• Victory for Kurtz and a third-place result for new CrowdStrike Racing by Riley Motorsports team
• Early-season points lead for Kurtz in No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS/Riley Mercedes-AMG
• Podium finish for CJ Moses in CrowdStrike/AWS/GMG Audi R8 LMS GT2
• CrowdStrike the Official Internet and Cloud Security Provider of SRO America

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (March 1, 2022) – CrowdStrike Racing and George Kurtz made quite an impression this weekend in the first event for SRO Motorsports’ GT America Powered by AWS in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Kurtz claimed one victory, a third-place result and the CrowdStrike fastest race lap in his first event with the new CrowdStrike Racing by Riley Motorsports program Friday and Saturday at the St. Petersburg street circuit. Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, impressed in the No. 04 CrowdStrike/AWS Mercedes-AMG GT3 and left St. Petersburg with an early championship lead heading into the next race at Sonoma Raceway in April.

 “This weekend was a great success for our new team. We put a lot of effort into our preparation for the opening of this racing season and it showed,” Kurtz said. “ We’re excited to come back to GT America with a strong car and skilled team.”

CJ Moses, also a CrowdStrike Racing driver, enjoyed a solid and steady weekend in a new car for 2022 – the No. 58 CrowdStrike/AWS/GMG Racing Audi R8 LMS GT2. 

Each of the Friday and Saturday races were 40-minute, single-driver competitions, and Friday’s first race was a positive one for both CrowdStrike Racing drivers. Kurtz began and finished the race in third position, where he set the fastest lap of the race and claimed not just pole position for Saturday’s race but also the first CrowdStrike Fastest Lap award of the season.

Saturday was another solid day for Kurtz, as he led all 31 laps in dominating fashion. He led by five seconds after the first lap and enjoyed as much as a 20-second advantage before a late-race caution period for an incident that occurred just in front of him, with five minutes to go. The race finished under yellow-flag conditions.

“The Riley Motorsports team did an outstanding job on the Mercedes-AMG, which is a great car for a multitude of tracks,” Kurtz said. “The St. Pete course is a difficult one for various reasons, including the challenges it presents in passing other cars. But, we were smart in traffic today, and once we were in front we were able to extend our lead and never looked back. It’s a testament to the team and the hard work we put in during the offseason. I’m very happy with coming away with a podium yesterday and the win today.”

 Meanwhile, Moses spent the weekend getting up to speed in his first event with the Audi R8 LMS GT2. A street course isn’t ideal for a car with the configuration of the Audi – more power than a GT3 car but much heavier and less aero-dependent than the more nimble GT3 machinery. Despite some early-week electrical trouble that cost him valuable track time, Moses gained a whopping 11 positions in Friday’s first race – more than any other driver on track. Saturday, he started ninth and finished seventh after running as high as the fourth position in the early-going.

“I’m pretty happy with the weekend,” said Moses, Chief Information Security Officer of AWS. “St. Petersburg is a difficult circuit to learn a new car like the Audi. Its characteristics aren’t suited to street tracks like the GT3 cars, which produce a lot more downforce. Having said that, I had a blast learning and driving this car. It’s performance is really impressive and it should be great for many of the other tracks on our schedule this year.”

The weekend’s pair of GT America races set the stage for the rest of the 16-race championship, which resumes in April at Sonoma Raceway in the heart of California Wine Country. The full complement of SRO America championships will compete on the race weekend, which will be sponsored by CrowdStrike as one activation element of its partnership with SRO. CrowdStrike – a leader in cloud-delivered protection of endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data – will continue in its role as Official Internet and Cloud Security Partner for 2022, which includes securing SRO global entities with the industry-leading CrowdStrike Falcon platform and participating in SRO VIP race experiences. 

Through its sponsorship of SRO Motorsports America, CrowdStrike showcases its achievements on the track, as well as its capabilities in combating online threats and stopping breaches, to a global audience. CrowdStrike guests at St. Petersburg enjoyed track-side hospitality Saturday for Kurtz’s victory drive in the SRO America Paddock Club, plus up-close looks at the GT America field while making-important business-to-business connections, one of the primary goals of CrowdStrike’s at-race activation.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud, the Falcon Platform provides industry-leading protection to automatically stop data breaches and attacks, like ransomware, by protecting the most critical areas of risk: endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data. Like its racing teams, CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform delivers superior performance at speeds that are unrivaled. The SRO America competition provides yet another opportunity to tell the CrowdStrike story.

The CrowdStrike Falcon also features prominently on all CrowdStrike Racing entries for 2022, making it easy for fans to spot each of the entries throughout the year. Emphasizing CrowdStrike’s commitment to rapid detection and response, the company presents the Fastest Lap award for the second year, recognizing the driver with the fastest lap time in each series over the weekend.

For more information, visit CrowdStrikeRacing.com. Follow #CrowdStrikeRacing on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for updates.