The 18th edition of the Porsche Carrera Cup Italia kicked off at the Misano World Circuit on a weekend in early May, filled with astonishing performances, hard-fought battles in every category, new records and plenty of competition! The first of the six rounds of the season saw 31 drivers (of the 33 taking part in the championship as a whole), 13 teams and 23 Porsche centres from all over Italy lined up on the start line.

The 2024 start list featured multiple new entries, and served to confirm the international growth of Porsche Italia's one-make series, with ten countries represented. Misano played host to the reigning champion Larry Ten Voorde and the new official driver of Team Q8 Hi Perform, Keagan Masters, winners of the first two races of the season, as well as Simone Iaquinta (who won titles in 2019 and 2020), Gianmarco Quaresmini (2018 and 2022) and Alberto Cerqui (2021), in addition to two-time Carrera Cup France champion Marvin Klein. The leading contenders feature both familiar and new faces, including eight drivers taking to the field in the new Rookie classification, 11 under-23s selected for the Scholarship Programme and 10 Michelin Cup stars.

The first round of the season was opened in the best possible way, with the pole position scored by Ten Voorde on Saturday morning. The Dutchman from Enrico Fulgenzi Racing, who also took pole in Race 2, crossed the line at 1'34"757, three tenths faster than the previous record at the wheel of the 911 GT3 Cup model 992 (without ABS). The only contenders who stayed in the slipstream were Simone Iaquinta (Prima Ghinzani Motorsport) and Masters. In Race 1, the first of the season held during the night on Saturday, the 24-year-old South African driver managed to overtake the Italian, who ran into a small technical problem when jumping over a kerb, coming in second behind Ten Voorde and ahead of the Francesco Braschi, who at 19 years old, surprised by taking home best rookie in Race 1, in his first season in the Carrera Cup as a new driver for Dinamic Motorsport.

While Iaquinta finished Race 1 in fourth place, stoically managing to keep Aldo Festante at bay, in Race 2, he went off the track in the first few corners after a spin following a battle with Ten Voorde shortly after the start. In the Sunday race, Braschi finished fourth ahead of Gianmarco Quaresmini (Tsunami RT), returning from the Misano weekend with an excellent third place in the overall standings. Ahead of the young Italian driver, the challenge for victory this time saw Masters come out on top, thus enabling the Q8 Hi Perform team to score its first success for 2024, ahead of Ten Voorde and new entry Lirim Zendeli. The German Ombra Racing driver, who has come from single-seater racing (including FIA F2 and FIA F3) made his debut in the Carrera Cup Italia - and GT racing more generally - with an eighth place and a third place on the podium, winning best rookie in Race 2.

While after Misano, Ten Voorde took the lead in the overall standings with a four-point advantage over Masters, in the Michelin Cup, the first leader of the season was Francesco Maria Fenici. Night Race 1 saw the success of the returning Luca Pastorelli (Dinamic Motorsport), coming in just ahead of the new Raptor Engineering driver, while Gianluca Giorgi (BeDriver) finished third. Fenici went on to win Race 2 on Sunday, ahead of defending champion Alberto De Amicis (Ebimotors) and a newly-competitive Pastorelli.

The second round of 2024 will be held at Imola over the weekend of 2 June.