barrier-lined circuit for two on-track sessions on Friday. On a weekend that features a different format including only one hour-long practice session, one qualifying session, and three wheel-to-wheel races, Friday’s track time was reserved for drivers to get up to speed during the morning and award the Motul Pole Position Awards in the afternoon.
“It was a good start to the weekend,” explained Radical Global Motorsport Director Tom Drewer. “It’s great to be here in Toronto and to see our talented drivers tackle the bumpy street circuit. Most of our competitors were able to get at least 25 laps or more in practice with only a few red flags as they came to grip with the slick surface and fine-tune their machines.”
With the benchmark set, the focus shifted to the 25-minute qualifying session in the afternoon that set the grid for race one on Saturday morning. Former American Le Mans Series Champion Jon Field (ONE Motorsports) led the way in the Platinum class with a best time of 1m14.938s, a scant 0.222s ahead of Indy Al Miller (ONE Motorsports) who slotted himself into the second position. Former dirt racer turned Radical driver Wayne Williams (ESSES Racing) impressed, earning the third fastest lap in the Platinum ahead of the local Kevin Poitras (Radical Canada) and Louis Schriber (RYNO Racing).
While the Platinum drivers should be the fastest drivers on course, Danny Dyszelski (WISKO Racing) turned the third fastest time of the 31 cars on track to earn the Pro 1500 pole position as he looks to claw his way back into the championship point lead. Championship point leader Nick Persing (Radical Northwest) was second fastest in Pro 1500 ahead of Canadian Robert Soroka (RySpec Racing) in third. Aurora Straus (ONE Motorsports) was fourth in class ahead of veteran racer Gregg Gorski (ONE Motorsports) in P5.
The Pro 1340 class was led by Robert Cipriani-Detres (Team Stradale), as he looks to earn his first win of the 2023 season following three second place finishes at Road America. Crown Racing’s Seth Bacon was the best of the rest in the second position just over a tenth of a second quicker than Ken Savage (G-Tech Motorsports) in third. Seth Bacon’s son, Jace Bacon (Crown Racing), was fourth fastest, but brought out a late session red flag after licking the wall on the exit of Turn 1, which resulted in a traffic jam. Canadian Huw Leahy was fifth fastest.