Delivery delays ensured AKKA ASP’s Mercedes-AMG didn’t arrive at Indianapolis until the early hours of this morning, but the team and Raffaele Marciello wasted no time getting up to speed by topping Pre-Qualifying.
Marciello, Dani Juncadella and Timur Boguslavskiy had no choice but to borrow a spare chassis from DXDT Racing yesterday, and that knowledge was sufficient for the Italian to set a session best of 1m134.054s before the halfway mark.
The 90-minute session, which began in slightly damp conditions, was punctuated by three red flag periods that played a part in a largely stagnant leaderboard after the initial moisture cleared. Indeed, Marciello’s time wasn’t challenged until the final 15 minutes when first Connor De Phillippi and then Ollie Millroy slotted into second and third places, respectively.
De Phillippi, the reigning Indy 8 Hour winner, lapped his Turner Motorsport BMW 0.178s shy of the leading Mercedes-AMG, while Inception Racing’s McLaren finished a further 0.033s behind.
Team WRT’s #37 Audi made it as many different manufacturers in the top-four after ending up a quarter-second behind Marciello and a further tenth clear of yesterday’s Free Practice pace-setters, Craft-Bamboo.
Lamborghinis filled positions six and seven, TR3’s Huracan leading the similar K-PAX car featuring newly crowned Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS champions Jordan Pepper and Andrea Caldarelli.
Friday Free Practice
Jules Gounon left it late to snatch top spot in the first official session of this year’s Indianapolis 8 Hour Presented by AWS after rain prevented any meaningful running for much of the first 45 minutes.
Barrier repairs prior to Free Practice resulted in the session being reduced from 90 to 75 minutes, most of which was spent waiting for cars to emerge.
Only a handful laps had been completed on a damp track when further rain sent teams scurrying for the pit apron. And when cars did eventually emerge en masse it took time before conditions were suitable for Patric Niederhauser’s early benchmark to be challenged.
Alessio Rovera was the first to do so when he put AF Corse’s Ferrari second with 25 minutes to go, but his, and Niederhauser’s, time was bettered almost immediately by Maro Engel who lowered the Sainteloc Audi’s best by 0.3s.
Mercedes-AMG’s other factory car also spent time at the top thanks to Raffaele Marciello whose successive fastest times moved the goalposts once again. Rob Bell and then Dries Vanthoor slotted in behind soon after before Gounon had the last laugh late on.
It was a mark of the conditions that the Frenchman’s 1m44.245s was still nine seconds down on Thursday’s testing benchmark, but it was still enough to seal top spot for Craft-Bamboo by 0.201s from Team WRT’s Vanthoor who improved again to beat Marciello.
Indeed, such was the rate of improvement that Team AKKA ASP’s Mercedes-AMG ended up 0.7s behind Gounon.
Nicklas Nielsen also improved on his final lap to leave AF Corse’s Drivers’ Championship-leading Ferrari fourth fastest, while the first non-Intercontinental entry, Crucial Motorsports’ McLaren, rounded out the top-five.
Turner Motorsport’s BMW was a feature of the top-four before improvements elsewhere left last year’s winner, Connor De Phillippi, in sixth, one place ahead of WRT’s second Audi and the leading Silver Cup entry of Winward Racing.
